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I think there are several reasons. First home use, Linux has a (comparatively) good desktop experience. PCBSD is relatively new, rough around the edges, and

I think there are several reasons. First home use, Linux has a (comparatively) good desktop experience. PCBSD is relatively new, rough around the edges, and is perhaps the most important thing for the healthy future of FreeBSD. It gets people exposed to the OS. If I have used Linux before and I am going to set up a server I am much more likely to pick Linux for that server than I am FreeBSD. Second strong corporate support, IBM and several other big corporations are behind Linux development and help get it in to the field. FreeBSD doesn't have a large IT services company installing Linux on servers as a part of their consulting business.

kraemate 15y ago
Is this really a chicken and egg kind of situation? Linux is more widely used because it's more popular because BigCorp supports it? If so, i find the situation a bit depressing. After all, it should be the merits of a software that warrant it's success, not the other way around.
- stonemetal 15y ago
  It is but that is not the problem I describe. Basically the problem as I see it is there is no good way for me, the home user, to play around with FreeBSD. The PCBSD installer crashes, and I haven't quite figured out how to configure everything with a vanilla FreeBSD install. I didn't spend long trying because I know Ubuntu just works, and while I would like to try FreeBSD out I don't care enough to figure out all of the hoops I have to jump through to get it to work. So now when I go to look for a server I am going look for a Linux server because I have had better\more experience with it. Basically that which is easiest to use by people without experience will come to dominate. Not through network effects or anything hard to reverse like that but by simple fact that people will start using the tool that makes their job easy. After they have experience with that tool they are less likely to change to a harder to use tool even if it is better(the Mysql effect as it were.)

kraemate 15y ago

Is this really a chicken and egg kind of situation? Linux is more widely used because it's more popular because BigCorp supports it? If so, i find the situation a bit depressing. After all, it should be the merits of a software that warrant it's success, not the other way around.

stonemetal 15y ago
It is but that is not the problem I describe. Basically the problem as I see it is there is no good way for me, the home user, to play around with FreeBSD. The PCBSD installer crashes, and I haven't quite figured out how to configure everything with a vanilla FreeBSD install. I didn't spend long trying because I know Ubuntu just works, and while I would like to try FreeBSD out I don't care enough to figure out all of the hoops I have to jump through to get it to work. So now when I go to look for a server I am going look for a Linux server because I have had better\more experience with it. Basically that which is easiest to use by people without experience will come to dominate. Not through network effects or anything hard to reverse like that but by simple fact that people will start using the tool that makes their job easy. After they have experience with that tool they are less likely to change to a harder to use tool even if it is better(the Mysql effect as it were.)