Why not FreeBSD

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Let me first say that I really appreciate FreeSBD. It is a great project. I am wondering though why major Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are using Linux instead of FreeBSD. I mean these are very smart and tech-savvy people. Why aren't they choosing FreeBSD although it even has the same major advantages like no license costs and source code availability?

See HERE.
 
Please take all this as me simply whining. My lazy ass should learn how to port and help other people, I know. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are the most sane environments I've encountered in computing. I love them and thank all the people working on them. I understand there are people shortages, it's a hobby for most contributors, and nothing is perfect.

Consider your lazy_CTO_ass lucky and thank the Higher Powers for PC grade computers with server operating systems, such as Linux and *BSD. ;)
You wouldn't wannabe CTO, admin, coder or hacker, during (80's-90's) the stone age of computing hype with UNIX, Unix-like or some other OS implementation on the monster hardware platforms of those days.


I and my under_educated_dumb_and_sorry CATIA operator ass had to deal with all the HOT computer science, back in the olden days. I even tried to improve my UNIX skills by buying and building expensive 8086 PC kit to learn Xenix. But, the FPOS would not do much or help me improve my IT skills related to IBM/AIX or Cray's FORTRAN, that our CATIA workstations were communicate with. Just like some wannabe-hackers of today, we had to cut through the mess and maze of the half-ass hardware and software solutions without having formal, proper or even official training in UNIX systems. But at the end, we've helped design, test and produce Boeing 777, all in virtual reality, without making expensive mock up model airplane that would never fly. The 777 went from digital version to the first fully functional and flying airplane version. I wish that my old brain had retained all the knowledge that I gained in those days. Sadly, I lost most of it , due to aging and living dangerously.
Now, only CATIA and FreeBSD on PC give me some flashbacks into my most exciting professional life back then when..
 
Daemonette
Because penguins are more attractive than beasties.

Let's put this issue to bed right now, figuratively speaking:

devilgurl.jpg

There's one of our Daemonettes. Please post a photo of your most attractive Penguin representative to back up your claim. We love penguins:

bon_appetit.png

The ones I saw at the zoo had pooped all over their feet. Not that it's a problem with me if that's something you find attractive in a Penguin hottie. Mods have final say on what's in good taste.
 
I think we are dangerously close to be witness of how the platipus emerged. If it had horns and daemons had fur. So let's get back on track or become a rectangular object.
 
Let me first say that I really appreciate FreeSBD. It is a great project. I am wondering though why major Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are using Linux instead of FreeBSD. I mean these are very smart and tech-savvy people. Why aren't they choosing FreeBSD although it even has the same major advantages like no license costs and source code availability?

FreeBSD disciples are somewhat delusional; linux has traditionally been way ahead of FreeBSD in multicore performance and while FreeBSD may be catching up, don't expect companies to just drop what their engineers are experts with to switch because FreeBSD now isnt lagging as far behind.

It's also a lot easier to find linux techs than freebsd techs.

I've used both extensively and prefer FreeBSD as a server due to it's cleaner and more traditional internals. Linux is an abortion internally. But as a desktop linux is way ahead in terms of supporting devices and touchscreen systems.
 
I feel you completely. I have been using FreeBSD as my desktop OS for 1,5 years so far. I have still 2 or 3 issues that have not been resolved, most notably - sound crashing sporadically and needing restart.
For the occasional breakages there is a remedy though. You just snapshot your system frequently and if something breaks after an upgrade, roll back, report and wait for a fix.
Also, I use Arch in parallel - stuff breaks there too occasionally. It's natural, so just by using snapshots wisely I have been able to work very well so far.

I think that a FreeBSD box is meant to be tweaked to the max with quite a lot of effort but once you have it working well, snapshot and forget it for 10 years - it's just going to work.

I don't really see the point of using freebsd or linux as a desktop. Why torture yourself? Buy a 3 year old iMac for less than your hardware costs and focus on whatever work you're doing.
 
I don't really see the point of using freebsd or linux as a desktop.

If you have to ask you'll never know.

Why torture yourself?

Who is torturing themselves? You? I'm having a pretty good time:

the_red_and_the_black.png


Buy a 3 year old iMac for less than your hardware costs and focus on whatever work you're doing.

Why would I? I'm using a Win7 era Thinkpad W520 with Intel Quad Core i7-2760QM @ 2.40GHz, 8 GB RAM, HITACHI Travelstar 500GB HDD @ 7200 RPM and Nvidia Quadro 1000M with Optimus Technology I paid $200 for. Everything works and I couldn't be happier.

FreeBSD disciples are somewhat delusional.

Please detail my delusions out for me with brutal honesty and verbosity so I will be aware of them. Embarrassing as I know it's going to be, I don't want to continue living a lie.

It's also a lot easier to find linux techs than freebsd techs.

That speaks to the caliber of Linux techs as opposed to FreeBSD techs.
 
If you have to ask you'll never know.



Who is torturing themselves? You? I'm having a pretty good time:

View attachment 7047




Why would I? I'm using a Win7 era Thinkpad W520 with Intel Quad Core i7-2760QM @ 2.40GHz, 8 GB RAM, HITACHI Travelstar 500GB HDD @ 7200 RPM and Nvidia Quadro 1000M with Optimus Technology I paid $200 for. Everything works and I couldn't be happier.



Please detail my delusions out for me with brutal honesty and verbosity so I will be aware of them. Embarrassing as I know it's going to be, I don't want to continue living a lie.



That speaks to the caliber of Linux techs as opposed to FreeBSD techs.

Delusion defined. Spending 100s of hours trying to get a freebsd or linux system to be half as good as a MAC to save a few $100 isn't my idea of a good time. Obviously my time is worth a lot more than yours.

I used to dick around with mythTV. Seemed cool at the time. There are some things you can do that you can't do with a standard DVR. But the amount of time to maintain the stupid thing just made getting rid of it a huge relief.
 
Netflix runs on FreeBSD servers.
just on their openconnect appliance, the rest is mostly linux.

to answer the question, my point of view:
*) lack of java support, which is important for most of our clients doing web application and egovernment stuff
*) googles golang states freebsd not as being in the primary tier, which is important for some of our partners for their apps.
*) in general, linux is technically more advanced. go largescale? - use docker and scale up - getting a fully automated highly available infrastructure for many clients is quite easy and not so time-consuming compared to FreeBSD. go embedded/mobile? lots of drivers for all kinds of devices - we are also in the iot and medtech field - no drivers at all for FreeBSD. hosting? linux supports out of the box live migration for years now - a problem for my smaller projects. clusterfilesystems or distributed block device? many options for a long time now in linux land.

From the last point, the docker stuff is probably the most important thing for us. Be it an iot platform or on-premise servers where our software is delivered to, using aws/gcp or docker costs much less than using FreeBSD/Jails ... there is simply no integration in the tools that are used for FreeBSD, unfortunately. In this regard I have the feeling that FreeBSD is falling behind more and more.

the rest of my thinking is very similar to blackhaz, especially concerning desktop. Its sad but FreeBSD has become more of a personal hobby to me with almost no relevance at my work.
 
Delusion defined. Spending 100s of hours trying to get a freebsd or linux system to be half as good as a MAC to save a few $100 isn't my idea of a good time.

That further speaks to your own overall ineptness as a FreeBSD user.


I've used FreeBSD in a "company" (and BSDI before) since the mid 90s and I'm always years behind. FreeBSD 5 and 6 literally didn't work (and were slower than 4.7), so we skipped them; what was that, 3 years? You run into MORE PROBLEMS upgrading to "new" software than you do "incompatibilities" with a 2 year old OS.

Customers want stability. New versions of an OS are unstable by definition. I still host on some FreeBSD 9.1 systems. Nobody is demanding we upgrade Apache 2.2 to 2.4. As long as a fairly late version of PHP runs, nobody cares what version of FreeBSD is running on the system

As does your previous argument.


Obviously my time is worth a lot more than yours.

I don't know about that...


I used to dick around with mythTV.

How much are they paying you to "dick around" as Admin for that "company"?
 
just on their openconnect appliance, the rest is mostly linux.
My view: in a critical, high speed situation, Netflix did not choose Linux but did choose FreeBSD.

to answer the question, my point of view:
*) lack of java support
I don't do Java but afaik, Java is up-to-date on FreeBSD. Isn't it?
googles golang states freebsd not as being in the primary tier
But Golang works on FreeBSD. At least it did when I last tried it last year. Does it no longer work?
in general, linux is technically more advanced. go largescale? - use docker
Can you think of a larger scale than Netflix video distribution or Whatsapp or internet backbone routers? And when Docker goes out of business, then what?
the docker stuff is probably the most important thing for us.
And when Docker goes out of business, then what?
FreeBSD has become more of a personal hobby to me with almost no relevance at my work.
Well, FreeBSD is ALL of my work and Linux has no relevance to me. (15 years running a web development company including one or two sites you probably visit on a regular basis.)
 
I don't do Java but afaik, Java is up-to-date on FreeBSD. Isn't it?

Official (Oracle) versions are non-existant on FreeBSD from what I can tell. There is OpenJDK, but AFAIK it's not truely 100% compatible with the official JRE..

But Golang works on FreeBSD. At least it did when I last tried it last year. Does it no longer work?

It does for all the things I want it to. But if it's not "primary tier" I can see why someone might not want to rely on that for their income...
That said, I can't find anything about tiered platform support...This page suggests as long as you're running FreeBSD 10.4 or higher, you're golden.
 
That further speaks to your own overall ineptness as a FreeBSD user.
I have to go with Trihexagonal here. Reading his, or Vermaden's excellent FreeBSD Desktop How-To articles really works well for getting a FreeBSD desktop system running. Though if you simply follow the handbook and do not care about all the customization possible in FreeBSD, it is actually simpler, easier, and faster to get a working FreeBSD desktop system. It may not be as well tuned or customized, and requires using a Desktop Environment like KDE or XFCE instead of a simple window manager, but it all works well right out of the box when you follow the instructions. I have found very little that I cannot easily do on FreeBSD that I would want to do on a Linux or Mac machine.

I have found my situation to be too often, when working with Linux or MacOS, that what should work doesn't, and the documentation or help found usually involves quite complex solutions that may or may not work, usually not.

On FreeBSD I have found that if it is documented to work, it just works. If it is not documented to work, it may work, it may not, but at least you are not set with the expectation that it will work only to be disappointed when it doesn't.

With the current state of FreeBSD, especially since 11.x, anyone complaining about the difficulty to set up a FreeBSD system either 1. has a very specific use case that outside the mainstream; 2. is trying to make FreeBSD do something it isn't documented to be able to do; 3. Is trying to make FreeBSD work like Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc., instead of FreeBSD; or 4. aren't really trying.
 
Official (Oracle) versions are non-existant on FreeBSD from what I can tell.
Red Hat switched to OpenJDK and doesn't support Oracle's JRE/JDK any more either.

 
I don't do Java but afaik, Java is up-to-date on FreeBSD. Isn't it?
Now yes, thanks to glewis. But half a year before it seemed they would really fade out java support ...

But Golang works on FreeBSD. At least it did when I last tried it last year. Does it no longer work?
Sorry mixed that up with rust where FreeBSD was just tier2. However, golang works, but its about 3 times slower compared to Linux in our tests.

Can you think of a larger scale than Netflix video distribution or Whatsapp or internet backbone routers? And when Docker goes out of business, then what?

And when Docker goes out of business, then what?
Thats not my problem, its something the decision makers have to worry about. Furthermore, the technology exists even without the backing company Docker - so a fork would be very fast online, or otherwise one can at least run the images with another runtime environment that supports the OCI standard. While it is very simple to work with, its also a huge mess. Install an app for a showcase? - just install and run the image which is one command (no setting up jail, installing database, etc)! And people with decision power often play that buzzword bingo so they wanna have docker because they dont know anything else, they want to see the first result an hour later and not wait until I have setup a jail for something ...
Larger companies can afford to implement their own solutions, but being small and scaling big is difficult so docker/aws/whatever is a simpler solution demanding much fewer resources. I would really love to see a FreeBSD container solution for rapid deployments ... a jails spinoff without systemtools/init but with the linux-compat so one can immediately run such containers in a secure environment (I do trust jails much more than docker).

Well, FreeBSD is ALL of my work and Linux has no relevance to me. (15 years running a web development company including one or two sites you probably visit on a regular basis.)
All I can say I really envy you! I have tried hard to find jobs in my area related to BSD, but its hard and I really am not a salesperson. I am probably the most relaxed person anyone of my collegues knows, but when I have to deal with systemd problems I really get aggressions.

I think its kind of a chicken-egg problem - the lack of some modern solutions and corporate support leads to less recognition of the BSDs which then leads to less corporate support...
 
Let's see, installing FreeBSD (I installed FreeBSD 11.3 on one of my machines yesterday; it has space for a few more partitions on drive ada0)
0) write the FreeBSD install image to a usb stick - I used one of my other FreeBSD workstations for this

1) boot the machine from the FreeBSD install usb stick, select "live" and read through the dmesg output just to be sure that all devices I care about are detected correctly (you know, network interfaces and stuff)

2) boot again (yes - I'm lazy) and run the installer - install FreeBSD

3) exit to shell and do any manual modifications if required (I give dhclient parameters so my machines get a semi-static ip address from my dhcp server, also I can set boot flags with gpart, if required)

4) boot into the new FreeBSD install, run freebsd-update(8). Update to the latest patchlevel.

5) bootstrap pkg(8) and install packages for drm. For me it means drm-kmod (the port is graphics/drm-kmod). Configure the drm package by adding the correct kld_list= variable in /etc/rc.conf. I'm not always sure what kind of Radeon graphics I have, so I just tried kld_list="amdgpu" first, rebooted - the console didn't change and the I knew it was radonkms, so change to kld_list="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko", reboot - ok, we got it.

6) next, install Xorg packages you need; I like to test things with startx befoe installing a desktop environment, so I install xclock, xterm, twm, xrandr in addition to xorg-minimal.

7) configure Xorg by creating a file for your keyboard layout, mine is /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/keyboard-no.conf and the contents is
Code:
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "keyboard defaults"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        Option      "XkbLayout" "no"
EndSection

8) run startx as your user to test that Xorg works (I also like to run xrandr from a terminal window in Xorg, to verify that the resolution is correct

9) install your favorite desktop environment via pkg. Mine is xfce, so # pkg install xfce.

10) run startxfce4 as your user and enjoy your new FreeBSD desktop.

(ok, you probably need to insstall a bunch of programs via pkg first)
 
Delusion defined. Spending 100s of hours trying to get a freebsd or linux system to be half as good as a MAC to save a few $100 isn't my idea of a good time. Obviously my time is worth a lot more than yours.
Obviously you don't know how to use *nix systems at all, overall time that you spending playing around with your housewife OSes, like macos or M$ Windows, will be about 100 times more. Because, for example, my Devuan installation on my laptop will be almost 3 years old soon and FreeBSD installation on my workstation is about 5 years old... And I had absolutely 0 problems with it, I've just installed it, copied my configs and I'm using it till now and I may use it 10 years more, I just need to easily update it every couple of years . Also I would never replace my FVWM configuration (https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/390111) —
Снимок экрана от 2019-10-23 11-26-55.png
with some shiny, glitchy and resource intensive crApple crap even if someone will pay me money every day for using this nasty housewife OS. Every time I used some Apple hardware, I've removed that slow, glitchy and annoying thing called macos, also I'm continuing to do it even till now, with installing something reasonable on my friends laptops. Even few ladies, which work for a friend of mine, are using FVWM with my config and Devuan installed on their work laptops and they are very happy with it, because everything work pretty well, fast and stable. Linux is already there, it is possible to use it on desktops pretty efficiently (non systemd distros), while FreeBSD is almost there, because some desktop applications and drivers are still missing, but it is possible to use it on workstations pretty successfully.
 
Thanks for the clarification. I thought that Netflix was streamed from servers running FreeBSD.
It is. The server is just called an appliance.

Netflix delivers streaming content using a combination of intelligent clients, a central control system, and a network of Open Connect appliances.
FreeBSD was selected for its balance of stability and features, a strong development community and staff expertise. All code improvements, feature additions, and bug fixes are contributed directly back to the open source community via the FreeBSD committers on our team. We also strive to stay at the front of the FreeBSD development process, allowing us to have a tight feedback loop with other community and partner developers. The result has been a positive open source ecosystem that lowers our development costs and multiplies the effectiveness of our efforts.
 
I was thinking exactly the same thing when we were discussing the RPI4's adoption (or lack thereof) by FreeBSD, weberjn.
We all get it, FreeBSD has limited man (ahem, people)-power, but it's also in danger of being left behind as all those Raspberry Pi using students with Linux installed on them means the greater chance these kids only know Linux in the open source sphere. Next thing they've graduated, move into business and are in position of decision making and guess what they opt to use? Hint: It doesn't contain "BSD" in the name.

I remember back in the day Apple pushed hard in academia to expand their base. It's a proven strategy (although in Apple's case cost was the big prohibiting factor).

I know FreeBSD is pushing into Armv8 territory, and that's good, but an overall strategy to expand people's awareness of FreeBSD should also be a goal. What better way than an official FreeBSD system on Raspberry Pi's own website. I see Windows 10 (cough) and a gaggle of Linux; I don't see FreeBSD.
 
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