5 ms·

DigitalOcean seems to be dropping FreeBSD support

52 points by hericium 4y ago

from email: > Beginning June 1, 2022, you will no longer be able to create FreeBSD-based Droplets through the cloud control panel. You will still be able to create FreeBSD-based Droplets through the API until July 1, 2022, but after July 1, 2022, only legacy FreeBSD Droplets will remain on the platform (...) > Rest assured: Existing FreeBSD Droplets and FreeBSD Droplets created from May 1, 2022–July 1, 2022 will continue to work as usual despite these changes to our offerings.

phendrenad2 4y ago
It would be interesting to hear from them what their reasons are, but I think it's not hard to guess: Few people use it, and it's not worth supporting.
- hericium 4y ago
  Few folks may use bare FreeBSD but firewall solutions like PFSense or OPNSense (both built on top of FreeBSD) are quite popular with some, even corporate, users.
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    Agree. It also makes for a very stable web server.
- leros 4y ago
  I'm sure they've done the math on it and it's just not worth supporting from a revenue perspective. There must be some operational cost that became a burden.
kevincox 4y ago
Does DigitalOcean still lack support for arbitrary images? I seem to recall that in the past to get an OS rather than their short list I had to pick a supported one then wipe the disk from inside the VM which was a very delicate dance.
- hericium 4y ago
  You can create your own image but VMs made out of those are limited, e.g. have no IPv6 support.
  - anyfoo 4y ago
    Hmm, I bootstrapped a standard OpenBSD installation from a FreeBSD installation. I haven't gotten to set up IPv6 yet but planned to. What would be hindering that, some weird encapsulation protocol or what?
- eatonphil 4y ago
  On Linode I could script this process by building my own images in advance. I assume that you could port this process to the DO API. https://github.com/eatonphil/linode_deploy_experimental https://github.com/eatonphil/linode_deploy_experimental
  - eatonphil 4y ago
    Blog post describing the process here: https://notes.eatonphil.com/deploying-freebsd-on-linode-unattended-in-minutes.html https://notes.eatonphil.com/deploying-freebsd-on-linode-unat...
the_common_man 4y ago
What's the reasoning behind this?
- gnu8 4y ago
  Just guessing, probably not enough customers want it to justify spending time on supporting it.
cpach 4y ago
FWIW, AWS has support for FreeBSD: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-ukzmy5dzc6nbq https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-ukzmy5dzc6nbq (also for ARM)
anyfoo 4y ago
I guess you will still be able to install FreeBSD manually by just directly accessing the (virtual) storage devices? That's how I install OpenBSD on my droplets. Through either FreeBSD or Linux first.
cubicidle 4y ago

52 points by hericium 4y ago

phendrenad2 4y ago

It would be interesting to hear from them what their reasons are, but I think it's not hard to guess: Few people use it, and it's not worth supporting.

hericium 4y ago
Few folks may use bare FreeBSD but firewall solutions like PFSense or OPNSense (both built on top of FreeBSD) are quite popular with some, even corporate, users.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Agree. It also makes for a very stable web server.
leros 4y ago
I'm sure they've done the math on it and it's just not worth supporting from a revenue perspective. There must be some operational cost that became a burden.

kevincox 4y ago

Does DigitalOcean still lack support for arbitrary images? I seem to recall that in the past to get an OS rather than their short list I had to pick a supported one then wipe the disk from inside the VM which was a very delicate dance.

hericium 4y ago
You can create your own image but VMs made out of those are limited, e.g. have no IPv6 support.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  Hmm, I bootstrapped a standard OpenBSD installation from a FreeBSD installation. I haven't gotten to set up IPv6 yet but planned to. What would be hindering that, some weird encapsulation protocol or what?
eatonphil 4y ago
On Linode I could script this process by building my own images in advance. I assume that you could port this process to the DO API. https://github.com/eatonphil/linode_deploy_experimental https://github.com/eatonphil/linode_deploy_experimental
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Blog post describing the process here: https://notes.eatonphil.com/deploying-freebsd-on-linode-unattended-in-minutes.html https://notes.eatonphil.com/deploying-freebsd-on-linode-unat...

the_common_man 4y ago

What's the reasoning behind this?

gnu8 4y ago
Just guessing, probably not enough customers want it to justify spending time on supporting it.

cpach 4y ago

FWIW, AWS has support for FreeBSD: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-ukzmy5dzc6nbq https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-ukzmy5dzc6nbq (also for ARM)

anyfoo 4y ago

I guess you will still be able to install FreeBSD manually by just directly accessing the (virtual) storage devices? That's how I install OpenBSD on my droplets. Through either FreeBSD or Linux first.

cubicidle 4y ago