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Disclaimer: No disrespect meant towards FreeBSD or the maintainers. I currently work on FreeBSD servers pretty much exclusively for my job and I have a really

Disclaimer: No disrespect meant towards FreeBSD or the maintainers. I currently work on FreeBSD servers pretty much exclusively for my job and I have a really hard time grokking why I would want to use them over some flavor of Linux. I also work (and have worked in my career) with Linux servers (Ubuntu and Debian primarily, and things like alpine in docker) and there isn't anything I do that I think "I wish I was on FreeBSD", the opposite is not true, I semi-regularly pine for X tool or Y program that doesn't run on FreeBSD (or is harder to run). It's very possible that I am just not using/experiencing the full power of FreeBSD (as in: I'm too dumb to know how great it is) but if I had pro/con columns for FreeBSD I can think of a number of cons and very few pros that Linux doesn't share. Again, there is a very good chance that I'm "holding it wrong", but I've heard "oh, but not on FreeBSD" or "Hmm, they don't support FreeBSD" about too many things that might have solved issues we've run into at my job. Maybe I'm boring or maybe I'm just lazy but I feel like Linux is the past of least resistance, it has the most info online available, the most guides, blog posts, LLM training, etc. I'd be interested to hear what people on HN like best about FreeBSD so I can see if it applies to my usage or not and to see if I can't learn new tips/tricks.

Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
While the "better" security than Linux argument is weak, the FreeBSD/OpenBSD OS network packet handling is extremely good (common OS for routers etc.) =3
- kalleboo 9mo ago
  I ended up switching from FreeBSD to Linux twice (TrueNAS CORE -> TrueNAS SCALE, opnSense -> OpenWrt) due to poor network performance on FreeBSD. Could just never get 10 Gbps throughput on FreeBSD, whereas Linux on the same hardware was fine. Across Intel and Mellanox NICs, so not a specific driver issue.
  - Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
    Usually Linux can enable a vendors direct packet handling driver as a closed source firmware that bypasses the kernel almost completely once the user connection is setup. That was the most economical way to handle several SFP-DD Transceivers at saturation in a normal host. ymmv There are probably better solutions around these days. =3
hekkle 9mo ago
BSD can be a better choice for a variety of reasons. Firstly business reasons BSD has more permissive licences than Linux's GNU licence which compels you to share any modifications you make to the software. BSD uses the MIT licenses which state that you are allowed to modify the source code and not release it, which is why most embedded devices like routers/firewalls use BSD over Linux. That and BSD is faster at networking. It also has better storage (ZFS), although this is now implemented in Linux, it is not as stable as BSD which developed it specifically for their OS.
slyfox125 9mo ago
The typical touted benefit is the native first-party ZFS support.
doublerabbit 9mo ago
Mine: It's not Linux. Linux feels like a heavy weight. Compiling a kernel is tideous. If a service fails, systemd breaks which a PITA in to fix. "Waiting for X/Y to quit", NetworkManager is archaic. I've found that on RedHat based distro's you have to at least enable different repo's (epel, rpmfusion, el) just to get the packages required. Debian you're already out of date but that's for security, so fair enough. It's under corporate control, Ubuntu (Canonical) is corporate, anything RedHat (IBM) are corporate. You try to look online for a reason why SSSD is failing and the actual answers are hidden behind a paywall on redhat.com We have aggressive HP machines designed for Windows with 4000RTX's which get used for rendering. They get thrashed and for the studio to obtain further TPN status I am moving from Windows to Linux. The struggles on a good day to operate with them is insanity. I'm now drinking 2x double shot lattes a day from just a single, double shot. Next it will be whisky, some days I have snuck in a shot of Mezcal before work in hope the Mezcal gods save the day. FreeBSD handles them like a champ. TPN doesn't recognize FreeBSD so it has to be Rocky Linux. I needed a PXE server, this shop only had a old 2009 mac mini left over in the cupboard. It does the job, 100Mbit is fine for provisioning, and if I want more I'll just use a USB Ethernet dongle. Linux, failed. FreeBSD, booted off memory stick and has been working flawlessly. I now have a working PXE server coded in TCL and running on FreeBSD. It's glorious and because so I've now been told going forward all my future creations must be Python. Urgh but fair enough, TCL is niche. ZFS <3, why the hell TrueNAS went Linux is beyond my grasp. I run FBSD 16 (bleeding edge) on my main rig, 4x screens. 2x27' 4K, 2x27' all work flawlessly with Xorg. Jails are fantastic, my web browsers never touch the OS and at any point I can torch them and roll back to a clean snapshots. Thanks ZFS. Four of my colocated servers are running FreeBSD. Two of them have over 1000 days uptime. mookie@cookie:~ $ uname -a && uptime FreeBSD cookie.server 12.2-BETA1 FreeBSD 12.2-BETA1 r365618 GENERIC amd64 10:39PM up 1699 days, 1:31, 1 user, load averages: 0.64, 1.30, 1.31 My laptop which works flawlessly including suspend (MSI Modern 2015) works as my media TV station with Bluetooth audio streaming to my sound bar with a 3rd party HDMI transmitter. This runs FreeBSD. I didn't see you give any reason to why you don't like FreeBSD. because what you can do on Linux, you can do on FreeBSD. ./configure, make, make install. Nothing else is required unless you want docker, then eww. go away. My life of a FreeBSD admin has been a large weight off my shoulders. And I was there when Linux was on the 2.x branch kernel & you had to write your own X config without internet at the age of 13. If it wasn't for Minix pissing off Linus, Linux wouldn't of existed. The only distribution if forced would be Slackware.
Gud 9mo ago
For me it’s the amazing ports and pkg system. I use Arch for superior hardware support on the laptop and FreeBSD on the server for superior software management.
jasomill 9mo ago
I run most of my personal network infra (routers, DNS servers, etc.) on FreeBSD because I have been running it on FreeBSD since the late 90's, and have never had any reason to change it. In all that time, I've never felt like I suffered from lack of information on how to get things done: the documentation is generally good, and I've always been able to fill in any missing details by reading shell scripts and, very very rarely, source code.

Joel_Mckay 9mo ago

While the "better" security than Linux argument is weak, the FreeBSD/OpenBSD OS network packet handling is extremely good (common OS for routers etc.) =3

kalleboo 9mo ago
I ended up switching from FreeBSD to Linux twice (TrueNAS CORE -> TrueNAS SCALE, opnSense -> OpenWrt) due to poor network performance on FreeBSD. Could just never get 10 Gbps throughput on FreeBSD, whereas Linux on the same hardware was fine. Across Intel and Mellanox NICs, so not a specific driver issue.
- Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
  Usually Linux can enable a vendors direct packet handling driver as a closed source firmware that bypasses the kernel almost completely once the user connection is setup. That was the most economical way to handle several SFP-DD Transceivers at saturation in a normal host. ymmv There are probably better solutions around these days. =3

hekkle 9mo ago

BSD can be a better choice for a variety of reasons. Firstly business reasons BSD has more permissive licences than Linux's GNU licence which compels you to share any modifications you make to the software. BSD uses the MIT licenses which state that you are allowed to modify the source code and not release it, which is why most embedded devices like routers/firewalls use BSD over Linux. That and BSD is faster at networking. It also has better storage (ZFS), although this is now implemented in Linux, it is not as stable as BSD which developed it specifically for their OS.

slyfox125 9mo ago

The typical touted benefit is the native first-party ZFS support.

doublerabbit 9mo ago

Mine: It's not Linux. Linux feels like a heavy weight. Compiling a kernel is tideous. If a service fails, systemd breaks which a PITA in to fix. "Waiting for X/Y to quit", NetworkManager is archaic. I've found that on RedHat based distro's you have to at least enable different repo's (epel, rpmfusion, el) just to get the packages required. Debian you're already out of date but that's for security, so fair enough. It's under corporate control, Ubuntu (Canonical) is corporate, anything RedHat (IBM) are corporate. You try to look online for a reason why SSSD is failing and the actual answers are hidden behind a paywall on redhat.com We have aggressive HP machines designed for Windows with 4000RTX's which get used for rendering. They get thrashed and for the studio to obtain further TPN status I am moving from Windows to Linux. The struggles on a good day to operate with them is insanity. I'm now drinking 2x double shot lattes a day from just a single, double shot. Next it will be whisky, some days I have snuck in a shot of Mezcal before work in hope the Mezcal gods save the day. FreeBSD handles them like a champ. TPN doesn't recognize FreeBSD so it has to be Rocky Linux. I needed a PXE server, this shop only had a old 2009 mac mini left over in the cupboard. It does the job, 100Mbit is fine for provisioning, and if I want more I'll just use a USB Ethernet dongle. Linux, failed. FreeBSD, booted off memory stick and has been working flawlessly. I now have a working PXE server coded in TCL and running on FreeBSD. It's glorious and because so I've now been told going forward all my future creations must be Python. Urgh but fair enough, TCL is niche. ZFS <3, why the hell TrueNAS went Linux is beyond my grasp. I run FBSD 16 (bleeding edge) on my main rig, 4x screens. 2x27' 4K, 2x27' all work flawlessly with Xorg. Jails are fantastic, my web browsers never touch the OS and at any point I can torch them and roll back to a clean snapshots. Thanks ZFS. Four of my colocated servers are running FreeBSD. Two of them have over 1000 days uptime. mookie@cookie:~ $ uname -a && uptime FreeBSD cookie.server 12.2-BETA1 FreeBSD 12.2-BETA1 r365618 GENERIC amd64 10:39PM up 1699 days, 1:31, 1 user, load averages: 0.64, 1.30, 1.31 My laptop which works flawlessly including suspend (MSI Modern 2015) works as my media TV station with Bluetooth audio streaming to my sound bar with a 3rd party HDMI transmitter. This runs FreeBSD. I didn't see you give any reason to why you don't like FreeBSD. because what you can do on Linux, you can do on FreeBSD. ./configure, make, make install. Nothing else is required unless you want docker, then eww. go away. My life of a FreeBSD admin has been a large weight off my shoulders. And I was there when Linux was on the 2.x branch kernel & you had to write your own X config without internet at the age of 13. If it wasn't for Minix pissing off Linus, Linux wouldn't of existed. The only distribution if forced would be Slackware.

Gud 9mo ago

For me it’s the amazing ports and pkg system. I use Arch for superior hardware support on the laptop and FreeBSD on the server for superior software management.

jasomill 9mo ago

I run most of my personal network infra (routers, DNS servers, etc.) on FreeBSD because I have been running it on FreeBSD since the late 90's, and have never had any reason to change it. In all that time, I've never felt like I suffered from lack of information on how to get things done: the documentation is generally good, and I've always been able to fill in any missing details by reading shell scripts and, very very rarely, source code.