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Rather than telling the difference between how command line utilities take arguments and how the file structure is differently laid out, I expected the article

Rather than telling the difference between how command line utilities take arguments and how the file structure is differently laid out, I expected the article to present FreeBSD advantages and to tell me which software works on FreeBSD. I don't use *Nix for the desktop but I would love to find out that FreeBSD allows me to run Kubernetes, Elastic Search, Redis. That I can achieve more throughput with FreeBSD, that Postgres and MongoDB are more performant than on Linux and that the system is more reliable than Linux. How ls and grep works on FreeBSD is no concern of mine. But running Docker is.

mnd999 4y ago
I think you know that Docker is built on cgroups, which is a Linux kernel feature and that as a result it will work as badly as it does on other things that are not Linux.
- fulafel 4y ago
  Docker Desktop should be possible to port to FreeBSD, it runs virtualized on the 3 other platforms.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  I think you know Docker runs on Windows and macOS.
  - Yuioup 4y ago
    ... which runs a Linux VM to host containers.
    - mnd999 4y ago
      Yep. FreeBSD can do that too.
      - CoolCold 4y ago
        Or can wait till users start to care on Jails. Oh wait..
        mnd999 4y ago
        Many FreeBSD user do care about jails, but they’re certainly not as easy to use as docker and so they’re not (anymore) going to get anyone rushing to drop Linux and move to FreeBSD. Docker spanked a ton of VC money hosting the worlds software to create the smooth developer experience that we’ve come to expect from them. I don’t really see how an open source project is supposed to compete with that. Particularly as, whilst they gained a lot of mindshare, they don’t show any signs of getting their money back.
        vermaden 4y ago
        Oldschool FreeBSD Jails are easier then Docker. The VNET enabled FreeBSD Jails (separate network stack) are more complicated - at start only - you need to get to know how to use the new epair(4) VNET interfaces etc.
        CoolCold 4y ago
        It's probably easier for specific use cases where Jails better be compared to LXD and when you need "system" inside your VE (virtual environment)/Jail. And that's not what docker targeting much. For the even simple real life use case, I and my team had for running tests over our site with https://www.sitespeed.io/ https://www.sitespeed.io/ : Use our Docker container to get an environment with Firefox, Chrome, Edge, XVFB and sitespeed.io up and running as fast as you can download them. They work extremely well together with Graphite/InfluxDB and Grafana that you can use to monitor your web site. docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/sitespeed.io" sitespeedio/sitespeed.io:26.1.0 https://www.supersite.io/ Our fronted dev and SEO guys can do from their MacOS/Windows machines with 0 knowledge of Linux and docker, just by copypaste the command in _under_ 5 minutes. Achieving the same with Jails in even 1 hour is beyond my imagination. Still struggling to hear any real life good samples of team work with Jails instead of Docker.
    - delfinom 4y ago
      Linux VM to host Linux containers. Conversely, it uses a native Windows layer to host Windows containers.
vermaden 4y ago
K8s and Docker are purely Linux things. Use Linux for that. Its like you would say "I really like these Jails, on which Linux distribution I can run them on?" :) On FreeBSD You use Jails and Bhyve. Some other whys for FreeBSD here: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/ https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  >K8s and Docker are purely Linux things. Which I happen to know. But it was an example. If I am going to switch to FreeBSD it has to run the software I need, not to merely provide alternatives. And it has to do it better. Saying that FreeBSD has jails as an alternative is akin to saying Linux has Gimp as an alternative to Photoshop. Not many are going to switch operating systems to use Gimp instead of Photoshop.
  - Gud 4y ago
    How do you think jails compares to docker? I have never used docker myself but I always thought the way FreeBSD jails works is awesome.
    - vermaden 4y ago
      Docker is just namespaces and cgroups. You do not have separation between host and the containers on Linux - you need additional software for that - like AppArmor or SELinux. The FreeBSD Jails are secure and separated from the host on the contrary. FreeBSD Host can access Jails but Jails can not access Host resources - unless consciously configured to do so. As for the usage ... FreeBSD Jails can have their OWN network stack (with own firewall and interfaces) while Docker can only use Linux network namespaces. You can launch/start a single process Jail and a single process Docker - here they are similar. You can also unpack entire operating system userland in both and it will also run - with own packages database etc. Hope that helps.
      - samoit 4y ago
merpkz 4y ago
Chances are that PostgreSQL will be more performant on FreeBSD, but that would require a wee-bit of very specific fine-tuning for specific workload pgsql is doing and it would ultimately be thanks to ZFS, which I think is default on FreeBSD ( would work on linux as well, if setup correctly ). See here for more info on how and why's - https://people.freebsd.org/~seanc/postgresql/scale15x-2017-postgresql_zfs_best_practices.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~seanc/postgresql/scale15x-2017-p...
jmclnx 4y ago
Well FreeBSD has something a hundred times better than docker, jails. And it has been around for almost 20 years. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/ I have used jails, though a slightly harder to set up, once setup it works great. I used it to open up ssh to an empty jail as a kind of file server. Mainly to sftp files to that I change on my laptop at a remote site. This is in the days before the "cloud". I am always mystified why FreeBSD and Jails never took off as "the" cloud environment.
- akx 4y ago
  Saying "a hundred times better" comes off a bit smug, especially when it's nearly immediately followed by "slightly harder to set up". Those could be part of why it's not as popular.

mnd999 4y ago

I think you know that Docker is built on cgroups, which is a Linux kernel feature and that as a result it will work as badly as it does on other things that are not Linux.

fulafel 4y ago
Docker Desktop should be possible to port to FreeBSD, it runs virtualized on the 3 other platforms.
DeathArrow 4y ago
I think you know Docker runs on Windows and macOS.
- Yuioup 4y ago
  ... which runs a Linux VM to host containers.
  - mnd999 4y ago
    Yep. FreeBSD can do that too.
    - CoolCold 4y ago
      Or can wait till users start to care on Jails. Oh wait..
      - mnd999 4y ago
        Many FreeBSD user do care about jails, but they’re certainly not as easy to use as docker and so they’re not (anymore) going to get anyone rushing to drop Linux and move to FreeBSD. Docker spanked a ton of VC money hosting the worlds software to create the smooth developer experience that we’ve come to expect from them. I don’t really see how an open source project is supposed to compete with that. Particularly as, whilst they gained a lot of mindshare, they don’t show any signs of getting their money back.
        vermaden 4y ago
        Oldschool FreeBSD Jails are easier then Docker. The VNET enabled FreeBSD Jails (separate network stack) are more complicated - at start only - you need to get to know how to use the new epair(4) VNET interfaces etc.
        CoolCold 4y ago
        It's probably easier for specific use cases where Jails better be compared to LXD and when you need "system" inside your VE (virtual environment)/Jail. And that's not what docker targeting much. For the even simple real life use case, I and my team had for running tests over our site with https://www.sitespeed.io/ https://www.sitespeed.io/ : Use our Docker container to get an environment with Firefox, Chrome, Edge, XVFB and sitespeed.io up and running as fast as you can download them. They work extremely well together with Graphite/InfluxDB and Grafana that you can use to monitor your web site. docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/sitespeed.io" sitespeedio/sitespeed.io:26.1.0 https://www.supersite.io/ Our fronted dev and SEO guys can do from their MacOS/Windows machines with 0 knowledge of Linux and docker, just by copypaste the command in _under_ 5 minutes. Achieving the same with Jails in even 1 hour is beyond my imagination. Still struggling to hear any real life good samples of team work with Jails instead of Docker.
  - delfinom 4y ago
    Linux VM to host Linux containers. Conversely, it uses a native Windows layer to host Windows containers.

vermaden 4y ago

K8s and Docker are purely Linux things. Use Linux for that. Its like you would say "I really like these Jails, on which Linux distribution I can run them on?" :) On FreeBSD You use Jails and Bhyve. Some other whys for FreeBSD here: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/ https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

DeathArrow 4y ago
>K8s and Docker are purely Linux things. Which I happen to know. But it was an example. If I am going to switch to FreeBSD it has to run the software I need, not to merely provide alternatives. And it has to do it better. Saying that FreeBSD has jails as an alternative is akin to saying Linux has Gimp as an alternative to Photoshop. Not many are going to switch operating systems to use Gimp instead of Photoshop.
- Gud 4y ago
  How do you think jails compares to docker? I have never used docker myself but I always thought the way FreeBSD jails works is awesome.
  - vermaden 4y ago
    Docker is just namespaces and cgroups. You do not have separation between host and the containers on Linux - you need additional software for that - like AppArmor or SELinux. The FreeBSD Jails are secure and separated from the host on the contrary. FreeBSD Host can access Jails but Jails can not access Host resources - unless consciously configured to do so. As for the usage ... FreeBSD Jails can have their OWN network stack (with own firewall and interfaces) while Docker can only use Linux network namespaces. You can launch/start a single process Jail and a single process Docker - here they are similar. You can also unpack entire operating system userland in both and it will also run - with own packages database etc. Hope that helps.
    - samoit 4y ago

merpkz 4y ago

Chances are that PostgreSQL will be more performant on FreeBSD, but that would require a wee-bit of very specific fine-tuning for specific workload pgsql is doing and it would ultimately be thanks to ZFS, which I think is default on FreeBSD ( would work on linux as well, if setup correctly ). See here for more info on how and why's - https://people.freebsd.org/~seanc/postgresql/scale15x-2017-postgresql_zfs_best_practices.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~seanc/postgresql/scale15x-2017-p...

jmclnx 4y ago

Well FreeBSD has something a hundred times better than docker, jails. And it has been around for almost 20 years. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/ I have used jails, though a slightly harder to set up, once setup it works great. I used it to open up ssh to an empty jail as a kind of file server. Mainly to sftp files to that I change on my laptop at a remote site. This is in the days before the "cloud". I am always mystified why FreeBSD and Jails never took off as "the" cloud environment.

akx 4y ago
Saying "a hundred times better" comes off a bit smug, especially when it's nearly immediately followed by "slightly harder to set up". Those could be part of why it's not as popular.