12 ms·

A more precise comparison on Linux would be OpenVZ and LXC (or Zones if you're a Solaris admin). As for why it's not gained more momentum, that would likely ju

by laumars 11y ago

A more precise comparison on Linux would be OpenVZ and LXC (or Zones if you're a Solaris admin). As for why it's not gained more momentum, that would likely just be because Linux popularity dwarfs FreeBSD. Much the same reason as why so much effort was made to port ZFS to Linux despite FreeBSD already having excellent support. But for what it's worth, jails have been widely used within the FreeBSD community for quite some years. It's a great shame FreeBSD doesn't get more love because it really is a fantastic platform. But then it's just one of a long list of very credible operating systems that often get overlooked.

CyberDildonics 11y ago
FreeBSD seems to have the hurdle that linux had for so many years - hardware support.
- laumars 11y ago
  Server hardware is well supported though. To be honest, anecdotally I've found desktop hardware to be pretty well supported too. Not to the level where you'd use it for gaming (gaming software support aside), but for general use it's a usable desktop. In fact I seem to recall FreeBSD working better with WiFi than Linux did, back when WiFi support in Linux was relatively new and often required using a userspace wrapper around Windows binaries. Obviously there's always room for improvement and people's experiences often differ, but I've honestly had no major issues with hardware support in the ~15 years I've been running FreeBSD.
  - cm3 11y ago
    And presumably the binary NVIDIA driver should work more smoothly because the kernel doesn't break installation of the driver at random times.
hhw 11y ago
Interest in FreeBSD seems to be on the rise, with the advent of systemd. Many Linux users have been able to avoid it thus far, by sticking to 6.x Of RedHat and derivatives, or Debian 7. As these versions become longer in the tooth, it will be interesting to see if more people will switch over to FreeBSD. Popularity may not be a good thing however, with the recent political drama and institution of a code of conduct getting in the way of FreeBSD's meritocratic approach. Thankfully, there's still plenty of choice available in open source operating systems. Thankfully, we can always trust Theo to keep OpenBSD's purist approach to technical correctness :P
- beccasanchez 11y ago
  FreeBSD is going to eventually adopt a systemd-like approach. So people who switch for this reason will be betrayed down the line.
  - mbreese 11y ago
    Even if they do, I'm pretty confident that FreeBSD will do it better. If for no other reason, they'll be able to take the lessons from systemd and see what worked and what didn't.
    - cm3 11y ago
      Yes, and FreeBSD wouldn't allow unbootable systems that you can easily run into with systemd.
      - cm3 11y ago
        Or break stuff from one release to another. I fear that the web app approach to release often and break often is getting into Linux userland development. Gtk3 is another example of that. 3.16 was fine and 3.18 started drawing slower and displaying black rectangles anytime while a built-in dialog (color, file, etc.) is opening. Then there's Gtk3's reluctance to support themes. Almost all themes have to be ported again for each Gtk3 release. And you cannot configure your theme once and reuse the config ($HOME) on two different versions of a linux distro. If GNOME wouldn't approach the default theme like everybody uses Gtk3 on a tablet, it wouldn't be problem to have no theming. I've been using a Gtk2 theme I wrote for at least 12 years or even longer and it never glitched on me. This is the same mindset systemd development in general seems to have. But like in all organizations I've seen reasonable developers in the systemd community and those who are not.
        cpach 11y ago
        I don’t think this is a new trend: https://web.archive.org/web/20151126183335/https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html https://web.archive.org/web/20151126183335/https://www.jwz.o...
SEJeff 11y ago
Nope, I don't think this is it. The problem with lxc, jails, zones, is that of shipping the state of the containers. Docker solves this with the registry. I think that they would each be as successful (or more-so as the tech is more baked in) if they had a better developer story. Being able to docker pull/commit/push is what made docker so popular with developers. The "alternatives" all seem to lack this. I almost see it like I see dpkg vs apt-get. You can do what you need with a pile of deb files and dpkg -i, but why, when you can simply apt-get install? Same concept.

by laumars 11y ago

CyberDildonics 11y ago

FreeBSD seems to have the hurdle that linux had for so many years - hardware support.

laumars 11y ago
Server hardware is well supported though. To be honest, anecdotally I've found desktop hardware to be pretty well supported too. Not to the level where you'd use it for gaming (gaming software support aside), but for general use it's a usable desktop. In fact I seem to recall FreeBSD working better with WiFi than Linux did, back when WiFi support in Linux was relatively new and often required using a userspace wrapper around Windows binaries. Obviously there's always room for improvement and people's experiences often differ, but I've honestly had no major issues with hardware support in the ~15 years I've been running FreeBSD.
- cm3 11y ago
  And presumably the binary NVIDIA driver should work more smoothly because the kernel doesn't break installation of the driver at random times.

hhw 11y ago

Interest in FreeBSD seems to be on the rise, with the advent of systemd. Many Linux users have been able to avoid it thus far, by sticking to 6.x Of RedHat and derivatives, or Debian 7. As these versions become longer in the tooth, it will be interesting to see if more people will switch over to FreeBSD. Popularity may not be a good thing however, with the recent political drama and institution of a code of conduct getting in the way of FreeBSD's meritocratic approach. Thankfully, there's still plenty of choice available in open source operating systems. Thankfully, we can always trust Theo to keep OpenBSD's purist approach to technical correctness :P

beccasanchez 11y ago
FreeBSD is going to eventually adopt a systemd-like approach. So people who switch for this reason will be betrayed down the line.
- mbreese 11y ago
  Even if they do, I'm pretty confident that FreeBSD will do it better. If for no other reason, they'll be able to take the lessons from systemd and see what worked and what didn't.
  - cm3 11y ago
    Yes, and FreeBSD wouldn't allow unbootable systems that you can easily run into with systemd.
    - cm3 11y ago
      Or break stuff from one release to another. I fear that the web app approach to release often and break often is getting into Linux userland development. Gtk3 is another example of that. 3.16 was fine and 3.18 started drawing slower and displaying black rectangles anytime while a built-in dialog (color, file, etc.) is opening. Then there's Gtk3's reluctance to support themes. Almost all themes have to be ported again for each Gtk3 release. And you cannot configure your theme once and reuse the config ($HOME) on two different versions of a linux distro. If GNOME wouldn't approach the default theme like everybody uses Gtk3 on a tablet, it wouldn't be problem to have no theming. I've been using a Gtk2 theme I wrote for at least 12 years or even longer and it never glitched on me. This is the same mindset systemd development in general seems to have. But like in all organizations I've seen reasonable developers in the systemd community and those who are not.
      - cpach 11y ago
        I don’t think this is a new trend: https://web.archive.org/web/20151126183335/https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html https://web.archive.org/web/20151126183335/https://www.jwz.o...

SEJeff 11y ago

Nope, I don't think this is it. The problem with lxc, jails, zones, is that of shipping the state of the containers. Docker solves this with the registry. I think that they would each be as successful (or more-so as the tech is more baked in) if they had a better developer story. Being able to docker pull/commit/push is what made docker so popular with developers. The "alternatives" all seem to lack this. I almost see it like I see dpkg vs apt-get. You can do what you need with a pile of deb files and dpkg -i, but why, when you can simply apt-get install? Same concept.