Why do you use FreeBSD?

Well, everyone has their different reasons for using FreeBSD, whether it be on a Desktop or a Server. I am curious as to why people choose it over other operating systems such as Linux, Windows or OSX.

Personally for me, I have numerous reason, the first most is, that there seems to be more professionalism involved. The community seems more mature, while compared to the Linux community (Even though it doesn't apply to everyone in that community) which seems to be filled with elitism, arrogance, ignorance and prepubescents wanna be hackers. Who generally believe to be more knowledgeable than they actually are. I think this comes because most have been Windows users, and the little jump from Windows to Linux has fueled their ignorance.

The license was also another reason, while there is the above that also applies to the license of the users being fanatical about the license, with general responses to anyone who doesn't use GNU/Linux being "Why do you hate Freedom" because I generally don't agree with GPL. They're like contradictory religious fanatics. If I write some code, whether it be based on someone else's code and I extended, freedom to me would be deciding whether or not my code be proprietary. GPL doesn't offer this freedom, while BSDl does.

As well as those two issues I have, another is with Linus and Richard Stallman them selfs. They seem to fit in with the elitism of the community, and generally troll, preach and show complete arrogance and closed mindedness.

Overall it seems like a complete cesspool or arrogance, prepubescents and general annoyance, with little professionalism at all.
 
I came to FreeBSD from Linux 2 and 3/4 years ago. I used to use Linux, but I continually found that it was disorganized, chaotic, and unprofessional. I also knew Windows had an ominous future ahead of it and OSX made me want to lobotomize myself. Switching to FreeBSD was a great choice for me, one I have not regretted, because its all so elegantly designed. I could never go back to Linux, I'm hooked on BSD. :)
 
I started with PC-BSD in 2005 and switched over to using FreeBSD as my only OS this year. FreeBSD makes a rock-solid desktop/laptop and I like the ports system and structure of it.

I don't care for Linux at all and if FreeBSD was no longer around for some reason would go with OpenBSD before I'd use Linux.
 
Yeah, also for development FreeBSD seems more controlled and professional to me. For instance, I do not like the speed of which new things are integrated into a 'stable' version of the Linux kernel, it feels a bit like a sandbox full of ad-hoc changes to me instead of the odd-numbered testing branches they had earlier. Also, the tight combination of kernel and userland in one operating system package appeals to me compared to many bits and pieces of different projects that usually happen to work fine together and where all the individual distributions have to QA the entire package which is essentially the same operating system.

That, and ZFS of course. The Linux equivalent is far from ready.
 
A couple of reasons:

I'm an OS X guy on the desktop, and the userland command line is pretty much the same.

I'm a Unix networking guy from way back - started out with Linux, but FreeBSD is superior as far as I'm concerned due to the way things are integrated "properly". Also the distinction between the base OS and ports is nice.
 
Amzo said:
As well as those two issues I have, another is with Linus and Richard Stallman them selfs. They seem to fit in with the elitism of the community, and generally troll, preach and show complete arrogance and closed mindedness.

Overall it seems like a complete cesspool or arrogance, prepubescents and general annoyance, with little professionalism at all.


I think I understand the Linus comment... Kinda early internet celebrity like the current web developers marketing themselves like rockstars with youtube and g+ - Any specific reason you don't like Stallman? Just out of curiosity. I always figured he was a bit forward thinking for his time. Also I don't recall RMS or Torvalds for that matter even stating anything negative about BSD. Lennart Poettering on the other hand should be redirected to /dev/null and displays some of the Dunning-Kruger qualities which seem prevalent on newfeeds like /. and Phronix forum.

Who knows. If the linux kernel was never created and GNU was still in the cathedral with the hurd kernel still in development we would still have FreeBSD and another os like BEOS would probably be the dominant desktop thingy driving OSX.

It's just software. These OSes are just tools for our creations and workflows. I used FreeBSD for over a decade before I had even looked at playing with linux. Ubuntu is kinda boring( like running windows without having games) and gentoo/funtoo is closer to what I'm used to with *BSD so it's not completely alien.

As for desktops I do miss running FreeBSD on a laptop - though I don't mind using OSX for local development and work on *BSD servers over ssh. The only difference now is that I don't have my hacked up custom e16 wm and have these bubbly next style shortcuts in an animated dock eating away my screen real estate with one for terminal.app and other for firefox.

I've seen this thread before. Maybe these all should be merged.
 
When reports surfaced about the Sony DRM rootkit in Windows XP (an audio CD could trash your system), I decided to try something new. I had two known options: Linux and FreeBSD. The latter seemed more organized and so I went with that.

With some patience, the FreeBSD handbook, and several years of exclusive use, I mastered it for most workstation-related tasks.

But I will say, there's no distinct difference between FreeBSD, Linux, or some other Unix-like system for the experienced end-user. Put me in front of any Unix system, and I can pretty much figure it out because of my experiences with FreeBSD.

That's not necessarily good for FreeBSD either. There's nothing unique about it for workstation use. FreeBSD needs more innovation ... otherwise any other Unix-like system can do the same job. Even worse is that Linux is a household name now. Anybody curious about Unix these days won't even think to try FreeBSD (because they've never heard of it).

That said: I use it because I started with it.
 
I use FreeBSD on my Server, mainly for ZFS but also because I really like the FreeBSD way of doing things.

I currently run ArchLinux on my desktop but with all the recent changes, I may change to FreeBSD the next time I upgrade my rig.
 
Lorem-Ipsum said:
I use FreeBSD on my Server, mainly for ZFS but also because I really like the FreeBSD way of doing things.

I currently run ArchLinux on my desktop but with all the recent changes, I may change to FreeBSD the next time I upgrade my rig.

I think I might be turning into something of an Arch Linux refugee myself. Don't get me wrong, I love the OS and it's still my favorite Linux distro. But I'm really fond of the FreeBSD way of handling things, and with pkgng it's now feasible to have a system setup and updated mostly from binary packages. That'd been a long hold back for me personally.
 
I love src/ ports/. Consistent base.

I love the configuration of FreeBSD. Everything has a very clear syntax and very well documented, such as devfs.conf(5), rc.conf(5), ...

I love the handbook, the FreeBSD daemons and services. Using bluetooth daemon is so much more easy to use in constrast to linux (that bluez is written in python and very buggy).

I also love jails, a very powerful feature for securing servers.

I have sent a lot of minor fix, updates for ports because it is very easy to maintain. And one feature added in the bluetooth bthid daemon (for my bluetooth mouse :)).

And why I like, when you start a fresh install on FreeBSD and run top command, you only see something like 15-20 processus where Linux will probably have more than 40. Also if you run mount, you will probably see devfs and / where linux needs a lot more.

FreeBSD is very clean (probably slower to boot and has several ACPI issue) and I just don't want to change.

I have 1 laptop, 1 alix, 1 server and 1 desktop computer, all running FreeBSD :)
 
This was selling point for me ofc.

Windows-freebsd.jpg
 
It makes a good time server and good ordinary PC, too...

I started with FreeBSD because David Mills has stated on numerous occasions that FreeBSD is the best platform for NTP. If nothing else, FreeBSD's time support is stable and has had working PPS support more consistently than Linux PPS support. I keep using it because the documentation is very good, and there are little pleasantries here and there. The base system is very close to what I'd use in a computer anyway--I add Samba, upgrade NTP, add vim, add the Vorbis tools and SoX, add smartmontools, and maybe some GNU stuff--but the base system compiles from source with one command, and the extra stuff doesn't take much time to get working on FreeBSD.

Linux culture is bad right now. I've been using Linux since 1996, and I remember when it was not bad at all, and the hierarchy of developer/vendor/power-user/user/newbie wasn't etched in stone like it is now. Should you find yourself using Linux again, try to work with the base system and work your way outwards. The programs that were made by good people to run on multiple platforms--like NTP, Samba, Perl, and many of the GNU tools--are still made by those good people, and many of these programs also compile on FreeBSD without too much of a hassle. In fact, you can compile these programs on FreeBSD and use it as a litmus test of a good program.

I like both Linus and RMS, but you'd have to read about RMS to see him as more than a crazy old hippy. If you judge RMS by his words and deeds--and not by the behavior of his followers--you'll see that he's an okay guy with decent motivations.
 
I started to use it almost 14 years ago as a web server for a project after that in a little research I did I found that Yahoo! was using it. FreeBSD4 I think it was, and the experience was fantastic.
As someone said already, it is and it feels clean, it is consistent to configure, the Handbook is perfect, the system is reliable, stable, robust, the ports collection is pure solid gold, the man pages are up to date, and the community, here in the forum, is always respectful and kind. I like also the freedom behind the license.
I would like to have more time to learn about the internals, but, just being a user, is a lifetime experience.

Today I have my workday laptop, my home-disk server, my home-laptop and a couple of hosted server, all running FreeBSD and, the next month, the web site of the organization in which I am working for now, goes from MS to FreeBSD ;)

Thanks to all the people that makes FreeBSD possible.

cheers!
 
Well people won't use it because FLASh shouldn't be nuts to install.
USB should automount in Gnome.
PORTS is a thing of the past just goto packages.

UMM NO they constantly tell people to go use other Distro's so how is that helpful?

"and the community, here in the forum, is always respectful and kind. I like also the freedom behind the license"
nslay said:
When reports surfaced about the Sony DRM rootkit in Windows XP (an audio CD could trash your system), I decided to try something new. I had two known options: Linux and FreeBSD. The latter seemed more organized and so I went with that.

With some patience, the FreeBSD handbook, and several years of exclusive use, I mastered it for most workstation-related tasks.

But I will say, there's no distinct difference between FreeBSD, Linux, or some other Unix-like system for the experienced end-user. Put me in front of any Unix system, and I can pretty much figure it out because of my experiences with FreeBSD.

That's not necessarily good for FreeBSD either. There's nothing unique about it for workstation use. FreeBSD needs more innovation ... otherwise any other Unix-like system can do the same job. Even worse is that Linux is a household name now. Anybody curious about Unix these days won't even think to try FreeBSD (because they've never heard of it).

That said: I use it because I started with it.
 
GreenMeanie said:
Well people won't use it because FLASh shouldn't be nuts to install.

The Handbook shows how to set up Flash. Follow directions, and it works.

USB should automount in Gnome.

You have mentioned this before. As the person wanting it, have you taken any positive steps to make it happen? For example, asking about it on the freebsd-gnome mailing list? Someone else may be working on it... or maybe not. If you want it, make an effort beyond just saying you want it.

PORTS is a thing of the past just goto packages.

Ports are the seeds from which packages grow. Think on this.

UMM NO they constantly tell people to go use other Distro's so how is that helpful?

FreeBSD does not have to be all things to all people. It does not fit everyone's mindset, and that's okay. Referring people to other operating systems that may work better for them is an effort to help, even if they don't understand that.

"I know that if I go west far enough I'll find the Atlantic."
"Well, yes, but here in North America it's easier to go east."
"Why do people keep telling me that? I want to go west!"

"and the community, here in the forum, is always respectful and kind. I like also the freedom behind the license"

I don't understand what you are trying to say with that, but let me try to keep it positive:

I use FreeBSD because it makes me wait less than other operating systems.
I use FreeBSD because I can fix and improve it.
I use FreeBSD because it makes things possible--maybe not easy, but possible--that are impossible with other operating systems.
 
wblock@ said:
The Handbook shows how to set up Flash. Follow directions, and it works.
Who cares, Flash is a dying technology anyway. It may not even be relevant in 2-3 years (not that HTML5 is all that great).

You have mentioned this before. As the person wanting it, have you taken any positive steps to make it happen? For example, asking about it on the freebsd-gnome mailing list? Someone else may be working on it... or maybe not. If you want it, make an effort beyond just saying you want it.
This seems more like devd's responsibility than Gnome's. GreenMeanie probably doesn't know about devd ... Isn't there also a relatively new USB daemon that can do scripted tasks when a USB device appears/disappears?

The typical new user (and I'm guilty of this too):
I can't do task X in this very Z-specific way, so Y is awful and Z is better.

Ports are the seeds from which packages grow. Think on this.
Sad to say, ports is pretty awesome ... but it's really not practical. For home use I love it.

FreeBSD does not have to be all things to all people. It does not fit everyone's mindset, and that's okay. Referring people to other operating systems that may work better for them is an effort to help, even if they don't understand that.
It's supposed to be a Unix system for Unix user, not a Windows look-alike for Windows users. But the reality is that few people are Unix users anymore. If you target the desktop/tablet/phone, than you are bound to lose with a Unix interface.

How can we evolve Unix for the modern computing world (tablet/phone/cloud/etc)? We need some innovation ... FreeBSD is always playing catch-up it seems.
 
nslay said:
It's supposed to be a Unix system for Unix user, not a Windows look-alike for Windows users. But the reality is that few people are Unix users anymore. If you target the desktop/tablet/phone, than you are bound to lose with a Unix interface.

How can we evolve Unix for the modern computing world (tablet/phone/cloud/etc)? We need some innovation ... FreeBSD is always playing catch-up it seems.

I guess it's your definition of the cloud. How is BSD behind there?

You actually hit the great triad. Currently the start-up bubble and VC financing goes to the gadget and ( using buzzword here again like `cloud`) web 2.0 technologies.

I vote we market BSD as the new fronteir for web 2.0 backend stability and security in the cloud. Get a pic of the daemon with the quote "Wooot! They have *BSD on the cloud now!"

Inspired by:

internet-on-computers-now-80stees.jpg


Need to sell *BSD to a group of financiers and angel investors? Easy do what teh late Steve Jobs did. State it runs "Free BSD UNIX; which is like the open internet operating system Linux"; profit?
 
neowolf said:
I think I might be turning into something of an Arch Linux refugee myself. Don't get me wrong, I love the OS and it's still my favorite Linux distro. But I'm really fond of the FreeBSD way of handling things, and with pkgng it's now feasible to have a system setup and updated mostly from binary packages. That'd been a long hold back for me personally.

The one thing keeping me back is that I like a bleeding edge system on the desktop and there doesn't seem to be a *BSD that fills that category.
 
Lorem-Ipsum said:
The one thing keeping me back is that I like a bleeding edge system on the desktop and there doesn't seem to be a *BSD that fills that category.
There is a bleeding edge for FreeBSD if you don't want to run release.
 
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