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What are the advantages of keeping FreeBSD for the NAS use case instead of migrating to Linux? Linux seems to be a more popular choice.

by maxloh 3y ago

lproven 3y ago
As I said in the comments on El Reg: Are there benefits from moving to Linux? Probably. But I think there are costs form leaving FreeBSD. • As I mentioned in the article as well as in the comments above, significantly poorer memory inefficiency, which renders the Linux-based product less suitable for small/low-end deployments and constrained hardware. • FreeBSD has a reputation for better stability than Linux, and fewer, less frequent, updates. • The FreeBSD hypervisor is small, efficient, clean and modern: https://klarasystems.com/articles/bhyve-the-freebsd-hypervisor/ https://klarasystems.com/articles/bhyve-the-freebsd-hypervis... It can also cope with handy features like memory overcommit -- you can assign more RAM to VMs than is available at that time -- and lazy commit, so they don't try to initialise all of it when they start. Others, readers, have also made eloquent points, too. Not everyone is using this for the features. Some are using it for the stability. They don't want new features. I don't want new features. I want fewer features: I want simplicity instead, and I want reliability and efficiency.
- CoolCold 3y ago
  > • FreeBSD has a reputation for better stability than Linux, and fewer, less frequent, updates. This is at minimum clickbait and very wishful thinking at maximum. FreeBSD has not yet dare to have LTS, try to keep security fixes in packages without bringing changes. Not even mentioning hiring FreeBSD devops guys is a non funny time spending with very pessimistic forecast. For business continuity and mentioned stability, nothing good here.
  - lproven 3y ago
    I did say a reputation, that's all. I have a testbed FreeBSD laptop with Xfce and a whole bunch of apps, and I can say, though, that the number of updates it gets is substantially lower than a comparable Linux box.

What are the advantages of keeping FreeBSD for the NAS use case instead of migrating to Linux? Linux seems to be a more popular choice.

by maxloh 3y ago

What are the advantages of keeping FreeBSD for the NAS use case instead of migrating to Linux? Linux seems to be a more popular choice.

lproven 3y ago

As I said in the comments on El Reg: Are there benefits from moving to Linux? Probably. But I think there are costs form leaving FreeBSD. • As I mentioned in the article as well as in the comments above, significantly poorer memory inefficiency, which renders the Linux-based product less suitable for small/low-end deployments and constrained hardware. • FreeBSD has a reputation for better stability than Linux, and fewer, less frequent, updates. • The FreeBSD hypervisor is small, efficient, clean and modern: https://klarasystems.com/articles/bhyve-the-freebsd-hypervisor/ https://klarasystems.com/articles/bhyve-the-freebsd-hypervis... It can also cope with handy features like memory overcommit -- you can assign more RAM to VMs than is available at that time -- and lazy commit, so they don't try to initialise all of it when they start. Others, readers, have also made eloquent points, too. Not everyone is using this for the features. Some are using it for the stability. They don't want new features. I don't want new features. I want fewer features: I want simplicity instead, and I want reliability and efficiency.

CoolCold 3y ago
> • FreeBSD has a reputation for better stability than Linux, and fewer, less frequent, updates. This is at minimum clickbait and very wishful thinking at maximum. FreeBSD has not yet dare to have LTS, try to keep security fixes in packages without bringing changes. Not even mentioning hiring FreeBSD devops guys is a non funny time spending with very pessimistic forecast. For business continuity and mentioned stability, nothing good here.
- lproven 3y ago
  I did say a reputation, that's all. I have a testbed FreeBSD laptop with Xfce and a whole bunch of apps, and I can say, though, that the number of updates it gets is substantially lower than a comparable Linux box.