Is it normal that you believe FreeBSD better?

freezr

freezr

Hello,

I have this naive feeling recently and I wonder if it is going change in the future as it has already changed in me recently.

I think, despite all my limitations, to be a 99% a BSD user now: my daily driver computers run FreeBSD and OpenBSD — I am appreciating FreeBSD more for the server side and OpenBSD for desktop side because the latter does less — my pet servers are FreeBSD...

However I still have to run Linux, I need it especially on my SCBs where the BSD support is still lacking if not totally missing, and every time I think this setup is easier on Free/OpenBSD, or it lesser convoluted, or is better, etc...

Now everything is new and I am on the peak of the learning curve but I wonder if ten years later I could change my mind again just because I became full of *BSD as it happened with Linux, which became unbearable for me after the Debian systemd debate. In FreeBSD and OpenBSD I still can find that desirable design approach that try make anything simple, exposing the complexity, not try to hidden behind a simple interface.

What's you thought? Thanks!
 
freezr said:
but I wonder if ten years later I could change my mind again
Click to expand...
I suppose it isn't useful to get religious or anything like that (outside of having a little bit of fun and banter). However who knows what the future will bring; Linux might clean up its act.

To be fair, if a decent Linux distro came along that provided an actual concept of a "base" and even a fraction of the size of the FreeBSD community, I think that could tempt many ex-Linux guys back. I would even use it for some awkward hardware situations.

Simplicity is key. GNU-like projects consistently fail this every time. I.e User-friendly != simplicity and this is where they are hung up on at the moment. Weirdly almost every distro is; leading to very little true innovation.
 
kpedersen said:
[...] Simplicity is key. GNU-like projects consistently fail this every time. I.e User-friendly != simplicity and this is where they are hung up on at the moment. Weirdly almost every distro is; leading to very little true innovation.
Click to expand...

Completely agreed!
 
I'm about the same timeframe as SirDice and have not and don't foresee me changing my mind.

My position has always been:
It's the applications you need to run. The OS underneath doesn't matter very much as long as it's stable and everything runs "fast enough".

Definitely don't fall into the "OS as religion" trap; it simply makes you unable to have an honest discussion with others.
The OS is simply a tool, so just like everything else, pick the best tool for the job at hand. You would never frame a house with a ball peen hammer, you use a proper framing hammer. You would never do open heart surgery with a chainsaw, you use a scalpel (ok a chainsaw would be useful to get through the rib cage).
If FreeBSD is the best for your servers, run your servers on it. OpenBSD for a desktop? Sure use it. If it has the applications you want, and runs good enough, I'd say that the default security policies on OpenBSD are good for a desktop.
I run some Linux because of $WORK, but I write the code on FreeBSD systems.

Biggest thing to me is don't fall into the OS as a religion.
 
I'm dual booting with gentoo. As a user i cannot say which one is better. They both allow to compile from source and configure.
Also openrc is not very different from freebsd-rc.
Gentoo has a few more browsers...
 
I am not a kind of a dogmatic person, I don't think I would fall into a religion war, but I have my principles however what I feel about FreeBSD is practical...

For instance I can't remember the IP flags on Linux, they tried to make it better but I feel is more convoluted. Speaking of configuring the *net interfaces, for me, is much more easier on FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Full disk encryption requires lesser steps on FreeBSD and OpenBSD than Linux.

On FreeBSD you can setup a lot of stuff from rc.conf, on modern Linux you have to touch many more knobs if not worse create an obscure systemd-unit.

I have more examples to share...
 
FreeBSD Admewnistration hasn't changed since I startered usering and adminikittying it back in 1998. Much of the Pawbook from 4.x still applies in 13.x. Linux, on the other paw, has been at least 3 completely different systems in that same timeframe, pawssibly even 4.

I've been a consistent FreeBSD-kitty. Sometimes FreeBSD falls behind, but it always catches up. Like hybrid graphics not working until 2021. But hey, it worked (eventually).
 
Alain De Vos said:
Linux does not impose systemd,
Eg,

OpenRC - ArchWiki

wiki.archlinux.org wiki.archlinux.org
Click to expand...

Gentoo was one the few that, back to time, didn't genuflect itself in front of RH to make systemd the (universal) default init system; if today we can still run Linux without systemd is because Gentoo, Guix and later Devuan forked all the pieces that were hardcoded, by Gnome and others, to run exclusively with systemd. Gentoo can run both openrc and systemd by the way.
 
Its just some features that FreeBSD has and other operating systems do not have:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

For example ZFS Boot Environments originate from Solaris/Illumos ... but you will rather not use Solaris/Illumos on the laptop/desktop ... and Linux is nowhere near ZFS Boot Environments parity. When you take all FreeBSD posibilities and features together - it makes areally interesting Linux alternative that is simpler and more sane to use.
 
vermaden said:
Its just some features that FreeBSD has and other operating systems do not have:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

For example ZFS Boot Environments originate from Solaris/Illumos ... but you will rather not use Solaris/Illumos on the laptop/desktop ... and Linux is nowhere near ZFS Boot Environments parity. When you take all FreeBSD posibilities and features together - it makes areally interesting Linux alternative that is simpler and more sane to use.
Click to expand...
Boot environments are not that important.
I don't even use them. Why would I ?
I boot linux grub , towards ufs-freebsd-boot , towards zfs-freebsd-root.
But it is true zfs&linux don't go good together, I can't explain,is it a license thing ? [ You can expect always booting problems]
Anyway, even without boot-environments zfs has many very interesting features as filesystem.
And don't forget jails, or as many call it name-space.
These allow to run postgresql-X when the host runs postgresql-Y without any conflict.
 
Y
Alain De Vos said:
Boot environments are not that important.
I don't even use them. Why would I ?
I boot linux grub , towards ufs-freebsd-boot , towards zfs-freebsd-root.
But it is true zfs&linux don't go good together, I can't explain,is it a license thing ? [ You can expect always booting problems]
Anyway, even without boot-environments zfs has many very interesting features as filesystem.
And don't forget jails, or as many call it name-space.
These allow to run postgresql-X when the host runs postgresql-Y without any conflict.
Click to expand...
You jut do not understand how much ZFS Boot Environments change the game ... and I do not have the time to explain it to you at the moment.

Seems I need to do a blog post about it ...
 
vermaden said:
You jut do not understand how much ZFS Boot Environments change the game ... and I do not have the time to explain it to you at the moment.

Seems I need to do a blog post about it ...
Click to expand...
I agree, you need to do a blob post about it. Because I don't understand what boot environments will do. What problem that I actually have will it solve? Is it worth the effort, for example to learn how to operate it? In my usage pattern, what's the value proposition? I know roughly what it does and how it works, I just don't see the use for myself (YMMV).
 
Free
freezr said:
Hello,

I have this naive feeling recently and I wonder if it is going change in the future as it has already changed in me recently.

I think, despite all my limitations, to be a 99% a BSD user now: my daily driver computers run FreeBSD and OpenBSD — I am appreciating FreeBSD more for the server side and OpenBSD for desktop side because the latter does less — my pet servers are FreeBSD...

However I still have to run Linux, I need it especially on my SCBs where the BSD support is still lacking if not totally missing, and every time I think this setup is easier on Free/OpenBSD, or it lesser convoluted, or is better, etc...

Now everything is new and I am on the peak of the learning curve but I wonder if ten years later I could change my mind again just because I became full of *BSD as it happened with Linux, which became unbearable for me after the Debian systemd debate. In FreeBSD and OpenBSD I still can find that desirable design approach that try make anything simple, exposing the complexity, not try to hidden behind a simple interface.

What's you thought? Thanks!
Click to expand...
FreeBSD is indeed better and best unix system there is currently. Shame is that its underrated and lacks support for some things. It follows original unix idea that is not at all obsolete nor old.
 
My opinion only on Boot Environments. For a home user, desktop, the use case is Upgrading.

How many times have folks upgraded a Windows machine and had things go bad? System won't boot or applications that used to work, now they don't.

That is why I use Boot Environments, or root on ZFS.
Upgrading either freebsd base or packages? Create a new BE and do the upgrade. If something fails, reboot and fall back to the previous one, the known good.
Very easy system recovery.
Upgrading across releases, say 12.x to 13.x Create a new BE, upgrade to 13.x and you have not lost your working 12.x. Boot into the 13.x make sure it works, give it a bunch of soak time to feel it's good, then make it permanent.

Of course if you have 100% confidence in an upgrade, then yes ZFS and boot environments are a waste of time.
 
Alain De Vos said:
Boot environments are not that important.
Click to expand...
They are. I remember mentioning that a boot environment was automagically created during a major upgrade sometime ago. That was a saving grace; otherwise, life would have been hectic at that point.

Indeed, somewhere in the FreeBSD documentation or a release note had it written that a BE would be automatically created (perhaps in changing from Releng<->Stable/Current or so). I hope that remains the norm.

One thing that I have not given so much thought is FreeBSD Update Server vs BE. They both can serve the same purpose to some extent. On the importance of BEs, one can test a major upgrade in a working or production environment without restarting. One can build and install ports/pkgs for another profile without booting into it. Such profile could serve another purpose e.g. different kernel options for a particular development environment. The importance of BE is endless; sadly, I have not been regularly using it.
 
Horses for courses. I have been a FreeBSD user at home for about 25 years.

However, after Sun fell to Larry, and the accumulated wisdom on Solaris moved behind a (poorly indexed) pay wall, I made a conscious decision to switch to Linux for work, and stayed there for a long time. So, I'm pretty much completely comfortable with the penguin (systemd excluded).

Although I generally choose FreeBSD, I do use Linux where it's a better solution for me. In this context "better" generally means easier to implement, support, and use. e.g. I have MythTV servers on Linux (because that's where it's developed and supported best).

I have embraced ZFS on FreeBSD, for the reasons enumerated by mer above. The free disk space pool shared between all file systems in a pool is also worthy of special mention.

My Linux servers still have their root mirrors split into dual boot areas, for testing upgrades. ZFS boot environments have relegated this practice to history on my FreeBSD systems.
 
Lady Serena Kitty said:
FreeBSD Admewnistration hasn't changed since I startered usering and adminikittying it back in 1998. Much of the Pawbook from 4.x still applies in 13.x. Linux, on the other paw, has been at least 3 completely different systems in that same timeframe, pawssibly even 4.

I've been a consistent FreeBSD-kitty. Sometimes FreeBSD falls behind, but it always catches up. Like hybrid graphics not working until 2021. But hey, it worked (eventually).
Click to expand...
I think this is very important point you make!

Learning IT-stuff is hard. If knowledge you have acquired becomes obsolete just because of some hype, this is very frustrating. And I think this leads people into only scratching the surface of things and never dig deeper, because, hey, it'll become obsolete anyway!

Not a good trend, imho.
 
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(Reply to "Boot environments are very important"...)

Lamia said:
They are. I remember mentioning that a boot environment was automagically created during a major upgrade sometime ago. That was a saving grace; otherwise, life would have been hectic at that point.
Click to expand...

Understand. But: One of the main 3 or 4 reasons I run FreeBSD is that upgrades are simply, fast, painless, and most importantly very very reliable. In about 15 years of running OpenBSD and FreeBSD, I've yet to see an upgrade go bad. So to me the ability to go back after a failed upgrade is a solution to a problem that I've never experienced, and I have reasonable statistics.

I know that sometimes upgrades "break" things. I have a reasonably good test battery for the server functions of my system. I have experienced having to spend an hour after an upgrade, getting things back to full function. The most recent one was a change in Apache that exposed an ancient (ridiculously old) .htaccess file I had on my web server becoming unsupported. But in such a case, completely reverting the upgrade would be way more work than just fighting my way out forward.

And if an upgrade really destroyed the system (such as the ability to boot), it would take me less than an hour to get the system back up and running (I do image backups of the boot disk, I think weekly). And it would take about a day of work to completely reinstall from scratch and restore from backups, with no data loss. Now, perhaps those functions could be better handled by BE.

Obviously, YMMV. For someone who wants to be on the bleeding edge, who performs lots of configuration changes, who runs a GUI/DE on their machine, the answer might come out very different. Similarly, for a production system without extra hardware (to switch between multiple servers), the ability to rapidly revert an upgrade might be useful.
 
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ralphbsz "horses for courses" as the saying goes. People have run on UFS for years and not needed BEs, but they have developed processes and procedures that limit or eliminate the need for BEs.

In the grand scheme of things one doesn't "need" BEs, but they are useful.
 
freezr said:
Full disk encryption requires lesser steps on FreeBSD and OpenBSD than Linux.
Click to expand...
This is wrong if it's from the installer. Fedora, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, Debian all "tick box", OpenBSD some additional effort required. Between the OSes there would be little difference in effort for adding full disk encryption to additional disks.
Alain De Vos said:
But it is true zfs&linux don't go good together, I can't explain,is it a license thing ? [ You can expect always booting problems]
Click to expand...
Considering ZFS is in recent Ubuntu installers you're still speaking from past knowledge, ZFS is being adopted...
 
tux2bsd there are very few installers that allow full-disk encryption out-of-the-box and aren't 100% bullet proof, the majority can't do that cause because Grub don't how to read it encrypted partition (latest version can though) and you needo to reserve a partition for boot and EFI, therefore you can encrypt the disk partially and you must know what you are doing.
 
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