Where does Linux outshine BSD? reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cool_Telephone · 2022-01-04 08:47 I’m not trying to start a flame war. I’m posting the exact opposite question to the Linux sub-reddit. As someone who has used Linux on and off for around 20 years, but never really tried BSD I’m keen to give it a go. But what is the key thing I’d be giving up? What would be ‘that thing’ that would make a more knowledgeable user than me stop and question the switch? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- frozenpicklesyt · 2022-01-04 09:02 Compatibility and hardware support. A great saying which seems to work well is that desktop BSD feels like Linux a decade ago. Especially with any special hardware, you'll notice flaws and need workarounds that you don't need on Linux. Software compatibility can also be spotty, particularly on the more purist libre distributions. In any case, if you're comfortable with working out hardware and software problems, BSD may not provide much of a barrier whatsoever. Otherwise, you may stick with Linux for a more user-friendly experience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vermaden · 2022-01-04 09:02 Outpopular. Yes. But outshine? Not for me. I used Linux in the past and moved to FreeBSD long time ago. Here are my reasons why FreeBSD outshines Linux :) - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cool_Telephone · 2022-01-04 09:09 Ok, thank you. Makes sense. So don’t go buy a laptop thinking I can chuck FreeBSD on it and just be up and running. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mickywickyftw · 2022-01-04 09:10 I'd say desktop performance. Mostly based on 16 years with OpenBSD, 3 with FreeBSD (way back though) and 5+ with NetBSD (but very little on the desktop). Whether that performance difference matters to you, is a different question. For me, it's noticeable, esp with Firefox, but not really a problem with any laptop released in the last 10 years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cool_Telephone · 2022-01-04 09:14 That’s great - thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- frozenpicklesyt · 2022-01-04 09:14 I wouldn't put all my trust into that, no. Good luck! :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- distark · 2022-01-04 09:18 Bluetooth ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Scary_Wish_4893 · 2022-01-04 09:54 General Desktop use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TrenItaglia · 2022-01-04 10:19 hardware compatibility, platform compatibility. that display controller for brightness, certain wifi cards, non standard x86 or Arm/ppc platforms like apple... you cant have an AMD or nVidia card supporting most OS, HFS/APFS support ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the_humeister · 2022-01-04 10:37 OpenCL support ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L3TH4L_BR · 2022-01-04 11:07 I actually did simply install it on my laptop, and after some minor tinkering (and lots of configuration) it actually worked pretty well. Eventually switched back to linux because of the problems getting videogames running. Turns out there's been some development since (better Linux emulator, steam and proton working etc) so I should probably try again ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L3TH4L_BR · 2022-01-04 11:09 I never really got that to work. Handbook isn't very helpful either ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L3TH4L_BR · 2022-01-04 11:12 I experienced quite the opposite. FreeBSD (OS itself, and roughly every application I tried) was MUCH nicer on my laptop than Linux ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L3TH4L_BR · 2022-01-04 11:18 Hardware support. I never got Bluetooth working (which isn't great for desktop usage), and video initially made me unable to boot FreeBSD on my (in all fairness shitty) laptop. Videogames (obviously). Turns out there's been some development since, but back then I had to do without most videogames I own. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2022-01-04 11:42 > Especially with any special hardware, you'll notice flaws and need workarounds that you don't need on Linux. Software compatibility can also be spotty, particularly on the more purist libre distributions. This I would say is a extreme rarity. In my two decades of working with both when it comes to both administration, development, and desktop usage, I've constantly found if it is buggy on FreeBSD it will be on Linux and vice versa when it comes to software. You see the exact same sort of issues on FreeBSD you see often times when porting something from one distro to another, updating it to work on a newer distro, and the like. Honestly when it comes to software issues, I've found the FreeBSD ports system is a god send compared to the steaming shit show that is dpkg and rpm. Honestly curious to see where Arch goes long term. Only one with a vaguely sane system for package stuff when it comes to Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Human_Capitalist · 2022-01-04 12:02 Virtualisation. There are important things on the Bhyve roadmap that have been in KVM for a while. EDIT: WAIT…..WHAT???! https://www.freshports.org/emulators/qemu/ Are you telling me that the linux binary compatibility layer means I can still use Libvirt and QEmu on BSD???? (without KVM hardware accelerated virtualisation if course… 😞) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2022-01-04 12:18 I've had Firefox/Chromium wander off into the weeds on both Debian Linux & FreeBSD. The FreeBSD box eventually (sometimes 10+min) kills it and comes back to usable as if nothing happened; meanwhile the Debian box would hang indefinitely (let it run for a couple hours to see if it would come back) leading to eventually just rebooting it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kyleW_ne · 2022-01-04 12:34 Yes VMM in OpenBSD lacks so much. Is limited to 1 cpu core and serial console only so no windows support. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Human_Capitalist · 2022-01-04 12:55 https://www.freshports.org/emulators/qemu/ 🤯 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rocky_Mountain_Way · 2022-01-04 13:18 > I’m not trying to start a flame war. I’m posting the exact opposite question to the Linux sub-reddit. uh, oh. Anyway... I used the BSDs on machines with low RAM (tens or hundreds of MegaBytes) that Linux won't run on... I know that's a niche, but that's where BSD shines for me. NetBSD for my old VAX machines. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- include007 · 2022-01-04 14:02 Marketing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DasStorzer · 2022-01-04 14:11 Wonderful article! I may give FreeBSD another try. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- miggyb · 2022-01-04 15:00 But also FreeBSD jails are so much nicer to use than Docker :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msbic · 2022-01-04 15:03 * Ease of desktop roll-out. Even Debian, which isn't particularly desktop-centric handles my Lenovo T420 (which is supposed to be the best \*BSD laptop) much better than Free/Open. * Hyper-V integration. I run some Ubuntu VMs in Hyper-V, they seem to work a bit better than my FreeBSD VM. * Software, in my case my VPN provider has binaries for Ubuntu/derivatives only. * Online anonymity. **That's not my opinion**, but of some cybersec people. By running a fringe-OS one make themselves stick out to the bad folks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daemonpenguin · 2022-01-04 15:30 Definitely hardware support. I'd probably use FreeBSD on most of my machines if it could work smoothly with all my hardware. I've always had something that didn't work properly (suspend, wi-fi, etc). You'd also be giving up some commercial/closed source software. Stuff like Steam, Chrome, Skype, etc tends to come to Linux before the BSDs and may never become available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _rabbitfarm_ · 2022-01-04 15:38 NetBSD has been ported to a large number of “non-standard” platforms. I currently run several older PowerMac ppc systems with NetBSD. I don’t think it’s fair to say that portability is a place where Linux is better then BSD. Support for peripheral hardware is wider on Linux though, especially where vendor support is necessary. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WildRadicals · 2022-01-04 15:43 Legitimately interested in the answer to your question. I've always used Linux, and I am curious about BSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PCITechie · 2022-01-04 16:07 Steam ---------------------------------------------------------------------- qci · 2022-01-04 17:03 Take your USB drive with you to the store and boot up the install ISO. Then check the PCI and USB device list (`pciconf`). Maybe the shop boots up Linux for you and you can extract the device IDs, too (`lspci`). Optionally you can download the Windows drivers and check the PCI and USB device IDs. Sometimes you're lucky the drivers are not unified, so that only a few IDs are to check. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lvlint67 · 2022-01-04 17:36 The big issue here is licensing. The BSD folks tend to release software under BSD/permissive licenses. The linux folks tend to release stuff under gpl licenseses. What this means is that linux developers will take code/features/etc that they like, make some changes and release the new code under a GPL license. THE GPL licenses usually don't allow the BSD devs to take these code changes and then re-release them under the more permissive license (GPL is viral). So at that philosophical level, Linux benefits more from BSD's existence than BSD does from linux's. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thingolmelian · 2022-01-04 18:18 You are right Although Apple benefited the most ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 120r · 2022-01-04 18:23 Training material and education. It not the best product that often wins but the ones with the most training material. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- passstab · 2022-01-04 18:55 As long as you pick the right one you should be fine. Thinkpads tend to work pretty well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- passstab · 2022-01-04 19:30 I know it isn't what you asked for, but I think this is the strongest argument against linux, the change discussed is such a poor idea that it leads one to seriously question the competence of linux's developers. https://youtu.be/dR3ntE9TXOE?t=1344 (just the first question, you don't need to watch the entire video). To give an answer to your question that others have not mentioned, DRM streaming platforms (netflix, amazon prime, HBOMax) tend not to work on the BSDs. Or least that's how it was a few years ago when I last looked into it. It looks like installing an emulated chrome Linux may get around these problems. https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linuxulator-how-to-install-brave- linux-app-on-freebsd-13-0.78879/ Hopefully someone else here can verify how well that works. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VENTDEV · 2022-01-04 20:25 Everyone covers most of the big ones, hardware support, first party driver support, etc. I'll throw one out there that isn't covered in the few posts I read, closed source software. There is practically no native closed sourced software on the BSDs. Linux gets many of the goodies (and work required stuff) that we'll never get. Even if they're treated as second class citizens, at least they don't have to use Windows to run software required for work. Luckily, compatibility layers have come a long way. But it's always the third least favorable option. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Innominate8 · 2022-01-04 20:32 I think this is a case where the GPL has won. BSD has been used in and for a great many number of commercial products which have not returned anything. Meanwhile vast amounts of businesses are paying Linux developers to make Linux do what they want, but are contributing those changes back. It's not so much that Linux benefits from BSD, as the more successful Linux gets, the more it benefits from that success. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7yearlurkernowposter · 2022-01-04 21:11 Wheel re-invention :) Jokes aside I would say cloud technologies, you can do a lot of the same things on BSDs but it always seems a little behind the latest and greatest just over the fence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Human_Capitalist · 2022-01-04 21:32 True that. Depends on whether one needs containers or vms I guess. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- necro168 · 2022-01-04 22:02 Hardware support, docker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoo_96321 · 2022-01-04 22:55 Would they let me boot my USB at a store? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- qci · 2022-01-04 23:06 Probably many stores don't allow this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mkzmch · 2022-01-04 23:39 Let me just preface my answer by saying that I own about 20 devices that serve various purposes and run either linux or \*BSDs: laptops, desktops, servers, routers, switches, IOT devices, smart TVs, pinephones and so on and so forth. To answer your question: **Hardware and Software support** The BSDs are notoriously behind linux in driver development, a lot of laptops just work with linux, but you still have to be very picky if you are in a market for a \*BSD capable laptop. Some BSDs have decent hardware support i.e. OpenBSD, FreeBSD, some have atrocious hardware support (I'm looking at you DragonFlyBSD). NetBSD is an outlier, because while you can run it on pretty much any architecture it is not great when it comes to desktop/laptop hardware. Things like Bluetooth, sleep mode on most off the shelf laptops, most wifi cards, NVIDIA drivers on anything that is not FreeBSD, hyper-threading and USB 3.0 on OpenBSD are just not working and that is not by any means an exhaustive list of things that won't work on \*BSDs. Software is a slightly different story and not all \*BSDs are created equal, some like OpenBSD or FreeBSD have software repositories that cover pretty much every need and are very usable for a linux convert since all of the software that you are used to will likely be available. Some like NetBSD and especially DragonFlyBSD have software repositories that leave a lot to be desired. With that being said there are two categories of software that are almost non-existent on \*BSDs. They are games and proprietary software. While FreeBSD can at least run steam games and proprietary software through the linuxulator to some degree of success and has a port of Wine available on other \*BSDs this stuff is just not going to work as easily. NetBSD has a linux compatibility layer too, but it is behind that offered by FreeBSD in many ways. DragonFlyBSD supposedly has wine, but I've never used, so I don't know how it works, but my educated guess would be "very poorly". OpenBSD doesn't have any of that. **Documentation and guides** The linux community is very large and if you have a problem with linux it is likely somebody has had that problem before, so you can find an answer using google in 10 minutes. With the \*BSDs it's not how it works. FreeBSD and OpenBSD have very good documentation available, definitely on par with the Arch wiki, so it is not as much of a problem on these OSes. NetBSD and DragonFlyBSD though ... Yeah, good luck figuring out some problem using the official docs or man pages. When there is a will there is way, of course, but it is just not going to be easy. I have legit spent a week trying to figure out how to setup a nextcloud instance on NetBSD, when it can be done in 15 minutes on linux. **Virtualisation** KVM/QEMU feels like it is 5 years ahead of any solution available on \*BSDs. FreeBSDs bhyve is the most advanced hypervisor available and even it is lacking some important features such as GPU passthrough. Both FreeBSD and NetBSD have Xen support though. NetBSD also has it's own hypervisor NVMM, which has also been ported to DragonFly I don't know whether it supports passthrough though I did not use it extensively enough. OpenBSD can only create VMs with 1 core and cannot virtualise Windows. **Performance** BSDs are mostly slower than linux when it comes to performance, there are some exceptions such as the TCP/IP stack, which is faster in FreeBSD, but for the most part linux is more performant. It is not really noticeable for a regular desktop user, but definitely something to keep in mind for a server or a supercomputer. DragonFlyBSD can probably give something like CentOS a run for its money on a cluster, but a linux distro tuned for performance like Clear Linux will reap it to shreds anyway. With all that being said I think BSDs are great and I use them a lot on my machines for many other reasons, carry on reading for my answer as to **Where do \*BSDs outshine Linux?** **Simplicity and logic** BSDs are dead simple, especially OpenBSD. I can write a book praising OpenBSD for how simply stuff is done there. OpenBSD is a power user's dream because of how concise it's code base is and how it doesn't have any useless features or flags in it's functions. I am not a programmer and even I can read and understand its code. It is truly a no-bloat system with a true UNIX mindset of do one thing and do it well. The developers write simple software that is also very good, pf can give iptables a run for it's money. I mean I can't figure out iptables and I figured out pf in 10 minutes. Connecting to WiFi from the command line is also dead easy on OpenBSD. Pretty much everything follows the same logical and simple approach. Other BSDs are more complex, but compared to linux they are child's play. BSD init system of rc scripts is insanely easy to figure out and use compared to systemd. It is reliable, it works, it is easy to run custom scripts at boot or as services. To me it is just the way init is supposed to be because it is intuitive as hell. You don't have to learn systemd notation or OpenRC notation or Runit notation to use it, you just write a shell script and voila it works as a service.BSD userland is also insanely intuitive. System software and configuration resides in one place, stuff you install resides in a different place. **Evolution and not revolution** \*BSD developers have a mindset of not rewriting software from scratch if it is not necessary. Stuff does not get replaced for the sake of being replaced. Linux had ALSA, Pulseaudio and now also Pipewire for audio, while FreeBSD just used OSS for almost the entirety of its existence. Why did ifconfig get deprecated on Linux?On the BSDs there is not such sudden change of direction and you don't have to relearn how to use your OS every couple of years. **Security** This is not true of all BSDs, although if you have a simpler and smaller codebase it is easier to keep it secure then if you have a large and bloated codebase. Anyway, OpenBSD is the most secure OS on the planet perhaps rivaled only by QubesOS. But given how complex QubesOS is with all it's virtualisation domains, that a simple man like myself will need a couple of weeks to figure out, I will choose OpenBSD for my servers any day of the week.Jails on FreeBSD are also a great tool that function just like docker and are easy to manage. I run firefox in a jail on my personal laptop to have that extra layer of security against browser-based attacks. This can be done on linux using docker, of course, but on a BSD it is just easier. **Tight integration between system components** The base system is developed by the same devs and there are no issues because package A got updated to a version that is not compatible with package B and now your system doesn't boot. There are also no issues with fragmentation on \*BSDs, so if a package is avaliable it is going to work, unlike on linux where it might not work, because on your distro a library it depends on is too new or too old. Older kernel modules being incompatible with your recently updated kernel? No such thing on BSDs. **Packages and Base System can be updated on different schedules** This is, at least for me, a major reason to use a BSD. You do not have to choose between stability and bleeding edge software you can have the best of both worlds. I have two NetBSD boxes that compile software from the pkgsrc latest branch and automatically update every week. And, even though, sometimes updates result in breakages I can always just roll those packages back and they are functioning again, because there is no risk that a bad update is going to render my system unbootable or do some other nasty stuff that will cause significant downtime. They also have like \~15 packages installed that are not part of the base system, so diagnosing issues is very easy, when they occur. I imagine maintaining a similar solution on something like Arch would be a nightmare and very impractical since all \~200 packages that make up the system will be updated on a rolling release schedule. **Reliability** Due to how simple the BSDs are they rarely break for no reason, unlike linux distros, especially rolling release ones. I have a box, that I use as a smart TV that was running Ubuntu and that thing would just sometimes stop working for no reason, turns out it was an bug in that version of the linux kernel that caused the GPU to shut down under load. Since maintaing a different kernel not shipped with the distribution is a PITA I decided to throw a rolling-release distribution on there. I went with void linux as a perfect balance of stability and recent software. It worked rather well up to a point where the most recent version of the linux kernel would have suspend broken. At that point I have decided: "Fuck it, lets throw FreeBSD on there see how it works". Never had an issue ever since. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wqzz · 2022-01-05 05:05 Mind telling us what laptop you're using? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nielskob · 2022-01-05 05:36 In my experience I have from time to time the problem that developers test their stuff only on Linux which can lead to problems. Port maintainers are doing great work, sometimes it is unfortunately not enough. Depending on your monitoring-solution you might be worse off with FBSD - the agent for checkmk is not as good as with Linux and depending on your icinga2-setup you might not be able to run it at all with FBSD. When you administrate many servers you really want a poudriere-server since in my experience the default options of binary packages often aren’t that good and features are missing. Thus you have to use ports and you do not want to build the same thing over and over again. I never found out how I build a “generic” kernel with my own options though. Thus I rely on GENERIC even if that means that I won’t be able to use some performance improvements. When you rely on having multiple php-versions on one system which you can have on Debian-based systems, you won’t have that on FreeBSD. If you rely somehow on legacy php-versions and have maybe even an LTS- subscription with sury- tough luck. If a php-version gets EOLed, it is pretty fast removed from ports and you won’t be able to install it anymore and in a worst case scenario you won’t be able to update your system anymore. Writing rc-scripts is imho far more cumbersome than writing a new systemd-service-file. Of course there are only legacy-cron jobs and no systemd-timers. You need to install anacron if you have a system that you shut down from time to time but cron jobs that were missed during downtime should run. If you forward your logs and want TCP the syslogd of FreeBSD is not enough but you need to install a port (syslog-ng or rsyslog). No docker. Jails are more like LXC. If you maintain the servers for a company you will have a harder time to find system administrators. Yes there are a lot of similarities but lots of sysadmins I met habe a hard time to adjust to all the small things. System upgrades with sysmerge is imho PITA especially when you use configuration management. This might be better now with FBSD -13 where they removed things like version numbers of the FBS-version from config-files. But OpenBSD makes far less problems in that regard and I prefer usually updating a Linux-based system over a FBSD-system (OBSD does it better). It got better though over the years. Longer boot times. Since uptime is something no one should brag anyone anymore, this is even interesting for servers these days. I like FreeBSD, it has its advantages (imho speed, a cleaner system, better on board documentation, ZFS, far easier to integrate your own patches for software you run which aren’t necessarily in upstream) but one should know what the downsides are and people always only wrote about hardware and software support. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nielskob · 2022-01-05 05:50 I wouldn’t underestimate how much Nintendo and Sony benefitted from it. At least in the past their consoles used FBSD as their underlying operating system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WhyNotHugo · 2022-01-05 09:05 Or wine in general. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- m15f1t · 2022-01-05 09:47 My introduction to the nixes was FreeBSD, back in '97. Been using it ever since, still use it. From version 2.2.x up to the latest. So familiar with ports compiling, and later on packages and building own repo's with poudriere. I could admin up to about 2-300 servers on my own. I was introduced to Linux (CentOS, RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian) somewhere around 2007-2008. I've maintained hundreds if not thousands of servers since then, but I rarely use it on my desktop privately. My view on this: IMHO FreeBSD is not 'superior' in any area today. Far from it.. Networking used to be one of the main things, ZFS was hot when Linux didn't have it yet, but Linux has all of these today. FreeBSD's documentation & manpages ARE superior. Linux HW support is superior over FreeBSD, much quicker development of everything else, all the goodies go to Linux. FreeBSD's development can be excruciatingly slow. In all my years of using FreeBSD (on servers, Dell mostly, and later on Supermicro, so not bad stuff), whenever I had problems I could not fix myself and had to ask 'the community' (FreeBSD forums), it was always the same ff-ing story: I must be doing something wrong because "hail FreeBSD", FreeBSD is never wrong, so you must be the error (what though was never pointed out of course and I was left in the dark). An area where FreeBSD IS superior, but that's because of the way it's developed and built, is separation between OS and installed ports/packages. Coupled with the fact that FreeBSD can be upgraded to newer versions online, a server running FreeBSD can have an extremely long life cycle (very useful if it's a VM). Only Ubuntu comes close to this with do-release-upgrade. Linux is of course superior in automation. Puppet, Ansible and what not. You might get that working in FreeBSD, but it's always running behind. I haven't looked at these things for a couple of years, so things might have changed here. So on a larger scale, FreeBSD is nowhere compared to Linux. My love for FreeBSD has gradually diminished just by using Linux. Everything is just so much easier in Linux, less work, better support, more information when you need it .. But since it was my first - ah - you never forget your first, right? :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L3TH4L_BR · 2022-01-05 11:04 A rather worn-out Lenovo Z500 (with quite the list of issues, such as its dedicated GPU not working anymore). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hertzbug · 2022-01-05 13:34 Performance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sehnsuchtbsd · 2022-01-05 22:10 I have working wireless keyboard and speakers on NetBSD; the implementation is far from perfect, and not as comfortable to use as on other OSs (lack of a handy cli/gui frontend, and tray applet), but it's definitely usable. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sehnsuchtbsd · 2022-01-05 22:18 Proprietary software support. BSDs may be ok for general desktop computing, as long as you aren't picky about gaming and multimedia streaming platforms, but fall short whenever running specific proprietary software is a requirement (at work, school, etc..). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rockytriton · 2022-01-06 05:27 cgroups and \*ducks\* systemd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ReservoirPenguin · 2022-01-06 09:29 Did you forget the /s? Literally two most garbage features of loonix. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-01-06 21:00 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Current_Hearing_6138 · 2022-01-06 21:01 My bsd setup is faster than my linux setup in every measurable metric. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hertzbug · 2022-01-06 23:52 All supercomputing facilities and computer scientists around the world would be interested to hear your metrics and *measurements*. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- johnnychron · 2022-01-10 17:20 I've made a few DIY PLC controllers using old industrial computers and netbsd. Get the same functions as a $12,000 rockwell part with a $50 salvaged unit. I mean there's always people talking about the rasberry pi. But it's not the same as an x86 unit with proper networking and serial ports. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rocky_Mountain_Way · 2022-01-10 17:30 > serial ports Yes! I hate using laptops with USB serial adaptors with industrial equipment as you never know if they’re going to work. And nothing beats an old 3com network card ---------------------------------------------------------------------- angelofdeauth · 2022-01-19 08:08 FreeBSD excels in being used to craft bespoke solutions. Linux has broad and deep compatibility with rapidly advancing hardware/software. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EtherealN · 2022-01-19 23:00 Hardware compatibility. That's it. Context: I am a Linux user (Arch on desktop and laptop, Ubuntu and Manjaro on RPi's, previously used SuSE back before Linus joined Transmeta etc :P ). It's been a loong time since I would worry about ordering random laptop and "will this work?". Case in point: current laptop is some random cheap Acer, shipped with Windows, where I had to do some magic to get to the bios because vendor really didn't want me there. Once there, Windows is gone, boom, everything works. Booting BSD (tested: Ghost, Free and Nomad): Networking doesn't work, and touchpad does not work. Try a wifi dongle? I bought the wrong one. (Works in Linux though.) Try an Ethernet dongle? I bought the wrong one, nope. (Works in Linux though.) I bought a Raspberry Pi 400. Linux? Just works. (Tested: Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS, Manjaro). FreeBSD? Denied. Won't even boot. (Found a fix through digging through the bug tracker at FreeBSD: the u-boot shipped with FreeBSD 13 doesn't work with newer board revisions from the SD card, but happy from USB port. Can be fixed with a simple copy- paste from a different machine to replace the u-boot binary.) Basically: my experience of the BSDs is that it is like Linux-based OSes were some 10-15years ago. You really need to check every piece of hardware before you get it. But if your hardware is supported, it's awesome, and my plan is to impatiently wait for the Framework to be available here in NL (confirmed good on Free and Open, aside from its other merits) and then daily drive it. Because I like some concepts that differentiate it from Linux distros, but the hardware challenges have, so far, meant that the best machine I have to run it on is a Raspberry Pi 400 with a modified boot partition. Though, silicon shortage may have ended up making that problem more difficult that expected. And, of course, if the usecase wasn't "desktop", all of the above except the Pi boot issue would be irrelevant. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-01-22 02:45 Hardware and software support. I think *BSD outshines Linux is pretty much every technical aspect. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iyorozuya · 2022-01-25 20:32 Docker and hardware support sadly because I like BSD handbook. If docker comes to BSD then I will surely try BSD on VM.