6 ms·

It's really not just a rationalization. BSDs control the kernel and the userland, meaning that file system layout is coherent. Check any Ubuntu installation and

It's really not just a rationalization. BSDs control the kernel and the userland, meaning that file system layout is coherent. Check any Ubuntu installation and packages are all over the place. This is perhaps unavoidable. Also, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, and FreeBSD can all be used as server or desktops without much fiddling. Their installers are better than anything in the Linux world. You can have one up and running with a nice wm, browser, etc, in 15 minutes. They are more finnicky about hardware, but when you can buy a laptop for $200, that's not so much an issue.

dkarapetyan 10y ago
I don't think the layout is coherent at all. Ubuntu layout is much more coherent. If I need nginx configuration I look in /etc/nginx. Following the same pattern if I need mysql configuration I look in /etc/mysql. If I need to figure out the actual daemon configuration for each I look in /etc/init. It's all very nice and tidy. Actual binaries go in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin or /bin. That's pretty much all I need to know for any binary or daemon. This is not true in FreeBSD. So where exactly is the incoherence?
- JdeBP 10y ago
  > If I need to figure out the actual daemon configuration for each I look in /etc/init. ... except that that was Ubuntu two major versions and some time ago, back when it used upstart. Nowadays, Ubuntu Linux is a systemd operating system. * https://freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/file-hierarchy.html https://freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/file-hierarchy....
- merlincorey 10y ago
  It isn't actually as nice and tidy as it would seem because you do not have a direct separation between system configuration and application configuration. It's a small, subtle detail that for many is less important today than it once was; however, if I have two FreeBSD systems of mostly equal versions and I want to migrate applications and/or users from one to the other, I know ALL I have to do is copy from /usr/local -- try that on your Ubuntu machine. Good luck separating the system-specific configurations from your user and application configurations.
  - dkarapetyan 10y ago
    I don't want that separation in a consistent and coherent system. User vs base is artificial. What I care about is the end result the overall system accomplishes and base vs non-base doesn't really factor into that. What does it matter to me if nginx is part of the base system or not? I need a web server. Arbitrarily choosing apache/httpd vs nginx to include as part of the base system is incidental complexity where I stand from.
    - JdeBP 10y ago
      Florian Haas apparently disagrees. * https://hastexo.com/blogs/florian/2016/02/21/containers-just-because-everyone-else/ https://hastexo.com/blogs/florian/2016/02/21/containers-just... * https://plus.google.com/+FlorianHaas/posts/4xjQP1q6DEN https://plus.google.com/+FlorianHaas/posts/4xjQP1q6DEN
    - teacup50 10y ago
      > User vs base is artificial. No. It's not. If nginx releases an update, do you also need to update your OS? No, because the user dependency graph isn't shared with the base OS. If you update your OS, do you also need to update nginx? No, because there's backwards ABI compatibility. The split is not artificial.
      - _qc3o 10y ago
        You're talking about kernel vs userland. That's not base vs non-base. The BSD distributions unintentionally muddy the waters by calling what is an equivalent of a linux distribution a base system and so lose out on the distinction you are drawing.
        teacup50 10y ago
        No, I'm talking about the Operating System vs. Applications. Drawing the line at the kernel syscall ABI is arbitrary; no other major operating system other than Linux does so. Consider how difficult it is to ship 3rd-party applications for Linux and all its myriad of distributions; the only thing you can truly rely on is the anemic syscall ABI provided by the kernel (vs. userland).
- vivin 10y ago
  FreeBSD is quite coherent. Anything not part of the base system goes into /usr/local. If you're having trouble understanding the layout of the filesystem, you only have to man hier: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7)
  - _qc3o 10y ago
    But I thought BSDs where more monolithic and coherent systems. How is drawing a distinction between base system and non-base system make that true? If anything Linux embodies that philosophy much better. There is no ad-hoc and arbitrary decision between what is part of the base system and what is not. The system as whole is coherently laid out without drawing any base/user distinctions. Daemons are daemons, binaries are binaries, tools are tools, configuration is configuration and they all go in predictable places to become part of the overall system.
    - vivin 10y ago
      Have you read the article? It isn't an ad-hoc distinction. You get the base system with a FreeBSD install. It includes the kernel and everything else that makes it a "FreeBSD system". This is stuff maintained by the BSD team. Everything else is an add-on. If you blew away /usr/local, you would be left with a pristine (mostly) BSD install. An analogy is a base windows install and all the associated tools and drivers. Anything else you install on your own is an add-on. This distinction is hardly arbitrary. Edit Seems to me you have a hard time understanding what a "base system" means. This is what the article is trying to explain, and it seems to have gone completely over your head; I can't help with that.
      - _qc3o 10y ago
        I read the article. The distinction is indeed arbitrary. How much do you need for a base system really? Do you need more than the kernel, network drivers, and the filesystem? Last time I checked FreeBSD came with way more than those things. So someone, somewhere decided to include a whole bunch of other things as part of the base whereas they could just as easily be addon packages. I think FreeBSD includes various compilers and perl by default. Why's that? How is a compiler an essential part of a system? There are no apriori reasons to make certain "addons" part of the base system and others not. Linux does not draw this distinction and reaps the benefits of a more coherent system. The equivalent of "base system" in linux land is called a distribution and rightfully so. There is nothing basic about a distribution. It is an arbitrary set of choices made by the distribution maintainers and it is sold/advertised as such.
merlincorey 10y ago
+1 on the BSD installers being some of the best out there. OpenBSD's and FreeBSD's specifically are amazing, both for different reasons. OpenBSD's is very minimal simple ASCII input and output questions with sane defaults. FreeBSD offers a console dialog based approach similar in some ways to Debian's installer, but in other ways different (and to my mind, better). Both of them will get you efficiently setup from nothing to installed within minutes, and since they are very simple and well documented, both of them are easily scriptable for installing servers or laptops quickly with a specific setup or your own prompts. By contrast, linux installers are generally larger, slower, clunkier processes and I am not sure how easy it would be to integrate any random distribution's installer into a scripted workflow.
746F7475 10y ago
Whenever I hear "BSD" I always think: "if you want to use BSD you have to build a machine for it". This isn't really based on any real world experience, but whenever BSD comes up as a topic only thing that sticks with me is: "it only likes very specific hardware" which makes me very hesitant to ever consider trying it. I've had so many hardware incompatibility problems with Ubuntu, which is suppose to support almost everything, I don't even wanna think about trying to run BSD.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Hardware can actually be a mixed bag between BSD and Linux. In my experience (which is several years dated by now), BSDs seemed to do better with various less popular WiFi chipsets.
  - 746F7475 10y ago
    I remember having trouble with wifi chipsets ~5-6 years ago when smaller netbooks started to hit the scene. I had one of thous, like 8" laptops with brand new ARM chip and 4 hour battery life, for it getting wifi working was hard, but after that I haven't had much trouble with wifi, but maybe I've just been lucky.
- krylon 10y ago
  It's strange, I have heard lots of people complain who wanted to give Linux a try (over Windows) and ran into hardware issues. On the other hand, over the last ~15 years, I have almost never checked if a piece of hardware is supported by Linux (or BSD) before buying it, and I have only run into problems twice, really. One was an Aureal Vortex sound card for which a driver was maintained outside the Linux kernel tree, so I had to download it and build the module manually; the other was a really crappy HP scanner. Ironically, these days it does work on Linux much better (meaning: at all) than on Windows. (One key factor, though, seems to be not using brand-new hardware. After a year or so, chances are much* better it is supported properly.) Apart from that, I have had no problems at all. Maybe I was just really lucky.
  - 10y ago
idobai 10y ago
> Also, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, and FreeBSD can all be used as server or desktops without much fiddling. Their installers are better than anything in the Linux world. You can have one up and running with a nice wm, browser, etc, in 15 minutes. When I wanted to try FreeBSD the installation failed multiple times and after the first success I couldn't install a DE for hours. I've also had problems with the package manager because I couldn't install anything before doing something with some configuration files. OpenBSD is the same category but at least it doesn't failed at installation as much.

dkarapetyan 10y ago

I don't think the layout is coherent at all. Ubuntu layout is much more coherent. If I need nginx configuration I look in /etc/nginx. Following the same pattern if I need mysql configuration I look in /etc/mysql. If I need to figure out the actual daemon configuration for each I look in /etc/init. It's all very nice and tidy. Actual binaries go in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin or /bin. That's pretty much all I need to know for any binary or daemon. This is not true in FreeBSD. So where exactly is the incoherence?

JdeBP 10y ago
> If I need to figure out the actual daemon configuration for each I look in /etc/init. ... except that that was Ubuntu two major versions and some time ago, back when it used upstart. Nowadays, Ubuntu Linux is a systemd operating system. * https://freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/file-hierarchy.html https://freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/file-hierarchy....
merlincorey 10y ago
It isn't actually as nice and tidy as it would seem because you do not have a direct separation between system configuration and application configuration. It's a small, subtle detail that for many is less important today than it once was; however, if I have two FreeBSD systems of mostly equal versions and I want to migrate applications and/or users from one to the other, I know ALL I have to do is copy from /usr/local -- try that on your Ubuntu machine. Good luck separating the system-specific configurations from your user and application configurations.
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  I don't want that separation in a consistent and coherent system. User vs base is artificial. What I care about is the end result the overall system accomplishes and base vs non-base doesn't really factor into that. What does it matter to me if nginx is part of the base system or not? I need a web server. Arbitrarily choosing apache/httpd vs nginx to include as part of the base system is incidental complexity where I stand from.
  - JdeBP 10y ago
    Florian Haas apparently disagrees. * https://hastexo.com/blogs/florian/2016/02/21/containers-just-because-everyone-else/ https://hastexo.com/blogs/florian/2016/02/21/containers-just... * https://plus.google.com/+FlorianHaas/posts/4xjQP1q6DEN https://plus.google.com/+FlorianHaas/posts/4xjQP1q6DEN
  - teacup50 10y ago
    > User vs base is artificial. No. It's not. If nginx releases an update, do you also need to update your OS? No, because the user dependency graph isn't shared with the base OS. If you update your OS, do you also need to update nginx? No, because there's backwards ABI compatibility. The split is not artificial.
    - _qc3o 10y ago
      You're talking about kernel vs userland. That's not base vs non-base. The BSD distributions unintentionally muddy the waters by calling what is an equivalent of a linux distribution a base system and so lose out on the distinction you are drawing.
      - teacup50 10y ago
        No, I'm talking about the Operating System vs. Applications. Drawing the line at the kernel syscall ABI is arbitrary; no other major operating system other than Linux does so. Consider how difficult it is to ship 3rd-party applications for Linux and all its myriad of distributions; the only thing you can truly rely on is the anemic syscall ABI provided by the kernel (vs. userland).
vivin 10y ago
FreeBSD is quite coherent. Anything not part of the base system goes into /usr/local. If you're having trouble understanding the layout of the filesystem, you only have to man hier: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7)
- _qc3o 10y ago
  But I thought BSDs where more monolithic and coherent systems. How is drawing a distinction between base system and non-base system make that true? If anything Linux embodies that philosophy much better. There is no ad-hoc and arbitrary decision between what is part of the base system and what is not. The system as whole is coherently laid out without drawing any base/user distinctions. Daemons are daemons, binaries are binaries, tools are tools, configuration is configuration and they all go in predictable places to become part of the overall system.
  - vivin 10y ago
    Have you read the article? It isn't an ad-hoc distinction. You get the base system with a FreeBSD install. It includes the kernel and everything else that makes it a "FreeBSD system". This is stuff maintained by the BSD team. Everything else is an add-on. If you blew away /usr/local, you would be left with a pristine (mostly) BSD install. An analogy is a base windows install and all the associated tools and drivers. Anything else you install on your own is an add-on. This distinction is hardly arbitrary. Edit Seems to me you have a hard time understanding what a "base system" means. This is what the article is trying to explain, and it seems to have gone completely over your head; I can't help with that.
    - _qc3o 10y ago
      I read the article. The distinction is indeed arbitrary. How much do you need for a base system really? Do you need more than the kernel, network drivers, and the filesystem? Last time I checked FreeBSD came with way more than those things. So someone, somewhere decided to include a whole bunch of other things as part of the base whereas they could just as easily be addon packages. I think FreeBSD includes various compilers and perl by default. Why's that? How is a compiler an essential part of a system? There are no apriori reasons to make certain "addons" part of the base system and others not. Linux does not draw this distinction and reaps the benefits of a more coherent system. The equivalent of "base system" in linux land is called a distribution and rightfully so. There is nothing basic about a distribution. It is an arbitrary set of choices made by the distribution maintainers and it is sold/advertised as such.

merlincorey 10y ago

+1 on the BSD installers being some of the best out there. OpenBSD's and FreeBSD's specifically are amazing, both for different reasons. OpenBSD's is very minimal simple ASCII input and output questions with sane defaults. FreeBSD offers a console dialog based approach similar in some ways to Debian's installer, but in other ways different (and to my mind, better). Both of them will get you efficiently setup from nothing to installed within minutes, and since they are very simple and well documented, both of them are easily scriptable for installing servers or laptops quickly with a specific setup or your own prompts. By contrast, linux installers are generally larger, slower, clunkier processes and I am not sure how easy it would be to integrate any random distribution's installer into a scripted workflow.

746F7475 10y ago

Whenever I hear "BSD" I always think: "if you want to use BSD you have to build a machine for it". This isn't really based on any real world experience, but whenever BSD comes up as a topic only thing that sticks with me is: "it only likes very specific hardware" which makes me very hesitant to ever consider trying it. I've had so many hardware incompatibility problems with Ubuntu, which is suppose to support almost everything, I don't even wanna think about trying to run BSD.

int_19h 10y ago
Hardware can actually be a mixed bag between BSD and Linux. In my experience (which is several years dated by now), BSDs seemed to do better with various less popular WiFi chipsets.
- 746F7475 10y ago
  I remember having trouble with wifi chipsets ~5-6 years ago when smaller netbooks started to hit the scene. I had one of thous, like 8" laptops with brand new ARM chip and 4 hour battery life, for it getting wifi working was hard, but after that I haven't had much trouble with wifi, but maybe I've just been lucky.
krylon 10y ago
It's strange, I have heard lots of people complain who wanted to give Linux a try (over Windows) and ran into hardware issues. On the other hand, over the last ~15 years, I have almost never checked if a piece of hardware is supported by Linux (or BSD) before buying it, and I have only run into problems twice, really. One was an Aureal Vortex sound card for which a driver was maintained outside the Linux kernel tree, so I had to download it and build the module manually; the other was a really crappy HP scanner. Ironically, these days it does work on Linux much better (meaning: at all) than on Windows. (One key factor, though, seems to be not using brand-new hardware. After a year or so, chances are much* better it is supported properly.) Apart from that, I have had no problems at all. Maybe I was just really lucky.
- 10y ago

idobai 10y ago

> Also, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, and FreeBSD can all be used as server or desktops without much fiddling. Their installers are better than anything in the Linux world. You can have one up and running with a nice wm, browser, etc, in 15 minutes. When I wanted to try FreeBSD the installation failed multiple times and after the first success I couldn't install a DE for hours. I've also had problems with the package manager because I couldn't install anything before doing something with some configuration files. OpenBSD is the same category but at least it doesn't failed at installation as much.