Subj : Re: Synchronet vs Mystic vs ??
To   : Arelor
From : Gamgee
Date : Sat Apr 22 2023 18:06:00

-=> Arelor wrote to Gamgee <=-

 > I've told myself for years that I should learn one (or more) of the
 > BSD's, but have never gotten around to it.  Maybe I'll bump that up on
 > my TODO list a little.  Would you recommend trying OpenBSD first, or
 > FreeBSD?  Related question - once you "know" one of them, is the other
 > one easy/similar?

 Ar> Slackware is very BSDish, so any of the three big BSD should be
 Ar> easy to pick up.

 Ar> Each mayor BSD is a different Operating System and they are not
 Ar> that similar. They are pretty much the same on the surface - the
 Ar> classical Linux utilities like tar, awk, sed etc. have their BSD
 Ar> counterparts, but then kernel capabilities and OS administration
 Ar> differ. Firewall utilities are different. Package management is
 Ar> different. MAC/sandboxing (for the BSD that support such things)
 Ar> are different. If you are used to a BSD and suddenly need to
 Ar> administrate another, the differences won't shock you but you
 Ar> will totally haveto relearn some of the tools.

 Ar> As for which BSD to try first, it depends on what you want.
 Ar> OpenBSD is developed by IT nerds for their own use, and non-devs
 Ar> get to enjoy the ride if it happens to suit their needs. What
 Ar> this means is OpenBSD has very clean implementations for the
 Ar> things it does but it lacks some features you'd take for granted
 Ar> everywhere else because the devs don't give a damn. ie. if the
 Ar> devsdon't like blutooth as a protocol then you will never ever
 Ar> use your blutooth speakers on OpenBSD. In exchange, you get a
 Ar> very tightly developped set of userland utilities.

 Ar> OpenBSD is the OS I would pick for a small home server, because
 Ar> OpenBSD maintains its own http daemon with very tight privilege
 Ar> separation and sandboxing. They also develop their own SMTPD
 Ar> in-house and same advantages apply. Firewalling is also
 Ar> developped in-house. OpenBSD's utilities and services have just
 Ar> enough features to serve medium sized deployments while featuring
 Ar> non-bullshit configuration processes - administration is very
 Ar> Slackware-like.

 Ar> FreeBSD is more of a corporate product so the kernel has more
 Ar> features and it is a bit more Linux compatible. You may expect
 Ar> better performance, a modern filesystem with COW support, and
 Ar> better vendor support. FreeBSD is not as tightwhen it comes to
 Ar> default process isolation and their MAC framework requires some
 Ar> work to understand (think SELinux).

 Ar> I personally use OpenBSD mostly everywhere because its system
 Ar> layout feels moresane, but that means that I often need some
 Ar> feature that is not supported and end up having to build it in
 Ar> myself. FreeBSD is more likely to support a randomfeature or a
 Ar> given package you may one day discover you need.

 Ar> NetBSD deserves special metion because it is developped very
 Ar> aggressively but to a fine quality standard. Dragonfly is a small
 Ar> project but it is known for their HAMMER filesystem and its
 Ar> advanced multithreading. I have never used Dragon and my
 Ar> experience with Net is not meaningful.

 Ar> Which to pick for testing is a matter of choice. FreeBSD feels
 Ar> much more production ready. OpenBSD feels like the product of a
 Ar> bunch of hardcore Unix advocates building the sort of modern
 Ar> Unix-like they want to run at home.

 Ar> The fun part with OpenSource is exploring the options, I guess XD

Fantastic information and comparison.  Thanks for taking the time for 
such a long and detailed reply, I appreciate it!

I think my first dip in the BSD waters will be with Free...



.... If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
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