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FreeBSD: Not Exactly Dead
quantumice writes "It would seem that despite being dead and there only being six of us who use it, FreeBSD has clocked up nearly 2.5 million active sites according to Netcraft. So by my estimates that must mean that I and each of my 5 friends run 416 667 sites. That might explain my high bandwidth usage."
This story is posted because BSD doesn't generate a lot of exciting news. Well, that's not true: there's lots of exciting news for people who care about BSD. But none of the editors care much about BSD. They like Linux and MacOS X, and talking trash about MS and SCO. This means that they have trouble identifying the stories that actual, honest-to-God BSD users find interesting. But they still feel they ought to give us something, since after all BSD has an entire section on Slashdot. And I guess they are trying to encourage Open Source Brotherhood, not realizing that most BSD users would prefer not to be associated with most Linux users.
is to be able to moderate an entire story as a troll.
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
Have you submitted interesting BSD stories and had them rejected?
It's a complete OS.
It's not a clone.
Everything runs faster.
It doesn't mess up with your MBR.
It does not come with a particular browser pre-installed.
It's always fun to run FreeBSD.
And I guess they are trying to encourage Open Source Brotherhood, not realizing that most BSD users would prefer not to be associated with most Linux users.
Really? that's why every linux convention thing I've been too, has had a BSD booth. Or almost all conversations with BSD users seem to involve Linux in some way. Please. A win for BSD is a win for Linux and vice versa. Soon as linux takes over the desktop BSD will win converts.
Quoting the article; The reason for this is FreeBSD's deployment with the operators of shared hosting systems, where tens and even hundreds of thousands of sites are collectively administered as part of a single system.
Yahoo alone hosts something like a quarter million sites.
Perhaps this also explains the low media-profile to some degree ? 10000 companies running 25 sites each are likely to collectively generate a lot more buzz than a single site running a quarter million sites.
Which packages did you try to install?
...
Why should I be using a Unix-clone (aka Linux distribution) when there's FreeBSD?
Wrong! Not all apps are being developed for a Linux distro. In fact, Firefox is being developed in Windows and later is ported to other OSes. Apache is being developed in FreeBSD. Most Linux distributions (if not all) are using many stuff from FreeBSD and saying it's a Linux app and not saying where it comes from. Nasty, uh? GNU doesn't have everything so they have to take some userland tools from other OSes (*BSD mostly).
One problem with one Linux distribution? Wrong, gnorw, wrong! The latest version of the Linux kernel has a very annoying bug... it doesn't detect correctly your hd's geometry and messes it up so you can't boot up Windows. So using ANY Linux distro with that kernel will give you problems. Maybe RMS introduced it as he wants everything to be GPL... a monopoly in the open source world! So, like Nas says in his "You can" song, read more learn!
Well, there are FreeBSD developers working on FreeBSD and getting paid for that. John Hubbard, Poul-Henning Kamp, etc.
Linux: more unstable drivers, some stable drivers taken from FreeBSD, fragmented distributions, what it works on Linux distro A might not work on Linux distro B (even using the same package management like RPM!), full of politics, etc.
Virtually none of the FOSS apps are primarily targed on *BSD? Uhmm... once again, read more learn. It seems you don't give a damn about *BSD. It's OK, but please don't talk about something you don't know you. Thanks to BSD Unix and its friendly licence the TCP/IP (and the Internet) was born. Many commands you use on your lovely Linux distro have been taken from FreeBSD, vi was born BSD Unix, Apache was born on FreeBSD, XFree86 was born on FreeBSD, etc. Go get a O'Reilly book about Linux and you'll read... what's a Linux distribution? Linux distribution = Linux kernel + GNU tools + BSD tools.
Repeat with me... read more learn, you don't have to be gangstas,
Personally, for a server I love a boring OS. Thats why I use FreeBSD on all my servers at home (Solaris at work, bleh!) For the desktop where I want eye-candy OS X all the way. Once I get in the terminal it is so much like FreeBSD I can really get things done.
I just got an ipod and it is the sweetest gadget I have ever owned and the way and the integration with my ibook is amazing. If you haven't tried it and you like music do what ever it takes to get an apple laptop and and an ipod. I was waiting for the color screen but I decided to get started with a 15gig and give it to my wife when I get a color one. I am having a lot of fun with it and if I had known I would have bought one sooner. I can't wait to get my hands on one of those airport express dealies.
"Ease of use" (also "user-friendliness") should not be confused with "short learning curve" or "newbie-friendliness". FreeBSD is extremely easy for me to use, as an experienced user, and that is currently FreeBSD's largest target audience. Moreso for OpenBSD, which gets many "too hard to install" and similar complaints. It is easy to install when you know what you're doing. Making it more intuitive to newcomers to Unix-like OSes is not a priority for them, because it is written for and by hackers/professionals, and a very large userbase would overwhelm the small development team anyhow.
Your other two points do seem to be true. Linux in my experience has in general been reliable for a long time, and a wider variety of hardware (especially niche hardware like particular laptop support, etc). It should be noted that although FreeBSD's security team only publically commits to a year's worth of updates, older versions than this are normally updated when they are affected. It is also relatively simple to upgrade FreeBSD. This definitely does not compare with the commitment of support for other commercial Unix OSes (Solaris, AIX, etc) however.
Guess what? I use FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, and OSX. Not on the same machine, of course. Each useful for something, and really, that's what software is for. Engineers choose the best tool for the job. Only idiots choose a tool based on how cool they think it is, and I find frequently that those who brag most about what OS they use do so not because they have a good reason for using it, but in fact because they don't. Bragging results from their idological reasons for using their chosen software; had they real reasons, they would understand that others have real reasons for using other software.
Point: I use Mac OSX on my laptop. Why? Because it has desktop software I want to use and it functions smoothly and reliably. When time means something, graphical one-click installers are kinda nice, and because the hardware--Powerbooks are sweet--isn't as well supported in other OSes. I use Linux on my desktop. Why? Because I like the software available, I know my way around it, and I find myself more productive in it. I also code for Linux, so it's important I have a machine that runs what I write. I run FreeBSD on my server. Why? Because it runs faster and more reliably on the old hardware I have, and generally requires fewer software patches than Linux. I used to run OpenBSD on that machine, in fact, but found the performance hit wasn't worth it. However, I chose OpenBSD for embedded access-point use, because of the few patches needed--upgrading software on a 25MB diskonmodule is a bitch--and the excellent VPN impelementation.
So you can see, there are reasons for using each OS in it's own environment. Tell me differently.