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.