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That's fine. The thing is: I am different with Linux too. So I don't quite understand that FreeBSD focus. From the BSDs, I think only OpenBSD has a really uniq

That's fine. The thing is: I am different with Linux too. So I don't quite understand that FreeBSD focus. From the BSDs, I think only OpenBSD has a really unique selling point with its focus on security. People ask "why pick FreeBSD rather than Linux" and most will not find compelling arguments in favour of FreeBSD there.

movedx 10mo ago
I once upgraded a FreeBSD system from 8 to 12 with a single command. I don’t recall having to reboot — might have needed to. Can you give that shot for me on Linux? Could you spin up a Ubuntu 14 VM and do a full system update to 24.04 without problems? Let me know how you go. I once needed help with a userland utility and the handbook answered the question directly. More impressive was the conversation I had with a kernel developer, who also maintains the userland tools — not because they choose too but because the architecture dictates that the whole system is maintained as a whole. Can you say the same for Linux? You literally cannot. Only Arch and RedHat (if you can get passed the paywall) have anything that comes close to the FreeBSD Handbook. FreeBSD has a lot going for it. It just sits there and works forever. Linux can do the same, if you maintain it. You barely need to maintain a FreeBSD system outside of updating packages. Most people who use containers a lot won’t find a home in FreeBSD, and that’s fine. I hope containers never come to the BSD family. Most public images are gross and massive security concerns. But then, most people who use FreeBSD know you don’t need containers to run multiple software stacks on the same OS, regardless of needing multiple runtimes or library versions. This is a lost art because today you just go “docker compose up” and walk away because everything is taken care of for you… right? Guys? Everything is secure now, right?
- sellmesoap 10mo ago
  I haven't tried, but I heard podman runs on freebsd :D
  - movedx 10mo ago
    I think that’s true yeah.
- AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
  > I once upgraded a FreeBSD system from 8 to 12 with a single command. The command you most likely used is freebsd-update[0]. There are other ways to update FreeBSD versions, but this is a well documented and commonly used one. > I don’t recall having to reboot — might have needed to. Updating across major versions requires a reboot. Nothing wrong with that, just clarifying is all. > Most people who use containers a lot won’t find a home in FreeBSD, and that’s fine. I hope containers never come to the BSD family. Strictly speaking, Linux containers are not needed in FreeBSD as jails provide similar functionality (better IMHO, but I am very biased towards FreeBSD). My preferred way to manage jails is with ezjail[1] FWIW. > But then, most people who use FreeBSD know you don’t need containers to run multiple software stacks on the same OS, regardless of needing multiple runtimes or library versions. I completely agree! 0 - https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/ 1 - https://erdgeist.org/arts/software/ezjail/ https://erdgeist.org/arts/software/ezjail/
  - movedx 10mo ago
    Thanks for sharing and clarifying those details :) And yes, jails are way better, but here we are.
sellmesoap 10mo ago
Out of the box ZFS is a big selling point for me. Jails are just lovely. The rc system is very easy to reason with. I've had systems that were only stable on freebsd that would crash using windows or various Linux.
- arthurfirst 10mo ago
  ZFS is amazing and while there are many would be clones there is only one ZFS. I used (and pushed) it everywhere I could and first encountered on Solaris before FBSD. Even had it on my Mac workstation almost 18 years ago (unsupported) -- aside I will never forgive that asshole Larry Ellison for killing OpenSolaris. NEVER. Systemd is the worst PoS every written. RCs are effective and elegant. Systemd is reason enough to avoid Linux but I still hold my nose and use it because I have to.
  - BrouteMinou 10mo ago
    But you are aware there are distros without systemd, right?
    - arthurfirst 10mo ago
      Yes. Over the years I've used just about every linux distro from Slackware and RH up to nix + arch, as well programming on Solaris, IRIX, SCO, OS/400 and even Tandem --look it up it's pretty obscure! But I just use FreeBSD mostly now. There's pretty much nothing I can't do on FreeBSD that I would get with one Linux or another. Not much of a gamer so maybe that factors in..
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - tombert 10mo ago
    Sorry, can you be specific about what's terrible about systemd? I really would like to know why it's the "worst piece of shit ever written".
mtlmtlmtlmtl 10mo ago
First of all, FreeBSD has plenty of selling points compared to your typical Linux distro: Small, well integrated base system, with excellent documentation. Jails, ZFS, pf, bhyve, Dtrace are very well integrated with eachother, which differs from linux where sure there's docker, btrfs, iptables, bpftrace and several different hypervisors to choose from, but they all come from different sources and so they don't play together as neatly. The ports tree is very nice for when you need to build things with custom options. The system is simple and easy to understand if you're a seasoned unix-like user. Linux distros keep changing, and I don't have the time to keep up. I have more than 2 decades of experience daily driving linux at this point, and about 3 years total daily driving FreeBSD. And yet, the last time I had a distro install shit itself(pop os), I had no idea how to fix it, due to the rube-goldberg machine of systemd, dbus, polkit, wayland AND X, etc etc that sits underneath the easy to use GUI(which was not working). On boot I was dropped into a root shell with some confusing systemd error message. The boot log was full of crazy messages from daemons I hadn't even heard of before. I was completely lost. On modern Linux distros, my significant experience is effectively useless. On FreeBSD, it remains useful. Second, when it comes to OpenBSD, I don't actually agree that security is its main selling point. For me, the main selling point of OpenBSD is as a batteries included server/router OS, again extremely well documented in manpages, and it has all the basic network daemons installed, you just enable them. They have very simple configuration files where often all you need is a single digit number of lines, and the config files have their own manpages explaining everything. For use cases like "I just want an HTTP server to serve some static content", "I just want a router with dhcpd and a firewall", etc, OpenBSD is golden.
- vogon_laureate 10mo ago
  OpenBSD's philosophy of simple config files and secure defaults are among its best features.
prmoustache 10mo ago
It has a decent manual for a start.

movedx 10mo ago

I once upgraded a FreeBSD system from 8 to 12 with a single command. I don’t recall having to reboot — might have needed to. Can you give that shot for me on Linux? Could you spin up a Ubuntu 14 VM and do a full system update to 24.04 without problems? Let me know how you go. I once needed help with a userland utility and the handbook answered the question directly. More impressive was the conversation I had with a kernel developer, who also maintains the userland tools — not because they choose too but because the architecture dictates that the whole system is maintained as a whole. Can you say the same for Linux? You literally cannot. Only Arch and RedHat (if you can get passed the paywall) have anything that comes close to the FreeBSD Handbook. FreeBSD has a lot going for it. It just sits there and works forever. Linux can do the same, if you maintain it. You barely need to maintain a FreeBSD system outside of updating packages. Most people who use containers a lot won’t find a home in FreeBSD, and that’s fine. I hope containers never come to the BSD family. Most public images are gross and massive security concerns. But then, most people who use FreeBSD know you don’t need containers to run multiple software stacks on the same OS, regardless of needing multiple runtimes or library versions. This is a lost art because today you just go “docker compose up” and walk away because everything is taken care of for you… right? Guys? Everything is secure now, right?

sellmesoap 10mo ago
I haven't tried, but I heard podman runs on freebsd :D
- movedx 10mo ago
  I think that’s true yeah.
AdieuToLogic 10mo ago
> I once upgraded a FreeBSD system from 8 to 12 with a single command. The command you most likely used is freebsd-update[0]. There are other ways to update FreeBSD versions, but this is a well documented and commonly used one. > I don’t recall having to reboot — might have needed to. Updating across major versions requires a reboot. Nothing wrong with that, just clarifying is all. > Most people who use containers a lot won’t find a home in FreeBSD, and that’s fine. I hope containers never come to the BSD family. Strictly speaking, Linux containers are not needed in FreeBSD as jails provide similar functionality (better IMHO, but I am very biased towards FreeBSD). My preferred way to manage jails is with ezjail[1] FWIW. > But then, most people who use FreeBSD know you don’t need containers to run multiple software stacks on the same OS, regardless of needing multiple runtimes or library versions. I completely agree! 0 - https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/ 1 - https://erdgeist.org/arts/software/ezjail/ https://erdgeist.org/arts/software/ezjail/
- movedx 10mo ago
  Thanks for sharing and clarifying those details :) And yes, jails are way better, but here we are.

sellmesoap 10mo ago

Out of the box ZFS is a big selling point for me. Jails are just lovely. The rc system is very easy to reason with. I've had systems that were only stable on freebsd that would crash using windows or various Linux.

arthurfirst 10mo ago
ZFS is amazing and while there are many would be clones there is only one ZFS. I used (and pushed) it everywhere I could and first encountered on Solaris before FBSD. Even had it on my Mac workstation almost 18 years ago (unsupported) -- aside I will never forgive that asshole Larry Ellison for killing OpenSolaris. NEVER. Systemd is the worst PoS every written. RCs are effective and elegant. Systemd is reason enough to avoid Linux but I still hold my nose and use it because I have to.
- BrouteMinou 10mo ago
  But you are aware there are distros without systemd, right?
  - arthurfirst 10mo ago
    Yes. Over the years I've used just about every linux distro from Slackware and RH up to nix + arch, as well programming on Solaris, IRIX, SCO, OS/400 and even Tandem --look it up it's pretty obscure! But I just use FreeBSD mostly now. There's pretty much nothing I can't do on FreeBSD that I would get with one Linux or another. Not much of a gamer so maybe that factors in..
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- tombert 10mo ago
  Sorry, can you be specific about what's terrible about systemd? I really would like to know why it's the "worst piece of shit ever written".

mtlmtlmtlmtl 10mo ago

First of all, FreeBSD has plenty of selling points compared to your typical Linux distro: Small, well integrated base system, with excellent documentation. Jails, ZFS, pf, bhyve, Dtrace are very well integrated with eachother, which differs from linux where sure there's docker, btrfs, iptables, bpftrace and several different hypervisors to choose from, but they all come from different sources and so they don't play together as neatly. The ports tree is very nice for when you need to build things with custom options. The system is simple and easy to understand if you're a seasoned unix-like user. Linux distros keep changing, and I don't have the time to keep up. I have more than 2 decades of experience daily driving linux at this point, and about 3 years total daily driving FreeBSD. And yet, the last time I had a distro install shit itself(pop os), I had no idea how to fix it, due to the rube-goldberg machine of systemd, dbus, polkit, wayland AND X, etc etc that sits underneath the easy to use GUI(which was not working). On boot I was dropped into a root shell with some confusing systemd error message. The boot log was full of crazy messages from daemons I hadn't even heard of before. I was completely lost. On modern Linux distros, my significant experience is effectively useless. On FreeBSD, it remains useful. Second, when it comes to OpenBSD, I don't actually agree that security is its main selling point. For me, the main selling point of OpenBSD is as a batteries included server/router OS, again extremely well documented in manpages, and it has all the basic network daemons installed, you just enable them. They have very simple configuration files where often all you need is a single digit number of lines, and the config files have their own manpages explaining everything. For use cases like "I just want an HTTP server to serve some static content", "I just want a router with dhcpd and a firewall", etc, OpenBSD is golden.

vogon_laureate 10mo ago
OpenBSD's philosophy of simple config files and secure defaults are among its best features.

prmoustache 10mo ago

It has a decent manual for a start.