Why do people use FreeBSD?

OJ said:
I started on DOS...

...FreeBSD also has the advantage of having less users so when I Google stuff I don't have a hundred wrong guesses to wade through to get an answer.
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CP/M was my start. Although... I did write a program in Fortan a couple of years before that.

One of my struggles with non-BSD searches, the engine returns the same result copied on a hundred plus websites.

-JJ
 
I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD. May be only for improving your personal development of skills. FreeBSD services is much more expensive - because all planet writes for Linux and uses Linux. Porting requires a lot of effort and usually ported software works much worse (often missing some features that are turned off - only software run on FreeBSD). In addition, there is no any support from the authors (bugs which are peculiar to the FreeBSD, the authors are not interested in) and there is no certainty. In addition, on FreeBSD no very good products like OpenStack, Ceph, glusterfs (it does not work as it should), XEN (very limited number of the FreeBSD equipment and has a number of defects), OpenNebula, OpenVZ, Docker, LXC (yes - I know about jail, but it had not been developing for more than 10 years, rctl cpu limit can not be used, shared memory between jail - unless it is for production, really) where you have to follow the unique UID between jail?. FreeBSD now interesting only for the installation of localhost, unfortunately.
 
Purkuapas said:
I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD.
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One must then wonder why you saw the point in even posting. If the only reason you registered here is to tell the community its preferences suck and its efforts are wasted, then you should save yourself the time and energy.

As for the content of your post, I'll say this again: it amazes me that Linux advocates toss around the same baseless denigrations of *BSD that Windows advocates do of Linux. One would think that after a person sees past the nonsense about Windows being objectively superior to Linux, they'd be less susceptible to believing the same bullshit about any other operating system. Also, while you listed eight different Linux-centric products, they're all just variations of the same technology. You've really only said "Linux is better because it has more virtualization programs." That's a pretty shoddy foundation upon which to build an argument.

drhowarddrfine said:
You need to ask Netflix, Juniper and Whatsapp why they use FreeBSD.
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Also Sony, and by extension the United States Air Force.

While I'm at it, I suppose my response above makes for a good segue into an answer to the OP: There are several reasons why I fell in love with FreeBSD as a former Arch Linux user. To avoid repeating what anyone else has said, though, one of the things that amazed me about FreeBSD is the negligible degree of superfluity. There's no inane illusion of "choice" in the form of a half-dozen different tools that essentially do the same thing. Wanna manage your disks? gpart and newfs. Which filesystem should you use? Well, there are only two to choose from, depending on your needs, a lot of care has gone into both, and neither is objectively superior to the other. Need to manage network connections? ifconfig. And so on. In most cases you have one tool, it works well, and it will continue to work for the foreseeable future. There's little push to reinvent the wheel, and if you ever find yourself on a FreeBSD system you didn't set up yourself you don't need a twenty-minute crash course in how to interface with it.
 
And now let me introduce exhibit #1, a rare species in the realm of FreeBSD. A Troll. Please do not feed trolls, not before midnight and not after. Trolls tend to be clueless, abrasive, and generally look much better mounted on a wooden plate hung over the fireplace. Trolls also are considered an endangered species in this forum. We have our own in-house trolls, and do not need more of them.
 
Purkuapas said:
I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD. May be only for improving your personal development of skills. FreeBSD services is much more expensive - because all planet writes for Linux and uses Linux.
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Hey, Toto, FreeBSD doesn't look like Linux (in it's infinite varieties).
This forum is not the comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup.
Now buzz off and go study Cobol and JCL.

Moderators: Please take note.
 
Dang, I thought the whole angry teenage angst was for the ArchLinux forums. Oh heck, now I've got Katy Perry's Teenage Dream stuck in my head, but I'm singing Teenage angst........

ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


(walks off humming
Teenage angst
Makes me think they should be spanked
Chains getting yanked
Don't ever look back, don't ever look back)
 
Purkuapas said:
I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD.
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That's what happens when you only judge the system by how it looks and not what it is comprised of internally. You and Linux were born to ride.

sidetone said:
I see this is what was meant by FreeBSD or any BSD being like a pristine beach, and everyone rushing in and ruining it.
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and I hope the beach does stay pristine.
 
Purkuapas said:
FreeBSD services is much more expensive - because all planet writes for Linux and uses Linux
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How is free expensive? I've never been satisfied with installed packages, anyway. I don't think there is a Linux distro that I have fully installed without compiling some oddball package.

And to think I've been spending the last two weeks moving 2GB of data from Windows to FreeBSD. What a waste of time!


aht0 said:
..for SOME privacy.

It's increasingly scarce these days..
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Oh yeah! Now where is that dedupe port?
sysutils/fdupes.

-JJ
 
OJ said:
Then why the *&^% are you posting in this thread? This thread is about why people use FreeBSD.
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Because there are people outside of our circle and I wanted to share something looks like the meaning of FreeBSD uses for them. For example, I saw a large number of broken functionality in ported software (XEN, libvrt-manager and other), 99% of chef modules or puppet does not support FreeBSD. This means that system maintenance is more expensive. The number FreeBSD vacancies on the job sites is 1 percent compared with Linux. Yes, FreeBSD was once popular in the ISP, due to the fact that Linux was small and FreeBSD code based on BSD44 that was licked years. I give the facts, you - call me a troll. Great.
 
Oldrancher said:
Now buzz off and go study Cobol and JCL.
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Ain't that cobol on rails, or something like that? It may be possible, is untried, and therefore the path to the future?

But back on topic. I use FreeBSD because it, unlike the ${ESTABLISHED_LINUX_DISTRO} I used before that, would update and come up again with no problem. For years. Without a reinstall. Without buggering around with config files which change behind your back, or are replaced by something incompatible. It accumulates very little debris over time. It does not need that much maintainence, and is much better documented. That's why I use it.
 
Purkuapas,

Blaming FreeBSD for not supporting third party software is like blaming GNU/Linux for not able to run MS office(on wine), or, Skype properly.
Or, MS windows for not able to run some software...
Some things were designed to run on specific operating systems.

In my opinion, OpenVZ is one of the best thing GNU/Linux could have, unfortunately it is not in mainline kernel, LXC has its own bugs.
Btrfs still does not instill confidence.

I moved from using OpenVZ on GNU/Linux to FreeBSD, as it had feature rich container tech, file system(ZFS), and a new package manager with almost all open source software.
Pretty soon BHyve will fill the missing piece.
Other BSDs have some nice features but FreeBSD is unique in its offerings, and adopts other useful features from the BSDs.

Edit: Forgot to add the excellent documentation FreeBSD has, no need to search the web for how tos, etc.
 
Purkuapas said:
I give the facts,
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I know I shouldn't bite, but it seems you still didn't notice the title of the thread. This is about why people use BSD. Obviously the facts about what's wrong with it are not reasons to use FreeBSD but rather reasons why somebody might not want to use it. Not using it is a perfectly good idea for many people, but it is still the opposite of using it.

You don't need to answer me (and please don't) but I just wanted to help you understand. :)
 
Purkuapas said:
I give the facts
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Your "facts" are flat out wrong. Come back in a year once you learn how wrong you are and tell us how foolish you were. Then we can all have a good laugh. Until then, you are only taking up space with your blind stabs in the dark at something you think is there when it's not. It is blatantly obvious you don't know anything about FreeBSD so you need to stop now.
 
I use FreeBSD for several reasons:
  • It is fast.
  • It has the latest programs, available the second they are updated by program developers.
  • It has a wide variety of ports.
  • It is secure.
  • It's updating is standard.
  • I can contribute to it, and see the improvements soon made to it. If It's pointing out problems, or figuring out how to do something then sharing that.
  • It can be difficult to customize, but it can be customized to the system I find ideal for me.
  • I imagine it doing anything I want it to. While theoretically it can do that, it takes more knowledge than I have, and it can't do it over proprietary software. There can be alternatives. Some windows programs can run emulated on emulators/i386-wine. Imagination, knowledge and ability is the limit with FreeBSD.
 
I installed FreeBSD on a Sun Ultra 27 that had been running Solaris 10 update 11 1/13. I run a small server operation that supports some ISP services as a retirement hobby. I need a good stable base O/S with good resources, and don't see an upgrade path with Solaris. I also don't have, or want to, devote anything resembling "full time" to getting a Solaris replacement into "production." One question I needed to answer was what Solaris resources I would have to find and develop for another O/S to build a production server/desktop system. After two months of running FreeBSD, I've concluded that it's a suitable platform for my needs. FreeBSD 10.3 Release is due at the end of the month, and I'll build a production box with it.

Some things I like about FreeBSD:

1. Security. There is no such thing as "too much security." FreeBSD has ipfilter, so I can configure it by copying ipf.conf from Solaris.
The other NIC-based resources are in addition to what Solaris has, and I'll be configuring them. My production boxes run behind Fortinet Fortigate hardware firewall/routers, so some of my security is redundant. The script kiddies and botnets are out there, and some of what I see here gets fed back to my upstream provider for their benefit.

2. Basic resources I've used, like sendmail and bind, are either already installed or available in /usr/ports. I can use the Solaris configurations to set them up with very little work needed. Some other things I use locally, like trn, elm,and mutt
build from ports. And, since I prefer it, I built and installed the CDE desktop (not ported to FreeBSD). Some people may not like that Xorg has to be installed on top of the base install. So what? Big deal. Install the package, if you don't want to do a local build, and install the desktop of your choice from
those available---and there are plenty of them available.

3. Two compilers, one semi-native. It's not gcc or nothing.

In short, I'd expected to have to do more work than I have, to get FreeBSD configured to replace Solaris for my needs.
 
sidetone said:
I see what was meant by FreeBSD being like a pristine beach, and unwanted guests not respecting it. It's that spoiled attitude, and lack of appreciation for anything done for BSD, and maybe towards anything else for that matter.
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, but some people have the sense to protect what is good and right in the world and there's nothing wrong with that, at all. I and other prominent individuals don't want this project to be californicated as well.

If it does you'll be right back where you started, so be careful what you wish for.
 
I think you understood the first time around. I'll edit the second sentence, because it wasn't referring to the first sentence. It was not criticizing people who want FreeBSD to be respected. I was criticizing an attitude of "gimmie" "gimmie" "gimmie", followed up by negative criticisms.

There is some clarification needed anyway. FreeBSD can use more people, but this also means the project will unfortunately accept unappreciative actions towards FreeBSD's community. That will have to be accepted by me, because widespread use can do more good than irritation.
 
FreeBSD evolves just like any other operating system. The thing I like about it is changes are generally well thought out before hand, agreed upon and made based on technical merit and need, not because of NIH or to have the newest shiny thing available.

It's really amazing when you step back and look at the quality of the project compared to Linux considering it has maybe 5 to 10 percent(guess) of the developers at best.
 
sidetone said:
I think you understood the first time around. I'll edit the second sentence, because it wasn't referring to the first sentence. It was not criticizing people who want FreeBSD to be respected. I was criticizing an attitude of "gimmie" "gimmie" "gimmie", followed up by negative criticisms.

There is some clarification needed anyway. FreeBSD can use more people, but the project will unfortunately accept unappreciative actions towards it. That will have to be accepted by me, because it can do more good than irritation.
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Understood.

I usually take a dim view of any who would act in a manner detrimental to the project. Sorry you got caught up in it.
 
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