Sitting patiently whilst Julie re dyes my hair aka regingering reading about #FreeBSD of all things. I've read about the differences between #Linux and #BSD and now I'm onto the ports system and OMG I'm nearly tempted to give it a whirl on my trusty old test laptop. :freebsd:
How many folk have if any have switched from Linux to BSD and if you have please tell me why and what you prefer over the former ?
@JustineSmithies I've been using linux (some variant) since 2001 and *BSD (some variant) since 2002. This rant is on the older side, now, and technical details change. But I think the rant still has value and I find it useful for helping people understand why I chose whichever OS I chose for that particular use. Note this isn't a, "One or the other" thing. One person can use whichever unix is best for any given purpose; the more unixes you know the better.
@JustineSmithies We switched from Linux to FreeBSD for several of our products. (Our products are more like appliances - we don't use a desktop system, we mostly use the kernel and a fairly small set of shell utilities.)
FreeBSD is more stable - there are fewer people putting their favorite ideas into the system, in other words, the Linux kernel is suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen.
For several reasons we prefer the FreeBSD license over the GPL.
We, however, recognize that Linux tends to be more able to handle very recent hardware platforms.
@JustineSmithies I switched around 2008 from Gentoo -- but at work it's mostly still Linux (#devuan when I decide).
What worked for me was having a very stable, well designed ,no nonsense, and monolithic base with a very customizable Makefile-based rolling packaging system on it.
I've been using it for both server, desktop stuff, and it worked great, even for a little bit of gaming (linux compat or wine, albeit both are harder now, and steam on linux as well as gpgpu is pulling me a bit).
The ports system is simple to understand and contribute to, the base system is stable and maintained in a cohesive and coherent fashion.
So, if a new feature gets added, it is to be expected that over time most utilities can benefit from it.
Learning how something works means having enough data to extrapolate new situations, so guessing and documentation go a long way.
Things don't change too quickly, knowledge stays valid long :)
My two Cents
do it, use it, enjoy it, it's so obvious. Yes Linux is great! FreeBSD is more than just one look worth, use it for a few weeks and then you can decide If you want to keep on using it.
Linux and FreeBSD so great #zfs#tmux #*shell everething so nice
@JustineSmithies did it earlier this year. Looked at OpenBSD but settled with FreeBSD because I wanted to stick to Plasma as my DE.
Actually two major reasons. Curiosity and I started with Linux in the early to mid nineties with slackware and floss and community attracted me. So, the direction some of the big players want to push Linux atm make me feel unhappy.
Had the same sentiments about ports, zfs is brilliant and my initial feeling on BSD is a strange "home, at last" feeling.
@JustineSmithies
I played with FreeBSD many years ago, but never found a compelling reason to switch from Linux. I was used to the Debian administration tools and didn't find any advantage to FreeBSD over Linux, so I never really bothered learning the BSD admin tools and the way FBSD is set up.
@JustineSmithies a few years ago I switched from Apple's OS X Mavericks, which I loved, to a FreeBSD distro.
There's much to love about some Linux-based distros, but I very rarely thought of switching away from FreeBSD. It's a cohesive operating system, with a community that's diverse and generally very cooperative.
@JustineSmithies I switched to #FreeBSD several years ago, after using Linux for many years. And I'm happy with the change. Things which tempted me were:
First grade support for ZFS. On Linux, the support is pretty bad compared to FreeBSD. Here, ZFS shows how awesome a file system it is.
Dtrace - Linux don't have support for it. This tool is one of the best debugging tools for developers or sysadmins.
Linuxulator - why only one system, when you can have both. Without virtualization. 😁
@JustineSmithies aside from not having to deal with systemd&NetworkManager plus whatever config file syntax flavour of the week they're doing, packages are great as you can mix prebuilt and built-from-source on the same machine. Packet passing is better. Booting ZFS on root without fear. Directed development with roadmaps, rather than potluck releases. Kernel&user land integration. Ifconfig instead of 15 changing tools built for programmatic management rather than human interaction.
@JustineSmithies I had a phase of using it back in the mid/late 90s. Loved it. Something feels... solid about it.
Also tried using it as an infrastructure/gateway box a few months ago on a raspberry pi but that combination proved unstable (possibly more the pi's fault).
It's mostly a matter of virtualization for me - I need more linux distro containers than I do fleebse, otherwise I'd try harder to find a place for it.
My personal reasoning for slowly switching all my devices over to OpenBSD is cohesion. It’s an entire operating system in one, as opposed to a kernel base with GNU on top. The file system is organized in a way that satisfies my OCD and truly everything “just works”.
It certainly isn’t for everyone and GNU/Linux is still awesome. I will always advocate for using whatever works best for your own use case. That said, OpenBSD is peak OS 😛
@JustineSmithies I use it for a mors consistent and logical experience of using the operating system. There will be changes with new developments bot not a redesign.
There's something very enjoyable about compiling ports with various configuration options before starting port build. Also compile and build a custom kernel amd system libraries.
Having the base system separated from ports installed make it very stable, plus the kernel and system developers work with ports developers
@JustineSmithies I've never known hair regingering to have the effect of motivating someone to try BSD.
Or maybe it was the idea of trying a BSD that caused a spontaneous hair regingering event.
We need more data, Justine. 😃
I'm tempted to try from time to time, but I hit issues with the BSDs as workaday laptops, and while I'd be tempted with their use of a server, I end up just doing it for the intellectual exercise, which I promptly forget.
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