I used to really like apt too. Now on FreeBSD, similar functionality by using pkg for prebuilt binaries. Or, if working from the ports tree, its as simple as "make install clean" and all the deps are pulled in automatically.
My primary reasons: 1) Native OpenZFS support, which I use extensively 2) Jails: a more sane and secure containerization system that act more like manageable VMs rather than static deployables. 3) dtrace is essentially "god mode" for debugging syscalls and applications. 4) when needing to custom build 3rd party software (in my case, things like MariaDB), the ports tree build system is far simpler than anything else out there. I don't want to have to fuss with build environments, toolchains, or other crap that gets in the way. I just want to go in, do my job, and move on. FreeBSD allows this effortlessly compared to any other OS.
How is FreeBSD's ZFS support any more native than Linux's, when FreeBSD uses a port of ZFS-on-Linux? FreeBSD uses OpenZFS, which uses ZoL as its upstream. Both the FreeBSD and Linux implementation basically work the same way too, the OpenZFS core with an SPL (Solaris Porting Layer) to interface with the kernel.
At this point, no, it isn't using ZoL. The ZoL codebase was changed into the primary OpenZFS codebase, with "ZoL" now containing the "linux" specific bits, just like "ZoF" containing the FreeBSD specific bits. What makes it "native" on FreeBSD is that it is included in-kernel, and is the default filesystem at install time. Everything in FreeBSD is built around the inclusion of ZFS now. The entire ecosystem of other system utilities are being built with the assumption that ZFS exists. This includes things li
The biggest thing with FreeBSD is the overarching design of the system is based on "the principle of least astonishment." When you do something, the system should respond in a way that generally avoids you saying "what the #$%#$!". That means that when you do an upgrade the names of the network ports don't suddenly change and you have to do digging through random wikis to find out that you've been changed from network manager to network tools or some nonsense and now "eth0" is "en3p2". I cannot tell you how many times I've done an os update on Ubuntu to find I cannot boot or cannot ssh into the machine after booting. And these are simple VMs where I just installed the system, some software, and run "apt upgrade"... With FreeBSD, the experience on 14 is still quite similar to 2.2...
The stable versions are also not so stable that you get left way behind. FreeBSD is a full OS, not a kernel with libraries and tools. Everything should work together, and if it doesn't it's a bug. But most stuff is not in the base, only things needed to get up and running. Ports/packages are sometimes less nuanced than apt on Linux, but they get updated and all work together. That means you can have a stable base OS, but keep all the business end patched for security. The entire system is also well documented, so although blogs and google searches will turn up interesting ideas, most often the basics are in the Handbook.
That said, FreeBSD does not have the hardware support of Linux. If you're running on server hardware or a workstation you'll be OK, but on desktops and laptops it is harder to get all the pieces working well, and battery life will be bad... X and graphics cards are also finicky. The place FreeBSD really shines as a headless storage server. If you're used to Linux, FreeBSD also has the habit of putting things in different places or using different tools, but one cannot be consistent over a long period of time and also follow the latest fad.
The biggest thing with FreeBSD is the overarching design of the system is based on "the principle of least astonishment." When you do something, the system should respond in a way that generally avoids you saying "what the #$%#$!". That means that when you do an upgrade the names of the network ports don't suddenly change and you have to do digging through random wikis to find out that you've been changed from network manager to network tools or some nonsense and now "eth0" is "en3p2".
Like when Ubuntu decided the NT1 protocol should be disabled by default in Samba, despite it still being widely used. That really screwed up my home file server.
My favorite was when the maintainer of FVWM on Debian decided, in an incremental, standard, update, that the *only* reasonable way to handle windows was the stack of one at a time--and therefore overwrote the users.fvwmrc file without asking or keeping a backup . . .
My personal reasons for running it (note, this is different from an argument to switch from Linux): 1) I've been running BSD since the mid-80s and haven't felt the need or desire to change. Works for me. 2) Ports: everything on my system is built from source, and the ports framework makes that "just work". I like that I can debug and fix anything on my system. 3) Simplicity: I still feel as though I can understand everything that is happening. There aren't too many system processes. 4) ZFS 5) The community ma
I would not consider FreeBSD as an alternative to Mint, as Mint is primarily designed to be a desktop OS and that is where FreeBSD is the weakest. You CAN run it as a desktop OS, but the whole point of a distro like Mint is to make it easy on the user so you don't have to do stuff like compile your own kernel. If you're using random hardware for FreeBSD, that's probably something you'll have to do.
If you're running a server, I wholly recommend FreeBSD. If you have a home NAS it's a stellar choice because it's nimble and ZFS is standard. Ditto if you have a VPS or a dedicated web server.
I just recently switched over to FreeBSD with the whole CentOS debacle. It had started to feel weird using Linux for a server anyway since it seems like it's been receiving a lot of desktop-oriented bloat. Of course there are some svelte distros that excise the cruft, but I think FreeBSD is a neat distro and it's been around for a long time. For my server, I wanted stability and FreeBSD provides that. For the desktop, I still use Linux. I tried FreeBSD on desktop once and it was just too much unnecessary work. That's why distros like Mint exist.
I would not consider FreeBSD as an alternative....
Thank You for expressing that. FreeBSD is not the best option for a desktop. And I want to ask forgiveness for saying this but..., I do wish that the FreeBSD dev community would stop pretending their commercial pitches for their products in public discussions are some sort of unbiased anonymous opinions. Informed structured opinion is a privilege but so is open discussion.
Good reasons to switch? (Score:2)
I run Mint at home and it does what I need, but I'm curious what advantages there might be to switching to FreeBSD.
What might be some compelling reasons why someone would use or switch to FreeBSD from another Linux distro? Security, performance, stability...?
Re:Good reasons to switch? (Score:5, Informative)
Possibly better security, although if you want a more security-focused distro, maybe OpenBSD would be a choice.
Re: (Score:2)
I get freedom from systemd by using Devuan, but I am tempted to try FreeBSD for my desktop.
I really like apt, though.
Re:Good reasons to switch? (Score:5, Informative)
I used to really like apt too. Now on FreeBSD, similar functionality by using pkg for prebuilt binaries. Or, if working from the ports tree, its as simple as "make install clean" and all the deps are pulled in automatically.
systemd. (Score:2)
Re:Good reasons to switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
My primary reasons:
1) Native OpenZFS support, which I use extensively
2) Jails: a more sane and secure containerization system that act more like manageable VMs rather than static deployables.
3) dtrace is essentially "god mode" for debugging syscalls and applications.
4) when needing to custom build 3rd party software (in my case, things like MariaDB), the ports tree build system is far simpler than anything else out there. I don't want to have to fuss with build environments, toolchains, or other crap that gets in the way. I just want to go in, do my job, and move on. FreeBSD allows this effortlessly compared to any other OS.
Re: (Score:2)
How is FreeBSD's ZFS support any more native than Linux's, when FreeBSD uses a port of ZFS-on-Linux? FreeBSD uses OpenZFS, which uses ZoL as its upstream. Both the FreeBSD and Linux implementation basically work the same way too, the OpenZFS core with an SPL (Solaris Porting Layer) to interface with the kernel.
Re: (Score:2)
At this point, no, it isn't using ZoL. The ZoL codebase was changed into the primary OpenZFS codebase, with "ZoL" now containing the "linux" specific bits, just like "ZoF" containing the FreeBSD specific bits. What makes it "native" on FreeBSD is that it is included in-kernel, and is the default filesystem at install time. Everything in FreeBSD is built around the inclusion of ZFS now. The entire ecosystem of other system utilities are being built with the assumption that ZFS exists. This includes things li
Re:Good reasons to switch? (Score:4, Interesting)
The biggest thing with FreeBSD is the overarching design of the system is based on "the principle of least astonishment." When you do something, the system should respond in a way that generally avoids you saying "what the #$%#$!". That means that when you do an upgrade the names of the network ports don't suddenly change and you have to do digging through random wikis to find out that you've been changed from network manager to network tools or some nonsense and now "eth0" is "en3p2". I cannot tell you how many times I've done an os update on Ubuntu to find I cannot boot or cannot ssh into the machine after booting. And these are simple VMs where I just installed the system, some software, and run "apt upgrade"... With FreeBSD, the experience on 14 is still quite similar to 2.2...
The stable versions are also not so stable that you get left way behind. FreeBSD is a full OS, not a kernel with libraries and tools. Everything should work together, and if it doesn't it's a bug. But most stuff is not in the base, only things needed to get up and running. Ports/packages are sometimes less nuanced than apt on Linux, but they get updated and all work together. That means you can have a stable base OS, but keep all the business end patched for security. The entire system is also well documented, so although blogs and google searches will turn up interesting ideas, most often the basics are in the Handbook.
That said, FreeBSD does not have the hardware support of Linux. If you're running on server hardware or a workstation you'll be OK, but on desktops and laptops it is harder to get all the pieces working well, and battery life will be bad... X and graphics cards are also finicky. The place FreeBSD really shines as a headless storage server. If you're used to Linux, FreeBSD also has the habit of putting things in different places or using different tools, but one cannot be consistent over a long period of time and also follow the latest fad.
Re: (Score:2)
The biggest thing with FreeBSD is the overarching design of the system is based on "the principle of least astonishment." When you do something, the system should respond in a way that generally avoids you saying "what the #$%#$!". That means that when you do an upgrade the names of the network ports don't suddenly change and you have to do digging through random wikis to find out that you've been changed from network manager to network tools or some nonsense and now "eth0" is "en3p2".
Like when Ubuntu decided the NT1 protocol should be disabled by default in Samba, despite it still being widely used. That really screwed up my home file server.
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite was when the maintainer of FVWM on Debian decided, in an incremental, standard, update, that the *only* reasonable way to handle windows was the stack of one at a time--and therefore overwrote the users .fvwmrc file without asking or keeping a backup . . .
[eyeroll]
Re: (Score:3)
My personal reasons for running it (note, this is different from an argument to switch from Linux):
1) I've been running BSD since the mid-80s and haven't felt the need or desire to change. Works for me.
2) Ports: everything on my system is built from source, and the ports framework makes that "just work". I like that I can debug and fix anything on my system.
3) Simplicity: I still feel as though I can understand everything that is happening. There aren't too many system processes.
4) ZFS
5) The community ma
Re:Good reasons to switch? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would not consider FreeBSD as an alternative to Mint, as Mint is primarily designed to be a desktop OS and that is where FreeBSD is the weakest. You CAN run it as a desktop OS, but the whole point of a distro like Mint is to make it easy on the user so you don't have to do stuff like compile your own kernel. If you're using random hardware for FreeBSD, that's probably something you'll have to do.
If you're running a server, I wholly recommend FreeBSD. If you have a home NAS it's a stellar choice because it's nimble and ZFS is standard. Ditto if you have a VPS or a dedicated web server.
I just recently switched over to FreeBSD with the whole CentOS debacle. It had started to feel weird using Linux for a server anyway since it seems like it's been receiving a lot of desktop-oriented bloat. Of course there are some svelte distros that excise the cruft, but I think FreeBSD is a neat distro and it's been around for a long time. For my server, I wanted stability and FreeBSD provides that. For the desktop, I still use Linux. I tried FreeBSD on desktop once and it was just too much unnecessary work. That's why distros like Mint exist.
Re: (Score:1)
I would not consider FreeBSD as an alternative....
Thank You for expressing that. FreeBSD is not the best option for a desktop. And I want to ask forgiveness for saying this but..., I do wish that the FreeBSD dev community would stop pretending their commercial pitches for their products in public discussions are some sort of unbiased anonymous opinions. Informed structured opinion is a privilege but so is open discussion.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Good reasons to switch? (Score:1)