Why we're migrating (many of) our servers from Linux to FreeBSD reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pieter3_14 · 2022-01-24 19:43 Interesting read. I should give freeBSD a try myself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wqzz · 2022-01-24 20:30 Also on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30057549 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VENTDEV · 2022-01-24 21:17 A few years ago, I migrated a few of my servers to FreeBSD for many reasons this article mentions. The constant churn of changes brought on by Redhat, even indirectly, produced way too much work for my use cases. Yet, I've bounced from FreeBSD 9 to 13 over the years, with no interruptions, no major changes in configs or APIs, etc. As of right now, my server and headless machines are 100% FreeBSD. I've slowly brought my personal computers and SBCs to the BSD fold. It waxes and wanes how many home machines I have running the family. The linuxulator has made great strides in making FreeBSD usable for HTPC use. (The bulk of my desktop machines are attached to TVs.) My work still requires Linux for virtualization hosting, but bhyve has been making great progress with GPU passthrough from what I can see in their issue tracker. That's not saying FreeBSD is there yet for desktop use, but there is hope that I can even switch my workstations to a FreeBSD in a few versions. Now, if only DBSD could finish Hammer2 and compete against FBSD+ZFS, and NetBSD could get GPU passthrough to work on NVMM, I'd have a much harder choice of what OS to be using at any given time. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- masta · 2022-01-24 21:57 Bleh.... this is just another excuse for the author to rant about systemd. > While it brought some advantages, it added some complexity to an otherwise extremely simple and functional system. It remains divisive to this day, with many asking, "but was it really necessary? Did the advantages it brought balance the disadvantages?". 70 binaries just for initialising and logging and a million and a half lines of code just for that? And it ignores, or never knew to begin with, that FreeBSD along with many other projects were revamping the init system in the mid-2000's. I know this because I was researching and developing a modern init system fro FreeBSD back in those days myself, and it was actually a thing many other people were working on as it was a recognized problem at the time. The chosen solution for FreeBSD was `RC-ng`, and it does some of the stuff systemd does like paralleling boot scripts, but the salient point is RC-ng added complexity to what was an otherwise simple init system at the time. Not to mention all the mainline BSD's at the time had different Init systems. Let's also ignore that the Idea for systemd was inspired by BSD, namely Darwin which is somewhat derived from FreeBSD when Jordan Hubbard left FreeBSD for Apple. Finally, lets willfully ignore that systemd is not in facts over 70 executables, which is the most ridiculous farce perpetrated. For example, `loginctl` is a sub-project hosted alongside systemd, but loginctl doesn't boot the OS, nor does the code of `loginctl` over- complicate the init system of `systemd`. These are software projects, just like FreeBSD is a software project, so it's ironic when the author wrote this a few lines prior: > In FreeBSD, the kernel and its userland (i.e. all the components of the base operating system) are developed by the same team and there is, therefore, a strong cohesion between the parties. Oh my, that resembles how `systemd` project is organized, all under one roof.... just like FreeBSD has it's kernel and user-land! Let that sink it for a second. No seriously, go back and appreciate the irony..... The Systemd project hosts a number of other components like `journalctl` or the aforementioned `loginctl` analogous to how FreeBSD self-hosts it's own userland. So which is it going to be? Is Linux allowed to group a bunch of little user-land components into one project like `coreutils` or `systemd` similar to FreeBSD, or are we only allowed to keep them separate to appease the biases and/or prejudices of the FreeBSD community? > I've been a Linux (or GNU/Linux, for the purists) user since 1996. I've been a FreeBSD user since 2002. I have probably used FreeBSD far longer than the author, but on line #1 the author makes sure to let you know they are an old-school user from 1996 and early 2000's. It's not very persuasive, and relies on a logical fallacy called "appeal to authority" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WikiSummarizerBot · 2022-01-24 21:58 **[Argument from authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority)** >An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. Some consider that it is used in a cogent form if all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context, and others consider it to always be a fallacy to cite the views of an authority on the discussed topic as a means of supporting an argument. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wik i_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiS ummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/BSD/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- josephnz · 2022-01-24 22:22 One thing that's doesn't get mentioned a lot in the context of FreeBSD packages and ports is the security and maintainance implications of unmainainted ports. Note that some of these may be pulled in as dependency of another package. https://portscout.freebsd.org/ports@freebsd.org.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lvlint67 · 2022-01-25 07:53 It's a cute read but it is an opinion piece. You can not point to much in the article that is objectively "correct". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- agrajag9 · 2022-01-25 11:05 Wow, you did an amazing job misreading the entire article and missing every single point! Bravo! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- moboforro · 2022-01-25 13:05 Sorry I don't agree. Truth be told FreeBSD is an excellent OS for a server (not so much for a laptop IMHO), and you can do a lot of the things that modern computing requires but there is no argument that Linux has the backing of several commercially solid enterprises and most of its solutions are enterprise grade. Also please , stop this 'systemd is bad' nonsense. It's just a tool and you don't have a say in most of the OS solutions anyway (which is also true for the BSDs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- masta · 2022-01-25 13:37 You're absolutely right, I didn't finish reading the entire article. I beg you're pardon, as I read about a third of the way down it became clear the text was riddled with logical fallacies, and I stopped wasting my time. But the few points I did read, they were really bad and not persuasive at all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- isa_ux · 2022-01-25 19:00 Nice and acceptable article. Because of one [similar to this article](https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/why-you-should-migrate- everything-from-linux-to-bsd.html), I changed my mind and approach to choosing a stable, readable, and secure OS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- agrajag9 · 2022-01-25 20:02 Why are you here if not to support BSD? Or are you just one of the typical "everything sucks" nerds? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- masta · 2022-01-25 20:13 I'm perfectly capable of supporting BSD, and would be more than willing to promote an author that wasn't articulating so many untrue statements, logical fallacies, etc.. Just because I point out the problems with the authors writing, doesn't mean I'm lacking support for BSD. You're conflating my analysis of the writing with lack of support for BSD, and that's simply wrong. And that's fine, a lot off people like things, or support something, but at the same time are terrible writers incapable of drafting anything persuasive. That's what happened here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pramsky · 2022-01-26 00:31 Does supporting BSD require enthusiastically supporting every article written about BSD ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- isa_ux · 2022-01-26 13:39 Really nice explanation! [The real motivation behind systemd.](https://unixsheikh.com/articles/the-real-motivation-behind- systemd.html) How do you rate this article? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pramsky · 2022-01-26 20:26 I don't agree with the author's assumption about Red Hat's motivation. The whole "*Red Hat's primary reason is it's business interests in embedded devices*" sounds a bit tinfoil to me. He misrepresents the quote from the Red Hat CEO. Just because embedded devices *benefit* from systemd does not make it the *primary reason* that Red Hat is promoting systemd. I like what systemd sets out to do, which is having a consistent init and system configuration layer. Our computing devices have gotten more complex in the tasks that they do. I get that people don't like change, especially drastic changes in something as integral as an init system. This is also a notion shared by many FreeBSD users as well. Many seem to love launchd. Heck there is even a [wiki page](https://wiki.freebsd.org/launchd) about it. The page quotes: > By porting launchd(8) to FreeBSD 6-CURRENT, boot up times and job management can both be handled more effectively, and improve some aspects of the operating system itself. There are launchd implementations which may/may not work for FreeBSD, there is more portable clone of launchd called jobd. Another developer has a systemd compatible init system called InitWare. So at least some FreeBSD developers are actively working on improving the BSD's init and system configuration procedures. Which is a good thing. According to the author of systemd, systemd is directly inspired by launchd. I wish he had made systemd more portable and not so linux specific, but I think systemd improves the Linux system configuration management processes. I agree with Fact 4 from unixsheikh's article. I think hardcoding fallback dns servers to servers from Google, Quad9 and Google are a privacy concern. However we do not currently have free resolvers from a company that respects end user privacy. I understand the reasoning for the fallback dns servers, though I may not agree with the implementation. There is an excellent talk by Benno Rice called [The Tragedy of Systemd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AeWu1fZ7bY) which you should watch if you haven't already done so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- isa_ux · 2022-01-26 20:48 Thanks, man! I'll watch the talk. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-02-04 03:34 ^ butttt Chinese logistic shipping companies use Windows XP... so */s*