Thank you FreeBSD community

Dear Friends,

I have been a Debian GNU/Linux user since 1998, now migrating to FreeBSD and would like to thank the whole community for their hard work over the years.

I decided to have a try after watching:

There is a lot of crap flowing around FreeBSD, i.e. it would be "too big to maintain" or "morally inferior". Blablabla.

Under Linux, I have been using: lvm (to resize partitions), ext4 (journaling system), mdadm (RAID), lxc (light virtualisation), iptables (packet filtering), etc ... On my personal desktop and a few servers.

It is only recently that I discovered that some Linux tools were either behind FreeBSD or that FreeBSD had had the same features for years, with a stable environment.

  • Example #1: iptables does not know how to log packets without doing a "jump". nftables is supposed to fix this, but it breaks syntax and not widely adopted by the community. So a lot of Linux servers are running with poor logging are just fences that you can jump.
  • Example #2: I have been using LXC for years. It is not stable and being developed by Canonical. Debian does not include the latest version which is supposed to offer isolation. LXC has some obscure settings that are modified from one version to another.
  • Example #3: When using raid under GNU/Linux, to replace a functioning disc, you have to disconnect the disc, remove it and then add a new disc to the pool and resync. Under FreeBSD, this seems to be done in one command: zpool replace mypool adaXp3 adaYp3.
Before migrating to FreeBSD, I am reading FreeBSD documentation and I am quite impressed by the quality of writing and style. I am discovering new features everyday. I am still amazed by the "hardening options" proposed immediately during installation. My daily user is already viewing only his own processes. A dream comes true ...


$ ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND
xxxxxx 799 0.0 0.1 13144 2860 u0 S 12:41 0:00.03 -sh (sh)
xxxxxx 803 0.0 0.1 21164 2588 u0 R+ 12:41 0:00.00 ps aux


FreeBSD rocks ....

Why did it take me so many years to migrate? An explanation might be given in the Lunduke show: It might be because GNU/Linux was the first free software that I have been exposed to, so I lived with the impression that it was the best OS. So your first glance at a product probably matters. Something happens in the brain and you become addicted, even if it is rubbish.

In France, we say: "Les cordonniers sont les plus mal chaussés", i.e. "The cobbler's children go barefoot".
I feel a child in Front of FreeBSD and I am walking barefoot.

Kind regards,
French Fries
 
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A while back, my network guy convinced me to go ahead and let our company take on a web dev project that included messing with a cllient's Linux network and I recall him tearing his hair out and regretting ever getting involved. What you mention about the tables sounds familiar.
 
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