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I find the BSDs, in general, take a more holistic approach to the operating design and everything feels very cohesive. In contrast, Linux feels more like an ass

by binkHN 2y ago

I find the BSDs, in general, take a more holistic approach to the operating design and everything feels very cohesive. In contrast, Linux feels more like an assembly of parts to form a unit and everything feels far more disjointed. That said, I run Linux on my production workstation because it supports more modern stuff. However, OpenBSD is one of my favorite operating systems to put on the back end because of its very simple and consistent design, and, well, strong focus on security.

linguae 2y ago
Exactly. The reason why I'm a fan of the BSDs in general is because of the cohesion of the base system, not to mention the high quality of its documentation and source code. I tend to prefer cleaner, cohesive systems that seem "designed" (System 7 Unix, the BSDs, Plan 9, C, NeXT and early Mac OS X, Smalltalk, many functional programming languages like Scheme and Standard ML) to large, complex systems that seem "evolved" (Windows, Linux, C++, JavaScript, the Web in general). I also like the conservative, deliberate approach that the BSDs take when it comes to the inclusion of new features. I remember reading a FreeBSD guide about 20 years ago that said something to the effect of "BSD is what you get when Unix hackers make a Unix for a PC, while Linux is what you get when PC hackers make a Unix for a PC." The spirit of that quote is that the BSDs tend to adhere to the Unix philosophy and thus their feature additions are in line with the philosophy of the overall system. The consequence of this, though, is that the BSDs are slower to adopt new technologies compared to Linux, though there is, in my opinion, a tendency in the Linux ecosystem for new technologies to be pushed before they are 100% ready, and the Linux ecosystem, as you said, feels more like an assembly of parts, each with their own design philosophies, rather than a cohesive system. Linux is certainly good, but I personally find FreeBSD more pleasant. With that said, I use FreeBSD for my home server and also inside VMs, but I find myself using Linux more. There are many situations where I often need to use Linux instead of FreeBSD due to either software compatibility reasons or lack of drivers.
- xk_id 2y ago
  Thank you for this thoughtful explanation. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this and your post convinced me that FreeBSD with virtualisation for occasional use of linux software is the right choice for me.
ghostpepper 2y ago
I hear this claim about security repeated a lot but not everyone agrees[0]. Always interested in hearing perspectives from actual users though. What do you like about their focus on security? [0] https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/ https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/
- binkHN 2y ago
  There's a lot of defense in depth approaches in OpenBSD, and as someone who's been on the mailing list for quite some time, I get to see them in real time. https://isopenbsdsecu.re/mitigations/ https://isopenbsdsecu.re/mitigations/ does break them down fairly well, perhaps a bit pessimistically, but, if you take time to read through this, you can still see a lot of innovation coming from OpenBSD, and often before others.

by binkHN 2y ago

linguae 2y ago

Exactly. The reason why I'm a fan of the BSDs in general is because of the cohesion of the base system, not to mention the high quality of its documentation and source code. I tend to prefer cleaner, cohesive systems that seem "designed" (System 7 Unix, the BSDs, Plan 9, C, NeXT and early Mac OS X, Smalltalk, many functional programming languages like Scheme and Standard ML) to large, complex systems that seem "evolved" (Windows, Linux, C++, JavaScript, the Web in general). I also like the conservative, deliberate approach that the BSDs take when it comes to the inclusion of new features. I remember reading a FreeBSD guide about 20 years ago that said something to the effect of "BSD is what you get when Unix hackers make a Unix for a PC, while Linux is what you get when PC hackers make a Unix for a PC." The spirit of that quote is that the BSDs tend to adhere to the Unix philosophy and thus their feature additions are in line with the philosophy of the overall system. The consequence of this, though, is that the BSDs are slower to adopt new technologies compared to Linux, though there is, in my opinion, a tendency in the Linux ecosystem for new technologies to be pushed before they are 100% ready, and the Linux ecosystem, as you said, feels more like an assembly of parts, each with their own design philosophies, rather than a cohesive system. Linux is certainly good, but I personally find FreeBSD more pleasant. With that said, I use FreeBSD for my home server and also inside VMs, but I find myself using Linux more. There are many situations where I often need to use Linux instead of FreeBSD due to either software compatibility reasons or lack of drivers.

xk_id 2y ago
Thank you for this thoughtful explanation. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this and your post convinced me that FreeBSD with virtualisation for occasional use of linux software is the right choice for me.

ghostpepper 2y ago

I hear this claim about security repeated a lot but not everyone agrees[0]. Always interested in hearing perspectives from actual users though. What do you like about their focus on security? [0] https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/ https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/

binkHN 2y ago
There's a lot of defense in depth approaches in OpenBSD, and as someone who's been on the mailing list for quite some time, I get to see them in real time. https://isopenbsdsecu.re/mitigations/ https://isopenbsdsecu.re/mitigations/ does break them down fairly well, perhaps a bit pessimistically, but, if you take time to read through this, you can still see a lot of innovation coming from OpenBSD, and often before others.