4 ms·

I'm a big fan of BSD and it's philosophy, but I think it's relative lack of adoption is now a vicious cycle and it's falling behind. It is better in some specia

by macksd 6y ago

I'm a big fan of BSD and it's philosophy, but I think it's relative lack of adoption is now a vicious cycle and it's falling behind. It is better in some specialties, IMO: if I was setting up a NAS server, some serious firewalls, or traditional web servers, I would give BSDs a serious look first. The documentation is great, and there's a lot to be said for it's simpler, cleaner implementation. However, I think Linux is winning still. I need CUDA for work, and frequently use software that supports Mac, Windows, or Linux. So for my daily driver or other day to day usage (like cloud instances), I wish I could use BSD but I just don't see it as being a viable choice anymore.

Lammy 6y ago
RE: CUDA, I wouldn't say running a VM is an especially enjoyable solution, but the built-in hypervisor does have VT-d support https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/pci_passthru https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/pci_passthru
- macksd 6y ago
  PCI pass thru, eh? That's pretty cool. I'll hand it to the BSD community (the community is another thing I love about BSD btw - attended MeetBSD a few years ago and it was such a fun crowd) - they create some killer compatibility layers. Like in this thread, that simultaneously illustrates this, and also why I'm afraid to put it on my primary work machine: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/would-it-be-possible-to-port-zoom-meeting-client-to-freebsd.76839/ https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/would-it-be-possible-to-p...
  - ayyy 6y ago
    It's on linux too. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/vfio.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/vfio.html
    - Lammy 6y ago
      And on Oracle's VirtualBox, which is available on both OSes: https://www.freshports.org/emulators/virtualbox-ose https://www.freshports.org/emulators/virtualbox-ose
- stock_toaster 6y ago
  hopefully GVT-d soon[1] too! [1]: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D26209 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D26209
spijdar 6y ago
I think the case for running FreeBSD in some of those cases is dwindling a bit. There are a few advantages freebsd has historically had, one being ZFS. Recently, though, freebsd switched their ZFS sources from the upstream Illumos to linux's version of ZFS. Not to say this negates freebsd's integration advantage, but I think it shows how linux's ZFS has grown really good over time. Another one I've heard is FreeBSD handles really heavy TCP/IP traffic better than Linux. Not sure about this one since I've never had heavy enough workloads to test and don't know the theoretical basis of it, although Netflix seems very happy with FreeBSD for this reason. Also, as you say, BSDs are just nice to use sometimes. And sometimes all you need is something just good enough to run x/y/z. Maybe the pleasure of using it can offset the performance losses for some people.
- eredengrin 6y ago
  As long as linux has to hack zfs into the kernel with all their shims to avoid breaking license terms, I'm going to consider zfs a FreeBSD advantage. I've heard too many people complaining about issues with zfs on linux, so as someone who likes to configure once and then forget about it for a few years, that's not for me. I don't want to update my system one day and then find I can't mount my filesystem anymore (or worse). For networking performance, I doubt it makes a noticeable difference in personal use. Firewalls are pretty nice on FreeBSD though, at least for my uses. Of course, it's not like FreeBSD doesn't have problems of its own - I've had multiple times where I boot into my machine and find that I don't have graphics until I build the drivers from ports because their binary packages were compiled against an earlier release, leading to kernel incompatibilities (also can't figure out how to get hdmi audio out of my current card, not a deal breaker but wasn't what I was hoping for either). Pick your poison I guess, but until linux gets a comparably featured and stable filesystem I have a tough time seeing myself move away from FreeBSD. I've definitely considered various linux distros due to certain applications missing in FreeBSD or just general pain points though. Just very hard to leave zfs, and also most linux distros either seem to be stable with ancient packages, or always changing and often breaking things in the process. Stable base with latest packages is very nice.
  - spijdar 6y ago

by macksd 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago

RE: CUDA, I wouldn't say running a VM is an especially enjoyable solution, but the built-in hypervisor does have VT-d support https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/pci_passthru https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/pci_passthru

macksd 6y ago
PCI pass thru, eh? That's pretty cool. I'll hand it to the BSD community (the community is another thing I love about BSD btw - attended MeetBSD a few years ago and it was such a fun crowd) - they create some killer compatibility layers. Like in this thread, that simultaneously illustrates this, and also why I'm afraid to put it on my primary work machine: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/would-it-be-possible-to-port-zoom-meeting-client-to-freebsd.76839/ https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/would-it-be-possible-to-p...
- ayyy 6y ago
  It's on linux too. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/vfio.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/vfio.html
  - Lammy 6y ago
    And on Oracle's VirtualBox, which is available on both OSes: https://www.freshports.org/emulators/virtualbox-ose https://www.freshports.org/emulators/virtualbox-ose
stock_toaster 6y ago
hopefully GVT-d soon[1] too! [1]: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D26209 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D26209

spijdar 6y ago

I think the case for running FreeBSD in some of those cases is dwindling a bit. There are a few advantages freebsd has historically had, one being ZFS. Recently, though, freebsd switched their ZFS sources from the upstream Illumos to linux's version of ZFS. Not to say this negates freebsd's integration advantage, but I think it shows how linux's ZFS has grown really good over time. Another one I've heard is FreeBSD handles really heavy TCP/IP traffic better than Linux. Not sure about this one since I've never had heavy enough workloads to test and don't know the theoretical basis of it, although Netflix seems very happy with FreeBSD for this reason. Also, as you say, BSDs are just nice to use sometimes. And sometimes all you need is something just good enough to run x/y/z. Maybe the pleasure of using it can offset the performance losses for some people.

eredengrin 6y ago
As long as linux has to hack zfs into the kernel with all their shims to avoid breaking license terms, I'm going to consider zfs a FreeBSD advantage. I've heard too many people complaining about issues with zfs on linux, so as someone who likes to configure once and then forget about it for a few years, that's not for me. I don't want to update my system one day and then find I can't mount my filesystem anymore (or worse). For networking performance, I doubt it makes a noticeable difference in personal use. Firewalls are pretty nice on FreeBSD though, at least for my uses. Of course, it's not like FreeBSD doesn't have problems of its own - I've had multiple times where I boot into my machine and find that I don't have graphics until I build the drivers from ports because their binary packages were compiled against an earlier release, leading to kernel incompatibilities (also can't figure out how to get hdmi audio out of my current card, not a deal breaker but wasn't what I was hoping for either). Pick your poison I guess, but until linux gets a comparably featured and stable filesystem I have a tough time seeing myself move away from FreeBSD. I've definitely considered various linux distros due to certain applications missing in FreeBSD or just general pain points though. Just very hard to leave zfs, and also most linux distros either seem to be stable with ancient packages, or always changing and often breaking things in the process. Stable base with latest packages is very nice.
- spijdar 6y ago