The more I use Linux ...

[dalecosp]

... the more I like FreeBSD!

I've quit working "for myself" and started working for someone who can actually pay me.

They lease servers for their websites, and these servers run CentOS 5.x.

Some observations:

1. I *never* had to modify any terminal settings or manpage config files to read FBSD FreeBSD manual pages. Not so with Linux.

2. 'adduser' is a symlink to something vastly inferior to its FreeBSD equivalent.

3. /etc/ is something of a cluttered mess.

4. The default "my.cnf" (for MySQL) was totally wrong for a production system, and mysqld continually ran load averages to 20, 50, even 100+ before I figured this out.

Well, *maybe* that's enough off my chest.

 

[UNIXgod]

I never understood why none of the linux distros attempt to copy a proper hierarchy like BSD. Even attempting to organize distro components from user installed app global rc files seems to be a non priority for distros. I believe the junk drawer that in /etc is a throwback to windows folder of on m$.

 

[vertexSymphony]

I never understood why none of the linux distros attempt to copy a proper hierarchy like BSD. Even attempting to organize distro components from user installed app global rc files seems to be a non priority for distros. I believe the junk drawer that in /etc is a throwback to windows folder of on m$.

There actually are some linux distros that (to certain degrees) copy the BSD philosophy, like Arch, Gentoo or Slackware.

 

[sossego]

Another benefit of the BSD systems is that /usr has a definitive place for additional software such as /usr/local, /usr/pkg, and /usr/packages.

 

[fluca1978]

The problem with Linux distros is the distro part. I mean, the kernel is good (at least in my opinion), utilities are good (to some extent). The packaging is still lacking in many cases. The whole as a thing is not working because each vendor puts in what it think is the best damn cool thing that will bring new market quotes.
I totally agree that FreeBSD is a much more homogeneous, organized, clean and rigorous system. Linux distros sound like a messy up system. Something comes into /etc, something into /var, something under /usr and something else under /opt. Each distro will have its own directory structure, default configuration files with proprietary (not the right term) syntaxes. As an example, RedHat based distro will have a special syntax for the default networking files, while Debian based will have another one.
Gentoo badly copied the ports system, since there is a deep dependency on how you compiled a package and how you are compiling other ones. Slackware not know, sounds to me it simply requires you to compile everything.
I think that with the improvement of last PBI system FreeBSD could become as competitive as Apple's OSX.

And by the way, the tools to massively manage users in FreeBSD are simply great (adduser and pw), I've been doing my own Perl script when having to do such things in Linux...

 

[YZMSQ]

Slackware not know, sounds to me it simply requires you to compile everything.

Well, unlike Gentoo, Slackware doesn't force users to compile everything, which also offers pre-compiled packages as we FreeBSD does.

I think that with the improvement of last PBI system FreeBSD could become as competitive as Apple's OSX.

You bet. I believe PC-BSD will see its bright future.

 

[redw0lfx]

... the more I like FreeBSD!
3. /etc/ is something of a cluttered mess.

This is one of my biggest gripes about Linux distributions. I work with Fedora, CentOS, Debian, Arch, and remembering where each distribution puts the configuration files for certain packages can be annoying. Also makes it really hard to do one script that works across all distributions. I started adopting the LFS rule of using /opt/{program}/(bin|etc|var) to try and make it easier to find the files I need.

So kudos to FreeBSD for having /etc for base configuration files, and /usr/local/etc for all other configuration files. Makes my life just that much better.

 

[UNIXgod]

There actually are some linux distros that (to certain degrees) copy the BSD philosophy, like Arch, Gentoo or Slackware.

I have Funtoo on my laptop currently. I'll double check but I believe there is nothing of value in /usr/local... even if one exists. Even on gentoo /etc is a junk drawer.

 

[fonz]

Slackware not know, sounds to me it simply requires you to compile everything.

Nope. You can if you want to, but there are binary packages available too. One of the better points of Slackware is that out of the box it's no-frills: just like FreeBSD it installs a basic system and if you need more you'll have to go and add it. One of the drawbacks is that the default package management system doesn't track dependencies at all, so if something isn't working because an so-file can't be found, you'll have to go and figure out which package contains that file, install that first and then try again.

Fonz

 

[Pushrod]

I once wanted to update OpenSSH on a CentOS 4.x system as it was quite dated and I needed features in a newer release. I couldn't find ANY docs on how to do this, without merely doing the whole ./configure && make routine, which is very error-prone. I asked for a hand in a large IRC channel for CentOS, and was told that it was not possible, and if I didn't like it, to ask for a refund.

 

[dalecosp]

And by the way, the tools to massively manage users in FreeBSD are simply great (adduser and pw), I've been doing my own Perl script when having to do such things in Linux...

That is exactly what triggered this rant, although it was, fairly, only the "straw that broke the camel's back". As for writing my own Perl script, that sounds a good idea, although I might try Python as well. I could stand the practice in either...

Shucks, if only there weren't so many tickets on the bugboard....

 

[Anonymous]

Linux is nothing but a kernel. Each distro is it's own operating system so why would the configuration files be in the same place on all of them? That's like expecting FreeBSD to put config files in the same place Windows does. Any by saying 'the more you use Linux' you're guilty of the same generalization that Windows people use when they call all Unices 'Linux' whether they be Solaris, Linux, BSD or whatever.

 

[anomie]

I once wanted to update OpenSSH on a CentOS 4.x system as it was quite dated and I needed features in a newer release. I couldn't find ANY docs on how to do this...

That's right. As you discovered, it is not possible (unless someone has built a package and made it available in EPEL). More than once, I've had to upgrade to a newer RHEL to get a newer "foo" app branch.

That is one major problem when there's no distinction between "base system" and "third party apps". On FreeBSD, at least you could have utilized security/openssh-portable.

 

[dalecosp]

Linux is nothing but a kernel. Each distro is it's own operating system so why would the configuration files be in the same place on all of them? That's like expecting FreeBSD to put config files in the same place Windows does. Any by saying 'the more you use Linux' you're guilty of the same generalization that Windows people use when they call all Unices 'Linux' whether they be Solaris, Linux, BSD or whatever.

Points taken, and to be sure, lumping them all together might give some distro or another a black eye it doesn't deserve.

However, consider that, broadly speaking, they 'market' (perhaps 'hype' is a better term) CentOS, RedHat, Debian, SuSE, $foo, $bar, $baz under the generic term "Linux" to the broader audience. Consider also the challenges that 'they' face in market penetration (whether or not that's their goal isn't *particularly* relevant, although I realize that's not the case for all). If they could achieve some sort of unified technical front and policy, so that you used $fooLinux and $barLinux in the same way for a given task (and the docs were clear on this as well), they might achieve what they seek.

As it is, FreeBSD is superior in this regard and, IMVHO, would've absolutely dominated Linux if the timing of things had been different back in the day.

 

[kpedersen]

Each distro is it's own operating system so why would the configuration files be in the same place on all of them? That's like expecting FreeBSD to put config files in the same place Windows does.

Because there is something called a Linux standard base?
And yeah, FreeBSD *is* more likely to put config files in the same place Windows does than for Linux distros to agree... (I.e still not very likely at all.)

Linux distros are a scattered mess that need to be culled!

Does FreeBSD have a larger userbase than any single Linux distro? Even Ubuntu users seem to flitter about different distros like female penguins on heat...

 

[sossego]

More positive points for the BSD systems:
1. Architecture support is easier to find. UltraSPARC/SPARC64 boxes are supported by both OpenBSD and FreeBSD. There is no need to find drivers for the disks. This wasn't so for Debian.
2. Since the code bases for each BSD system is centralized, one has a better chance of working with developers as both a learning experience and a way of contributing back to the community.

 

[fluca1978]

Linux is nothing but a kernel. Each distro is it's own operating system so why would the configuration files be in the same place on all of them? That's like expecting FreeBSD to put config files in the same place Windows does. Any by saying 'the more you use Linux' you're guilty of the same generalization that Windows people use when they call all Unices 'Linux' whether they be Solaris, Linux, BSD or whatever.

You are absolutely right if you refer to them as Linux distro A, Linux distro B, etc.
What they share in common is the kernel, and sometimes they share nothing more than the name and some gnu utilities. I mean, vendors have done it all the time around: they customize their creature to make it different from the others around the planet. That is their aim. So you will come to have a Linux A that has some kernel patch that are not in the mainstream (or not yet). It happened with Red Hat just to make an example. Having the system behaving the same or likely the same but being different means that it is simple to convince your client to switch from Linux A to Linux B as you want. And opens the door for a lot of certifications for Linux A, Linux B, ...
So it becomes the usual platform game. Among the others, there are some good distros that do not this, but still there is not a "unique starting point". Now, this could be bad, as we BSD-ers intend it, or it could be good because it gives the users a lot of choices. I personally think that a few choices are good (NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD), a lot of choices are simply confusion! But this is my thought!

 

[peetaur]

2. 'adduser' is a symlink to something vastly inferior to its FreeBSD equivalent.

I hate the Linux adduser too. I use the older command useradd. I vaguely remember one system not having useradd, so I edited /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow by hand. I can't even remember the difference because I haven't ever tried to use adduser after my first experience with it. But I am perfectly happy with useradd, usermod, and groupadd.

 

[vermaden]

The more I use Linux ...
... the more I like FreeBSD!

Same here, recently I needed to create 8-node cluster on Linux, we have chosen Scientific Linux instead of CentOS, because SL is at 6.1 and CentOS is only at 6.0 in the 'upstream vendor clone race'. There were also quite big changes in the whole RHCS cluster stack between 6.0 and 6.1, so I also got CentOS 6.0 Minimal CD (which sounded like kernel.gz + base.gz + manpages.gz for me) and ... CentOS in 'minimal' variant does not come with CRON daemon, thats right, but what is more funny, it comes with logrotate which relies on cron

A lot people filled a BUG report upon this case and they even mentioned in the latest 6.1 Minimal CD Release Notes [1], that the 'minimal' variant comes without cron and if You want one, then install it with yum install cronie

[1] http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/Rele...head-757a9834f02f0bd6588759ad5d299347454249cf

 

[SR_Ind]

Recent experience on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Qt applications using Qt-Sql won't compile, as reported by devs in my team. A little investigation showed that the stock installation of Qt on RHEL and Fedora has a lot of missing headers.

Fine I thought, lets do a source install of Qt. Next shock is that the configuration script complains that 'make' or 'gmake' is missing.

We thought Qt is big package and we cannot spend time tweaking the "configure" script, we should target something smaller.

We thought of doing a qmake installation first and then let qmake handle rest of the installtion. This exactly the way FreeBSD handles it. To our horror there is not a standalone qmake package in Qt.

My immediately realization was that on RHEL/Fedora its not even possible to do a non-GUI Qt installation (the configuration we require for our Telco apps).

Sorry excuse of an operating system. I'd not be surprised if the distros dished out by kids are even worse that Red Hat crap.

 

[fluca1978]

We thought of doing a qmake installation first and then let qmake handle rest of the installtion. This exactly the way FreeBSD handles it.

That is the point. When dealing with Linux you often have to deal with the vendor wills, that are reflected as binary packages compiled in a specific way. This is fine, but very often you will have to download and compile the package as you want, so that is the way of working of ports....
As an example, on my linux boxes I never use the default binary Java installation, I download and install by my own. The same is true for Eclipse IDE and even for PostgreSQL, which I download and compile tweaking the options that I need.
While this is not very suitable for your grand-ma desktop, it is the way of doing

 

[hitest]

One of the drawbacks is that the default package management system doesn't track dependencies at all, so if something isn't working because an so-file can't be found, you'll have to go and figure out which package contains that file, install that first and then try again.

I see the lack of dependency checking in Slackware as a strength, not a weakness. Slackware ships with slackpkg which is an excellent way to patch your Slackware system. A full install of Slackware works out of the box with all dependencies met.

 

[Speedy]

Another thread where most of posters think bashing Linux makes them l33t? As stated before, Linux is the kernel. When it comes to full OS it's GNU/Linux.
There is RH and there is LFS. And the whole world between them.
Why can't novice FreeBSD users leave Linux alone?
I remember years ago on old forum which got sunk in spam somebody tried to replace their overloaded Gentoo-based web servers with FreeBSD hoping to cope with load. They found out the hard way Gentoo was able to serve two times more connections than FreeBSD.

These are FreeBSD forums here. Try to remember that. Linux may be an annoyance and it may be great. That's the very nature of FOSS.

 

[vermaden]

Another thread where most of posters think bashing Linux makes them l33t? As stated before, Linux is the kernel. When it comes to full OS it's GNU/Linux.

It just makes me wonder how is it possible for Linux, most notably its most enterprice incarnations or their rebuilds to be so not suitable for production/business in so many ways comparing to how many $$$ Linux ecosystem currently has versus quite low funding mechanism for BSD systems.

 

[fluca1978]

As stated before, Linux is the kernel. When it comes to full OS it's GNU/Linux.

I partially agree with that. Linux is a kernel, and then we have Linux distros, and among the latters, GNU/Linux distros. You cannot label a software as "GNU" just because it uses the GPL or some pieces of GNU stuff.