Slashdot Mirror
Why FreeBSD
An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD operating system is the unknown giant among free operating systems. Starting out from the 386BSD project, it is an extremely fast UNIX-like operating system mostly for the Intel chip and its clones. In many ways, FreeBSD has always been the operating system that GNU/Linux-based operating systems should have been. It runs on out-of-date Intel machines and 64-bit AMD chips, and it serves terabytes of files a day on some of the largest file servers on earth."
In general, it is rock solid; I've seen a FreeBSD server with a load of 80-something (process went nuts), and still been able to login and take corrective action without rebooting. I remember being quite shocked to find a console reporting that / was inaccessible due to a drive error - but server processes on other partitions continued to run just fine anyway. We've had a few hiccups with 5.x (although 5.4 fixed most of them), but our testing of 6-beta is going really well. FreeBSD is the masochist of operating systems: you hit it, and it just keeps asking for more!
There are other reasons to love it. The ports system is very solid, and it's been years since we had problems applying an upgrade due to dependency issues. The documentation is marvelous - man pages are useful, and the handbook covers most things. The community support mailing lists are very useful, too. Jails provide a convenient way to partition processes on a single server, although they are far from perfect at this point (they keep improving, though).
I really can't say enough good things about FreeBSD. It has been running most of our hosting setup, and many of our client's networks for years, and the only time we ever seem to run into problems is when hardware dies.
(For the record, I also use Debian - and it is good, but I prefer FreeBSD for servers that have to be trusted)
Lead developer, http://wisptools.net
Yes but there is the licenses issue. BSD style licenses vs the GPL.
At least for companies to use the OS with there products.
Now the licenses issue is not going to concern me if all I am doing is setting up a machine to run at home. And I think it comes down to what you are use to. I have been mostly a old Sun Admin and I like FreeBSD over Linux, although I do like the rc start up scripts of Linux over FreeBSD.
And it did make the move to OS X easier coming from FreeBSD. However I am not sure I will ever get use to the changes in the startup files that Apple has introduced. Maybe some day.
-S
It is said that a child learns wisdom from the parent,
but the truly wise parent learns joy from the child
The first time I installed FreeBSD, I looked at the screen and kind of went "What do I do now?". After a bit of digging, my impression was that of a system that had all the kinks worked out of it. After trying many Linux distros, FreeBSD made more sense.
/usr/local, if I upgrade the system, cvsup is simple, the ports tree makes keeping software up to date a breeze, I'm not going to have to hunt for a distro specific rpm or a wierd library just to get something to work. The amount of software available for FreeBSD is astounding, chances are, if a project is in development, it's already in the ports tree.
If I install software, it's going to be in
I've used FreeBSD for about 6 years and I really don't see myself using Linux anymore. The community is very supportive, intelligent and open minded, I always seem to get things done with FreeBSD, I haven't found a problem I couldn't solve within a few hours, it just works, and works well. Try it, you might find that it works as well for you.
Why FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD, NetBSD, OSX, etc.?
The article was really sketchy on this point.
Well sorry, but thats total crap. The BSD license is total freedom for everyone, you all get access to the same initial code and its what YOU do with it that differentiates yourself from other users of the code. The GPL assures your competitors that they get your custom modifications if you distribute binaries, the BSD license gives your competitors the same start point and allows you to compete on a level field from then on.
Actually, about the time of the DOS/Win to Win transition and beginning of the elimination of the 16-bit section to move to 32-bit, there was some argument that Microsoft should have stayed with a windowing manager on top of core OS paradigm as they previously had and beefed up DOS to be something like Unix.
Fortunately, saner minds prevailed.
As advanced as current iterations of Linux are over BSD in useability and sanity (Gentoo notwithstanding) they still harken back to phosphor terminals and text interaction at every turn. Want to install everything in FC3 off the DVD and work with nothing more than what is on there? Fine. But it won't include Java, Macromedia Flash, the latest Firefox, drivers for any webcams or a dozen other things you might have or want to put on your box, etc.
Use of a text interface and system fiddling is inevitable. Not so with Windows.
If the BSD community could drop their (admitedly less than the Linux crowd's) dislike of Windows and Microsoft, they might see that useability and integration do not have to be wholly separate from security. I would love to see OpenBSD as the guts of a good GUI-centric OS with modern packaging systems as easy as those found on Windows. Then you could say, "here's an OS that is as easy to use as Windows and infinitely more secure because its parentage was all about security."
And I could finally stop referencing BSD/M.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Yes but there is the licenses issue. BSD style licenses vs the GPL.
At least for companies to use the OS with there products.
Linux doesn't require that applications running on top must be free/open (Or Red Hat, Suse, IBM, Oracle and everyone else doing that would be in trouble), so what would be the difference? The only thing they can't do is modify the kernel, distribute it, and not ship the code. And that is only relevant to an OS company. Hell, they could even do all the in-house customization they want, like the NSA did. Or just publish their modifications, since they're not in the OS business anyway. So to claim there's any relevant licensing difference for companies using either OS is just FUD, in my opinion.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings