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I was introduced to FreeBSD (v3.3) in the late 90s by /user?id=gjvc. I bought the CD set and the FreeBSD Handbook in paperback format from The FreeBSD Mall. I

I was introduced to FreeBSD (v3.3) in the late 90s by /user?id=gjvc. I bought the CD set and the FreeBSD Handbook in paperback format from The FreeBSD Mall. I was too young to appreciate it back then, but now in my mid-40s I find myself hankering back to those early days for me. It's a shame that some cloud providers like DigitalOcean and Hetzner have dropped native support for FreeBSD as base operating systems for their VPSes. I think this release will be the turning point for me getting back into FreeBSD after too many years away. Thanks to the FreeBSD release team!

jbverschoor 3y ago
Yup.. FreeBSD was awesome becausethe FreeBSD handbook has always been top notch. It covers everything you need to install and administer FreeBSD + many of its packages
Kimitri 3y ago
If it's a FreeBSD VPS you're after, I'd suggest you give UpCloud a chance. I'm currently running a few FreeBSD VPSs on UpCloud and I have not run into any issues. It's kinda great!
BSDobelix 3y ago
Talking about hetzner, they write you an image on a USB-Stick and put it in your Server (at no cost). Since it's a real server i don't need any "native" support from them. Otherwise Oracle-Cloud or Vultr. But you are right, it's sad that hetzner dropped the "webinstall no hands-on" support.
Lammy 3y ago
https://tornadovps.com/ https://tornadovps.com/ (formerly prgmr) has first-class FreeBSD support. I've been with them since 2011.
yourfate 3y ago
I run freebsd on a hetzner cloud vps, don’t remember how exactly I did it but I think I uploaded the install medium to the server console. Wasn’t too much hassle iirc.
- _paulc 3y ago
  If you want to automate FreeBSD deployments on Hetzner Cloud you can try: https://github.com/paulc/hcloud-freebsd https://github.com/paulc/hcloud-freebsd (Allows you to provision instances using either the hcloud utility/web uni with ssh key/user-data support)
totallywrong 3y ago
The problem with FreeBSD is that it couldn't keep up. No containers or VMs (jails and their homegrown HV don't cut it), fewer drivers, etc. It's great for some server use cases but I just couldn't do my work in FreeBSD. I did like it though, the docs and community are great.
- shrubble 3y ago
  They have had jails for 20+ years at this point. I would consider FreeBSD jails and containers on Linux equivalent at this point with overall the FreeBSD jails being better to manage if you do some scripting. The bhyve hypervisor, I haven't played with enough to form an opinion on.
  - 0xNotMyAccount 3y ago
    Unless of course you're trying to sell to an enterprise who's core competency isn't computational, and has limited capacity to manage new operating systems in the fleet. Lots of big orgs can only support so many things. It seems odd until you realize they're not running your service. they're running thousands of services across multiple geographic regions with hundreds of thousands of corporate users. And all the upgrade paths that go with this whole thing, and the external facing integrations, etc, etc. So, sure, if you've got a stand-alone B2C service that's making money today, enjoy your FreeBSD, SUSE, whatever. But if you're clients include big banks, chunks of governments, etc, think really hard about going off the reservation.
    - assimpleaspossi 3y ago
      No one said anything about entrenched systems that already use Linux or other systems. FreeBSD is an excellent OS to use for those same jobs that a lot of people and companies are missing out on by not giving it a look. Netflix and Whatsapp can't be too wrong in their choice.
      - inferiorhuman 3y ago
        Netflix and Whatsapp can't be too wrong in their choice. Most companies aren't Netflix, Whatsapp, Google, etc. Netflix can afford to run FreeBSD because they have staff that are intimately familiar with tuning it and hacking on the kernel. That's not most companies. No one said anything about entrenched systems that already use Linux or other systems. GNU/Linux is entrenched pretty much everywhere at this point. Think about your stack. Does anything you use depend on GNU userland tools? Yeah, you'll get real good at rooting out hardcoded paths and dependencies on GNU extensions. Are your coworkers used to GNU tools? Well, there's a learning curve. Do you use nodejs at your company? The node maintainers actively refused to merge trivial patches to get current versions to build on FreeBSD (and the port itself stagnated). Evaluating something that's not-Linux is neat and cool, I get it. But the reality is switching will incur a heavy up front (and potentially long-term depending on the candidate pool) cost and lots of long-term paper cuts.
whartung 3y ago
My early FreeBSD moment was when I had a cable modem, and you were able to download one or two boot floppies. After you booted them up, you could install the entire OS from the network. No CD needed. I assume it just downloaded everything straight from FTP servers.
- ioman 3y ago
  Oh, look who has a fancy cable modem! Back in my day, we had to do it with 14.4 kbaud modems (really) after walking to school, uphill both ways in the snow (not really).
  - mzi 3y ago
    I would guess you had a 14.4 kbps modem operating on 9600 baud.
pjmlp 3y ago
Azure still offers them, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/freebsd-intro-on-azure https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/lin... Once I opened a ticket to complain that it is listed under "Linux custom images", however the documentation team decided my complaint was withouth reasoning(!).
olgeni 3y ago
You can easily fool DigitalOcean into running FreeBSD with custom images \o/

jbverschoor 3y ago

Yup.. FreeBSD was awesome becausethe FreeBSD handbook has always been top notch. It covers everything you need to install and administer FreeBSD + many of its packages

Kimitri 3y ago

If it's a FreeBSD VPS you're after, I'd suggest you give UpCloud a chance. I'm currently running a few FreeBSD VPSs on UpCloud and I have not run into any issues. It's kinda great!

BSDobelix 3y ago

Talking about hetzner, they write you an image on a USB-Stick and put it in your Server (at no cost). Since it's a real server i don't need any "native" support from them. Otherwise Oracle-Cloud or Vultr. But you are right, it's sad that hetzner dropped the "webinstall no hands-on" support.

Lammy 3y ago

https://tornadovps.com/ https://tornadovps.com/ (formerly prgmr) has first-class FreeBSD support. I've been with them since 2011.

yourfate 3y ago

I run freebsd on a hetzner cloud vps, don’t remember how exactly I did it but I think I uploaded the install medium to the server console. Wasn’t too much hassle iirc.

_paulc 3y ago
If you want to automate FreeBSD deployments on Hetzner Cloud you can try: https://github.com/paulc/hcloud-freebsd https://github.com/paulc/hcloud-freebsd (Allows you to provision instances using either the hcloud utility/web uni with ssh key/user-data support)

totallywrong 3y ago

The problem with FreeBSD is that it couldn't keep up. No containers or VMs (jails and their homegrown HV don't cut it), fewer drivers, etc. It's great for some server use cases but I just couldn't do my work in FreeBSD. I did like it though, the docs and community are great.

shrubble 3y ago
They have had jails for 20+ years at this point. I would consider FreeBSD jails and containers on Linux equivalent at this point with overall the FreeBSD jails being better to manage if you do some scripting. The bhyve hypervisor, I haven't played with enough to form an opinion on.
- 0xNotMyAccount 3y ago
  Unless of course you're trying to sell to an enterprise who's core competency isn't computational, and has limited capacity to manage new operating systems in the fleet. Lots of big orgs can only support so many things. It seems odd until you realize they're not running your service. they're running thousands of services across multiple geographic regions with hundreds of thousands of corporate users. And all the upgrade paths that go with this whole thing, and the external facing integrations, etc, etc. So, sure, if you've got a stand-alone B2C service that's making money today, enjoy your FreeBSD, SUSE, whatever. But if you're clients include big banks, chunks of governments, etc, think really hard about going off the reservation.
  - assimpleaspossi 3y ago
    No one said anything about entrenched systems that already use Linux or other systems. FreeBSD is an excellent OS to use for those same jobs that a lot of people and companies are missing out on by not giving it a look. Netflix and Whatsapp can't be too wrong in their choice.
    - inferiorhuman 3y ago
      Netflix and Whatsapp can't be too wrong in their choice. Most companies aren't Netflix, Whatsapp, Google, etc. Netflix can afford to run FreeBSD because they have staff that are intimately familiar with tuning it and hacking on the kernel. That's not most companies. No one said anything about entrenched systems that already use Linux or other systems. GNU/Linux is entrenched pretty much everywhere at this point. Think about your stack. Does anything you use depend on GNU userland tools? Yeah, you'll get real good at rooting out hardcoded paths and dependencies on GNU extensions. Are your coworkers used to GNU tools? Well, there's a learning curve. Do you use nodejs at your company? The node maintainers actively refused to merge trivial patches to get current versions to build on FreeBSD (and the port itself stagnated). Evaluating something that's not-Linux is neat and cool, I get it. But the reality is switching will incur a heavy up front (and potentially long-term depending on the candidate pool) cost and lots of long-term paper cuts.

whartung 3y ago

My early FreeBSD moment was when I had a cable modem, and you were able to download one or two boot floppies. After you booted them up, you could install the entire OS from the network. No CD needed. I assume it just downloaded everything straight from FTP servers.

ioman 3y ago
Oh, look who has a fancy cable modem! Back in my day, we had to do it with 14.4 kbaud modems (really) after walking to school, uphill both ways in the snow (not really).
- mzi 3y ago
  I would guess you had a 14.4 kbps modem operating on 9600 baud.

pjmlp 3y ago

Azure still offers them, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/freebsd-intro-on-azure https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/lin... Once I opened a ticket to complain that it is listed under "Linux custom images", however the documentation team decided my complaint was withouth reasoning(!).

olgeni 3y ago

You can easily fool DigitalOcean into running FreeBSD with custom images \o/