Whilst BSD isn’t linux per se, it still has a lasting legacy in the unix like space and notably has been used in game consoles like the PS4.
For you in your personal use case, have you tried a bsd distro? What was better compared to the average linux distro?
Apparently BSD is more modular with its jailing system and seems to have a lower resource usage.
I look at ones like NETBSD and FreeBSD and think, "what exactly do I get out of them that I wouldn’t with Linux say, Ubuntu or Void as an example?
What are your thoughts on BSD, you use FreeBSD before?
I use GhostBSD on a Lenovo ideaPad 300 Which is a FreeBSD based Desktop oriented BSD I’ve used it to stream to Twitch, surf the Web, play music, edit photos & videos, etc.
Linux Is Not UniX FreeBSD is for those who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Can you play steam games?
One thing no one mentioned is the license. I won’t touch BSD because if any BSD system gets good enough, a big corpo can fork it, get slightly ahead, and then never give back.
Source: MacOS
BSD developers: who cares about that. And, it is already happen. Android libc use lots of code of OpenBSD libc. OpenSSH is used everywhere.
That’s a very good point. If memory serves Netflix streaming servers did a similar thing.
Netflix used the SAAS all the code is in the cloud and we don’t distribute it loophole of the GPL v2
For a server - it’s fantastic if you’re a reasonable adult and if you don’t have a compulsive need to install every shiny new “app” you find on the internet. Terrible if you hate reading any kind of documentation. Terrible if you already decided that some of its core concepts are stupid and try to force stuff in order to mimic your favorite Linux dist.
Takes some knowledge and planning to set everything up properly but when it works, it works forever.
ZFS works as intended. I hear that it’s miles better these days though in Linux.
Jails will make your life so much easier.
If the software isn’t available in the ports tree you don’t need it. You may want it but you really don’t need it (bro just download my Docker image, I wrote a webserver in rust bro I promise it’s super stable and it’s never been done before bro). Enable Linux binary compatibility or fire up a virtual machine with a tiny dist if you’re a masochist.
I personally like the default firewall, pf. It’s got a bad reputation in some circles though.
No systemd.
No systemd.
No systemd.
What’s the benefit? You listed some minor things like ZFS and systemd, but is there a major benefit?
Also, can’t you do that with Linux? I use openRC on gentoo.
I guess it depends on the use case. If you prioritize network and zfs performance, sure. There’s a reason why the Netflix CDN or your router runs some BSD derivate.
I’d argue that the jails are a feature that hasn’t been replicated. Each jail is a container and can be set up as an isolated environment with its own filesystem, network stack, set of user accounts etc. I know there are a few similar solutions on linux but nothing that is so deeply integrated.
Yes, of course. I believe it was a NetBSD developer who initially wrote it.
No systemd on my void or gentoo builds either.
Linux is grown. BSD is engineered
OpenBSD is the easiest to use.
I tried FreeBSD many years ago (back when I was on dialup and bought a book with the FreeBSD install CD included…).
At the time it was interesting to tinker with, and I did use it as a dual-boot on my Win95 computer, but I moved on to Linux when Knoppix came along.
At the time linux seemed more end user friendly.
Maybe I should spin up an install just for nostalgia sake, and to see where it’s at these days.
I’ve heard BSD people criticize Linux ecosystem as “fractured”, and this discourages me from BSD. I see Linux ecosystem as one that grants you choice, and I love that. This criticism gives me the impression that BSD takes that away, that where will be one standard way to do many things. Maybe I am wrong or misunderstood.
I use OpenBSD as my daily driver on the desktop.
In my opinion Linux over the years got too caught up in politics and involved with big corporations having influence on certain non-trivial decisions.
But I also think the BSDs are better actual Operating Systems in contrast to Linux being only the kernel of which different projects make use of to provide their final products to the end user, its way more fractured.
Using a security focused Distro which has its use case in network devices as a “daily driver” shows that you priorities are “elsewhere”.
You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. OpenBSD is an absolutely legitimate Desktop OS and has no special use case. Its hardened and comparably slower than Net- and FreeBSD, but thats it . Guess you’re an “expert”.
has no special use case. Its hardened and comparably slower than Net- and FreeBSD
😂
Thats when you’re out of arguments, ladies and gentlemen.
The equivalent of facebook boomers reacting with a laugh emoji.
But seriously: several people in the BSD community use OpenBSD on the Desktop, Theo De Raadt also does in contrast to a lot of FreeBSD devs that use MacOS as a daily driver.
Don’t know why you’re so full of yourself when you clearly have no expertise on the subject.
A bit late, but wow openbsd developers use their own distro as a desktop, you convinced me. And yes I know it might sound weird but openbsd has a special use case. Its a security focused distribution aimed at developers which want to understand the workings of an OS. Its also used as a base for some router specific operating systems.
Everybody who used OpenBSD on the desktop knows it has its shortcomings compared to any other OS if your workload extends beyond simply checking mails and surfing the web.
You’re just wrong. There is a whole community, including me, using OpenBSD as a daily driver.
You can mention more things turning YOU off from using it that way, but it won’t change shit, lol.
Just because people doing it doesn’t mean its the best thing to do. Also how can I be wrong, you can disagree with me. Obviously I am stating my opinion on this matter. But so far I haven’t seen any real arguments from your side contradicting what I said.
I have a FreeBSD time server that will be hooked up to a GPS at some point and my router uses OPNSense, so FreeBSD as well. I haven’t really used it much, but to a journeyman who will never write much if any code, they each have their own use case. I have a Mac Mini and a MacBook Air (really my wife’s), so I technically use it there.
Linux dominates and will dominate the desktop space between the two for a good long while (newer packages, more support, etc…). It also currently wins out with regard to gaming between the two. There is nothing wrong with Docker/Podman/LXC, but I don’t know enough about jails to really comment on which is better. Support is massive for docker though, virtually everything self hosted has a docker image. So I think that Linux takes the application server space for the most part.
FreeBSD keeps better time as I understand it, so that is why I chose it for my time server. Network Devices often use FreeBSD and do so very well, although there is also OpenWRT and others that do routing well, but are children compared to OPNSense and pfSense for example. I am thinking about spinning up a matrix server and and/or an email server on a FreeBSD box just to see how well they do.
Controversial segment follows:
Although there is substantial overlap, each major OS works its own brand of magic pretty well due to the support that people give it. I use Windows for my gaming PC for example because Playnite and better game support. MacOS, which is based on BSD btw, still has the market cornered on the creative pursuits. Apple products in general have the most robust and well put together user experience and will for a very long time. Android has the market cornered on bombarding you with a thousand ads near constantly via phones, smart TVs, and digital signage if that is what you are looking for. Its big use is in its ability to be hacked and shaped by more tech savvy users.
I use FreeBSD on a desktop as a server and for desktop usage with a touchscreen to run a virtual pipe organ that needs an obscene amount of resources to run. There’s a few things that I see as pros:
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Zfs on root/by default. Absolutely love zfs and not having to screw around with dkms/kernel issues etc to get it running is a huge plus imo
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Jails - I cannot stand docker. It’s opaque and I’m stuck trusting that whatever image I’m downloading is updated/secured and or running multiple extra containers to stack together. With jails I spent my time setting up the jail once (installing services etc), and using a jail manager (bastille) I can maintain what I think is better control of the internals and updates etc. the commands mirror the os as well which is nice
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Integrated world - the way bsd integrates the core system and separates out the packages means most security updates just need a service restart not a full reboot so uptime between OS patches can be months at a time. They’re also very conservative about changing how the core system functions so how I install/set up/maintain the system in 2007 is the same as today.
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The manual. Anything I need to know when adding services including edge use cases is in the manual on their website. Much cleaner written than the arch manual, and has a pdf download available if you aren’t going to always have the internet (and a terminal interfaced manual option to download).
For my usage there’s not much I can think of for cons, but I will say laptops and particularly WiFi suffer currently. There’s funding and works in progress to fix this but still idk I’d use it on a laptop today without carefully checking support for the hardware like I would’ve with old school Linux. They’ve come a long way recently with edge cases for instance I’m currently running a windows vm with gpu pass thru using their bhyve vm manager, something that wasn’t supported a year ago, so I am optimistic the funding will help in the next few years on some of the laptop issues.
I’m 100% with you on Docker. I haven’t used BSD jails in a very long time, but do you have a view on how they compare to other Docker alternatives in Linux like LXC containers and systemd-nspawn?
to run a virtual pipe organ
This sounds like an incredible use case.
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OPNsense is the best firewall, IPS, and IDS I’ve used. If they made a Linux version of that OS I’d switch to that in a heart beat becuase of driver compatibility
You may already know this but you can run OPNsense on top of Proxmox. That may mitigate the driver issues you are having.
I tried FreeBSD on a laptop.
It spammed error messages all over the installer’s TUI until I disabled my fingerprint reader in BIOS.
Then I had to patch and recompile the kernel to get it to talk to my laptop’s battery sensor.
Then there were half a dozen other issues I solved one by one, like getting the touchpad and the camera to work, and auto-detecting my networked printer/scanner.
Then I read up on why WiFi is so unbearably slow, and the solution was to pass-through a WiFi driver from inside a Linux VM.I didn’t actually notice any end-user advantage of having a “fully integrated system” either, so I gave up and went back to Linux.
I’ve not used BSD, but this is cracking me up because this reads like the “Linux Sucks back to Windows” threads from 10 years ago.
While you’re not wrong there are still FreeBSD pain points particularly around wifi that remind me of 2007 when I first moved to Linux (and then FreeBSD). They’re working on it and have some funding put aside to pay developers to help remedy this. Laptops also are very likely to have odd and end edge cases, for instance my chromebook needs to pass audio over i2c which FreeBSD doesn’t support and even linux needs some hacky scripts to run through the commands to enable this (and the script needed an update because THIS particular model was slightly different from others by the same brand…). Linux in this regard moves much faster in getting support going and requires little to no pain especially in comparison. I love FreeBSD and use it everywhere I possilby can but there’s certainly things it’s just not easy/practical to use it for right now.
How is HDR on the BSDs? On Linux it works nicely with plasma6 and wayland.
I’ve used Linux for 20 years now, and yes the experience was similar to back then.
But back then, there wasn’t a better FOSS option. Now there’s modern Linux.
Don’t get me wrong, I think BSD is a great system. It’s just not the right OS for a new-ish convertible laptop.
I tried PC/BSD on a desktop quite a few years ago and it was pretty good, apart from having to build a lot of my software from their ports tree. That ultimately put me off and I went back to Linux. I tried FreeBSD on an old laptop last year and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it to recognize my Wifi adapter. I gave up after a couple of days.
So, if your hardware is supported BSD is good, but if it’s not than it’s really not.
The majority of the Internet’s routing and switching architecture is BSD based. Historically it had the most stable and performant network stack of all the OSs.
I used it extensively at one job in a previous life when I was a network appliance developer. It was rock solid and lightning fast. Tried it as a desktop at home and had a terrible experience.
The little differences in the Unix commands used to drive me nuts as well…
Had isn’t Linux faster now. I know on the very resource restrained box I used li ix had noticeably faster network. Went from 500 ish to full gigabit speeds.
I used FreeBSD before I used Linux. It was still really complicated to set up at the time. I can’t speak to modern versions. I also used openbsd more recently to make a router out of a sun ultra 5 I trash picked. Learning pf and seeing up a router all by hand was a good learning experience. Then the hd crashed and I didn’t have a backup of my configs. I didn’t have enough ambition to start from scratch, and there are plenty of modern distros that are ready made routers.
