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I think a lot of it is because unlike Linux, FreeBSD is a not just a kernel, but an entire OS, with a kernel, utilities, compilers, and a package manager. Ther

I think a lot of it is because unlike Linux, FreeBSD is a not just a kernel, but an entire OS, with a kernel, utilities, compilers, and a package manager. There have been different distros (PC-BSD, debian kfreebsd, etc), but I think the "default" upstream distro has most of what's needed. And there are likely "distros" that you don't see. Eg, we run our own private "distro" on the CDN at Netflix, which is basically upstream FreeBSD + some kernel patches queued for upstreaming + a limited number of ports + some netflix specific stuff. I imagine other companies using FreeBSD (NetApp, Sony, etc) also have their own private distros.

TyroneBlack 3y ago
I guess my question was more about something like Debian which would be more comparable to FreeBSD. Ubuntu is based on Debian. PopOS and Mint are built off of Ubuntu. They are all separate, but still pull the code from their upstream. Why isn't there a situation like that with the BSDs? As far as I know the only ones that exist like that are GhostBSD and HardenedBSD. Why do the BSDs split for good instead of just pulling from upstream and making some changes? There are also private linux distros. I wasn't really getting into them since they aren't available.
- toast0 3y ago
  OpenBSD split from NetBSD about philosophy, and the changes go deep. I never used PC-BSD, but I gather it is (or was?) mostly a few changes on top of FreeBSD, so it would fit your model. FreeNAS/TrueNAS core is more or less a specialized distribution of FreeBSD. Otoh, DragonflyBSD is a fork of FreeBSD; there were big differences in opinion on how SMP should be implemented, and then big differences in implementation, making it hard to just pull and make changes.