The Trouble with FreeBSD

I didn't look through the whole video because I think the speaker doesn't really make good arguments here and there. He raises concerns but doesn't bother to dive into the reasons why he feels those concerns are problems.

For example: one of the problems, according to the speaker, is that FreeBSD is big. A big source tree which takes time to build and because of that build time it would be tedious to test aspects of the system you're working on. The only problem is that I consider this a non-issue for the simple reason that I can configure the build process not to build a ton of overhead, now referring to /etc/src.conf.

If I disable the building of Sendmail, OpenSSL, OpenSSH and optionally the entire tool chain (programs used for program development) then I would seriously cut into that build time. See src.conf(5) for an overview of what I'm talking about.

Yet the speaker doesn't address this, doesn't even mention this option. All he says is that FreeBSD is big, and therefor long to compile which is a problem according to him.

That's not making a fair argument, that's sharing half-truths. Or... Or you're talking about things you don't know as much about as you imply, but that's a call I can't make because I don't know the guy. I know he said that he was using FreeBSD since the 90's but that's no proof that you (still) know a lot about the (current) system. I can honestly state that I have been using Linux ever since 1998, my very first distribution which I started to use more seriously was RedHat 3.0.3 ("Picasso"). But that doesn't tell you zip about my current experience level with Linux.

So yeah... didn't really enjoy this one and also didn't look through the end of it.
 
ShelLuser said:
I didn't look through the whole video because I think the speaker doesn't really make good arguments here and there. He raises concerns but doesn't bother to dive into the reasons why he feels those concerns are problems.

For example: one of the problems, according to the speaker, is that FreeBSD is big. A big source tree which takes time to build and because of that build time it would be tedious to test aspects of the system you're working on. The only problem is that I consider this a non-issue for the simple reason that I can configure the build process not to build a ton of overhead, now referring to /etc/src.conf.

If I disable the building of Sendmail, OpenSSL, OpenSSH and optionally the entire tool chain (programs used for program development) then I would seriously cut into that build time. See src.conf(5) for an overview of what I'm talking about.
...
So yeah... didn't really enjoy this one and also didn't look through the end of it.
Click to expand...

2 hours for compiling, if leaving out compiler tools, but then you have a FreeBSD system that can't compile anything beyond C or that is complex. ShelLuser remembers that mention.

The guy in the video is entitled to his opinion. While I know FreeBSD has a few setbacks, it is nowhere as tangled as Linux/GNU. FreeBSD is still more efficient and more practical than many operating systems. Only something like Redox, Minix or another BSD operating system could be able to give those criticisms without more accurately describing itself. Some are similar to FreeBSD, some are not as practical, and some only fall short because of lack of software availability and hardware support.

I don't see Minix taking off, and that's because of how it was made more difficult to contribute to. For instance, someone must log in with their full name, as opposed to most forums. It may not seem like much, but how many people log in to forums with their full name? Anyone can offer documentation resources elsewhere, but they won't be official, or they'd have to take extra steps to reach them. There's hardly any activity over there about documentation or other. I really like concepts behind Minix, but that is a serious bottleneck.
 
I have come across many FreeBSD users that say they miss the days of the 4.X series. I find FreeBSD currently to be rock solid and very useful for quite a wide range of use cases. An interesting set of opinions nonetheless. Its nice to reflect every now and then.
 
The presenter has maybe something else to do than bashing on Unix systems ;)

BSD is old, ... that's the best one.
Why not telling to use modern .NET ;)
GCC is also old, why not using Java ;)
 
For me, the scary part is the presenter is on FreeBSD core team. If your attitude seems to be - we should be more like Linux, why not go develop for one of the Linux distros?
 
sidetone said:
2 hours for compiling, if leaving out compiler tools, but then you have a FreeBSD system that can't compile anything beyond C or that is complex. ShelLuser remembers that mention.

The guy in the video is entitled to his opinion. While I know FreeBSD has a few setbacks, it is nowhere as tangled as Linux/GNU. FreeBSD is still more efficient and more practical than many operating systems. Only something like Redox, Minix or another BSD operating system could be able to give those criticisms without more accurately describing itself. Some are similar to FreeBSD, some are not as practical, and some only fall short because of lack of software availability and hardware support.

I don't see Minix taking off, and that's because of how it was made more difficult to contribute to. For instance, someone must log in with their full name, as opposed to most forums. It may not seem like much, but how many people log in to forums with their full name? Anyone can offer documentation resources elsewhere, but they won't be official, or they'd have to take extra steps to reach them. There's hardly any activity over there about documentation or other. I really like concepts behind Minix, but that is a serious bottleneck.
Click to expand...
redox interesting!
check this one out: http://rmox.net/index.html

and http://menuetos.net/
 
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