My boss asks: why FreeBSD?

  • FreeBSD can run linux apps quicker than linux does and linux cannot run BSD binaries at all. So running BSD servers means less vendor lock-in
  • FreeBSD's community is in general more educated about technology therefore support is better quality which saves a significant amount time/money when solving technical issues
  • FreeBSD has much more and better organized documentation making training quicker, easier, and therefore cost less
  • FreeBSD is developed by teams of people in a highly coordinated/organized way leading to stability in features, security, structure, etc from it's beginning. Whereas, linux's development is more unorganized/chaotic leading to applications quickly becoming incompatible and features frequently being removed and/or added.

Linux is for the short sighted business owner who thinks the larger linux labor force will save them money because hiring linux people is perceived as cheaper. In the long run using FreeBSD for anything linux can do is a lot less expensive though for the reasons listed above. Especially considering linux admins can be hired to administer BSD because of the similarities, a short training and research period of no more than a week should be enough for them to adjust.
 
  • FreeBSD has a much more professional support (for free) than any linux distro, at least this is true in my experience.
  • FreeBSD is much more solid and rigorous than Linux is
  • FreeBSD has a very well done documentation.

And you are lucky if your boss is asking only "why", I had once that let me choose the switch to BSD and then tried to make the whole switching to fail since he was so little brained that he simply refused to learn something different from Linux (not that he knew Linux so well, tough!).
 
When I do get a chance to say something about FreeBSD I say this.

It's the userland that can be trailered in comparison to a distribution that couldn't be upgraded. And it has no purchasing distractions.
 
Wow! I didn't think my subject would have many response like this! I know why I choose FreeBSD too! The FreeBSD community is: patient, interesting, professional, sharing ideas. You are like a family or best friend, try to respond, try to find a solution.

I saw on some other community guys that are "fighting" about which one has the better response! You're not like this.

Thank you all!
 
nORKy said:
Wow! I didn't think my subject would have many response like this! I know why I choose FreeBSD too! The FreeBSD community is: patient, interesting, professional, sharing ideas. You are like a family or best friend, try to respond, try to find a solution.

I saw on some other community guys that are "fighting" about which one has the better response! You're not like this.

Thank you all!
Click to expand...

So how did it go?
 
First, I would ask yourself is FreeBSD good for you? Ultimately at the end, if the project is approved, you're going to be the one responsible for the whole thing. So, before you advocate a certain OS, you need to make sure that FreeBSD is going to be able to do what your current setup does.

Now, I don't know what the technical expertise of your boss or other personnel are, but in general speaking technical terms to management doesn't go over too well. So, if you're focusing on an enterprise filesystem, don't say, "FreeBSD has ZFS and Linux only has ext4."

Say,

"One advantage to FreeBSD is that it has an enterprise level filesystem that can help ensure greater reliability of our data. This means that issues such as hard drives failing won't be as much of a problem as ZFS has a high focus on data integrity. Unfortunately, due to licensing issues, our current Linux setup won't ever get those features."

Then, you also have to factor in training. If your staff don't know FreeBSD, then you'll have to account for training in your plan as well. If you can give your boss a reasonable migration plan, then he might change his mind. But as I'll state again, the main point should be on how it'll improve his business.
 
  1. Today the only sane filesystem is ZFS. (BTRFS is the worst IT joke in this century. When I read fedora-devel I feel sorry every time). No other available filesystem but ZFS cares about your data. After switching to ZFS you will see how often the hard drives do mistakes. You won't believe your eyes. And you won't understand how can anyone use a checksum-less filesystem in 2012 for anything. Yes, I mean anything. Even for photos or music collection. If you don't need your data you shouldn't even save it. ZFS was my number one reason for switching from Linux.
  2. FreeBSD is clean. You won't have 2536 obsolete files in /etc. You won't have ten /something/somewhere/bin directories. You won't have installed programs mixed up with the base system. You can remove every installed package in seconds without hurting your system or leaving obsolete files. You don't have to reboot your freshly installed system from CD just because you forgot to install a DHCP client or something like that. (There is no DHCP client in Gentoo base). In FreeBSD the base system contains the software you need to maintain your computer. Your system update won't make your bootloader fail like Debian, Ubuntu and even Gentoo does that sometimes.
  3. Everything is there where it should be. (Well, 99.5% of times.) You just feel right.
  4. At least one of the available firewalls (ipfw) were made by people who don't hate everyone else in the world. This is not true for iptables.
  5. You won't spend hours configuring 10k features of the kernel time after time but you also won't miss kernel features.
  6. FreeBSD for the desktop is in no way less than Linux. I switched to FreeBSD on all my desktops and I never looked back. The things you will miss from a FreeBSD desktop are the same you will miss from Linux. (For me it's high quality audio and most of the 3D games. But those are presented in Windows and not in Linux).
  7. Ten years of using Linux never made me donate. After several months of use I donated to FreeBSD. Because I felt that my money goes to the right place.
As for downsides: sometimes software gets available for FreeBSD later than for Linux. I had to wait for MongoDB 2.0 for several months more. I also had hard time installing Ruby with RVM one year ago. It wasn't stable. Now it is.
 
Mage said:
  1. Today the only sane filesystem is ZFS. (BTRFS is the worst IT joke in this century. When I read fedora-devel I feel sorry every time). No other available filesystem but ZFS cares about your data. After switching to ZFS you will see how often the hard drives do mistakes. You won't believe your eyes. And you won't understand how can anyone use a checksum-less filesystem in 2012 for anything. Yes, I mean anything. Even for photos or music collection. If you don't need your data you shouldn't even save it. ZFS was my number one reason for switching from Linux.
  2. FreeBSD is clean. You won't have 2536 obsolete files in /etc. You won't have ten /something/somewhere/bin directories. You won't have installed programs mixed up with the base system. You can remove every installed package in seconds without hurting your system or leaving obsolete files. You don't have to reboot your freshly installed system from CD just because you forgot to install a DHCP client or something like that. (There is no DHCP client in Gentoo base). In FreeBSD the base system contains the software you need to maintain your computer. Your system update won't make your bootloader fail like Debian, Ubuntu and even Gentoo does that sometimes.
  3. Everything is there where it should be. (Well, 99.5% of times.) You just feel right.
  4. At least one of the available firewalls (ipfw) were made by people who don't hate everyone else in the world. This is not true for iptables.
  5. You won't spend hours configuring 10k features of the kernel time after time but you also won't miss kernel features.
  6. FreeBSD for the desktop is in no way less than Linux. I switched to FreeBSD on all my desktops and I never looked back. The things you will miss from a FreeBSD desktop are the same you will miss from Linux. (For me it's high quality audio and most of the 3D games. But those are presented in Windows and not in Linux).
  7. Ten years of using Linux never made me donate. After several months of use I donated to FreeBSD. Because I felt that my money goes to the right place.
As for downsides: sometimes software gets available for FreeBSD later than for Linux. I had to wait for MongoDB 2.0 for several months more. I also had hard time installing Ruby with RVM one year ago. It wasn't stable. Now it is.
Click to expand...

When I use gentoo, I have to spend time to config the linux kernel over and over again.
I have to confess that I am aggressive, but I do config the linux kernel when a new kernel is available in gentoo stable.
Finally, I have realized that this is an endless fight.
Right now, the linux kernel includes about 2000+ options.
 
fender0107401 said:
When I use gentoo, I have to spend time to config the linux kernel over and over again.
I have to confess that I am aggressive, but I do config the linux kernel when a new kernel is available in gentoo stable.
Finally, I have realized that this is an endless fight.
Right now, the linux kernel includes about 2000+ options.
Click to expand...

Yep it's a joke. make menuconfig is ridiculous. The first time I compiled linux I was so turned off with it after years of building kernels on FreeBSD with simply copying GENERIC and editing the custom kernel configuration with vi.

It really amazes me that it gets the marketability it does even until today. The "Year of the Lunix Desktop" never happened and it has none of the elegance of a real UNIX server. It's prime user base really pushes it like yet another buzzword.

It's just the way the world works I guess. I still recall watching Steve Jobs announce OSX with its core OS running Berkeley UNIX and he had to explain in the key note that it's "Like Linux" and "FreeBSD UNIX which is the same as Linux".

Reference is made at 2:45 ish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII

Buzzzwords and marketeers =)
 
This are good technical reasons, but you don't go with technical reasons to business people.

Again you have to present true cases of improvement for your business. Ex. you don't need to improve the performance or the security of an application that doesn't have an impact on customers ( either internal or external), your time should be invested on critical services and the impact to final users. If FreeBSD helps you improve critical services in some way, explain exactly that and you may have a case, if not, moving from any OS to FreeBSD will just be a waste of time from management's perspective.

My 2 cents.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top