Considering switching from Debian to FreeBSD reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- plonkster · 2023-06-21 12:02 Hi. I've been using Debian for the last 20 years as a developer and system administrator, loving everything about it. I've used FreeBSD back in the 90s for several years. With the release of Debian 12 and even deeper integration of systemd, I snapped. I no longer want to deal with it. I'm considering switching to FreeBSD. Is it a good idea? My ecosystem includes development in C, PHP, shell. Vi editor, github. Extensive use of AWS. If I switch to FreeBSD on my personal computers I will certainly also want to use it for AWS images and whatnot, completely removing Linux (and systemd) from my life. Am I on the right path or am I going to waste a bunch of time? I liked the stability of Debian, the crazy convenience of APT and the fact that you can get it working on pretty much any device with minimal work. Thanks for your answers to my (probably naive) questions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EstablishmentBig7956 · 2023-06-21 12:40 Do it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CoolTheCold · 2023-06-21 13:03 I've switched to Ubuntu around Debian 9, not used it since then, can you shortly describe what goes wrong here? I've read news on Bookworm, have not noticed something special except journald as default and depreciation of `which`. I'm quite curious. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dancerjx · 2023-06-21 13:04 I use FreeBSD 13.2 as my NAS OS on my server. Weirdly, it's faster than Arch Linux, which I used to run previously. The reason I switched to FreeBSD was it's native ZFS integration. Zero issues. When VMware/Dell dropped official support for 12th-gen Dells at work, I looked for an alternate hypervisor and settled on Proxmox which has ZFS native support. After learning the ropes of basic ZFS administration on Proxmox, made the switch to FreeBSD at home. I don't need a hypervisor at home hence the reason for FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a great server OS. Also there is an official FreeBSD Journal PDF magazine which makes for good reading. Highly recommend that storage devices are GPT labeled https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/labeling-partitions-done-right-on- modern-computers.69250/ Otherwise, will get different device names when replacing drives or switching drives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ruchawka · 2023-06-21 13:20 i don't see anything special in your workflow, so from that side you should be just fine. but also check what hardware you'll be running on. on laptops wifi, bluetooth, optimus-like graphics etc may be pain. just as an example, in my case wifi works in g mode only (not a big deal to me, since I work from home at my desk and have ethernet), bluetooth doesn't work (i'm fine with usb headset), and i only use intel part of my optimus graphics (nvidia switched off as to not waste electricity, since i don't have heavy graphics workloads on this device anyway) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RemoteBroccoli · 2023-06-21 13:50 Just do it(!), but in all seriousness, if you DO wanna stay in Linux, you might wanna give slackware a try, no system.d, old config files, and so on. But FreeBSD is a breath of fresh air. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shooter556001 · 2023-06-21 13:53 Does freebsd support docker? It could be the only reason I stay in Linux now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Physical-Patience209 · 2023-06-21 14:00 Wouldn't Devuan be a cure for your malady? Or any other non-systemd Linux distribution (Artix, Void, Gentoo, Alpine) perhaps? Several of these are rolling releases, but Devuan most definitly isn't. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- timvandijknl · 2023-06-21 14:14 Yes and No... Natively no, but with a workaround to run the docker images in a VM, yes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blerzy82 · 2023-06-21 14:25 But it does have its own mature, robust containerization in “jails”. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blerzy82 · 2023-06-21 14:36 You will have zero issues with any kind of command line development or administration on FreeBSD. The AWS images too are officially maintained by the Project and work very well. Ports/packages are very easy to use, build, customize and maintain. (Honestly the relative difficulty of building apt packages is my biggest gripe against Debian and derivatives.) The system is transparent, cohesive, well designed and well documented. If you do happen to find something you don’t like it’s often very easy to change and improvements are graciously accepted upstream. Do it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cjd166 · 2023-06-21 14:37 It will be glorious! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blerzy82 · 2023-06-21 14:38 Just want to add here that bhyve is a powerful and fully-featured modern hypervisor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- black_dinamo · 2023-06-21 15:38 If you decide to go for it, please share your experiences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NoWayCIA · 2023-06-21 15:39 I would never choose DeVUAn over FreeBSD. Its development team was/is formed by a bunch of unreliable lamers with a very opinionated way of doing business. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NoWayCIA · 2023-06-21 15:43 But without support for Dockerfile format, nobody would migrate their entire ecosystem on a non-Linux systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- timvandijknl · 2023-06-21 16:06 Not everybody uses docker for their entire server system 😘 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Middlewarian · 2023-06-21 16:08 >The system is transparent, cohesive, well designed and well documented. If you do happen to find something you don’t like it’s often very easy to change and improvements are graciously accepted upstream. I hosted my on-line C++ code generator on FreeBSD for over 7 years. I decided to switch back to Linux primarily for performance benefits from io\_uring. I've brought this up before and to the best of my knowledge FreeBSD hasn't been developing anything that's competitive with io\_uring. I agree with some of your other points, but am not missing a lot about FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- m0nsieurp · 2023-06-21 16:15 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx\_ao0](https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- m0nsieurp · 2023-06-21 16:17 Don't let your dreams be dreams. Yesterday you said tomorrow. You're gonna wake up and work hard at it. Yes you can. Nothing is impossible. Just do it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5- sfG8BV8wU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-sfG8BV8wU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Goosie8 · 2023-06-21 16:33 > I liked the stability of Debian, the crazy convenience of APT and the fact that you can get it working on pretty much any device with minimal work. I'm like you! I've been using Debian for over 20 years! It's my favorite Linux distribution for the same reasons you like it, the convenience of APT, and it working on various hardware! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- motific · 2023-06-21 16:46 Its more “does docker support FreeBSD?” not the other way… but if what you’re doing is running other people’s (Linux) VMs then you’re as well off doing that in Linux anyway. It really depends on what you’re running in these containers, if the code isn’t garbage you should be able to run it without docker... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- motific · 2023-06-21 16:48 I disagree… I bet there are loads of people who think they’re sysadmins cos they followed a YouNoob video on how to deploy a docker instance of some shiny thing. 🤣 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GogglePockets · 2023-06-21 16:55 Sounds reasonable to me. I run several FreeBSD VMs on AWS, and it’s been a great experience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- timvandijknl · 2023-06-21 17:32 That's not sysadmins, that application managers 🤣 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- paprok · 2023-06-21 17:43 > Artix stumbled upon it (never heard of it before) while searching for systemd free OS on distrowatch.com, and following a test run was truly astounded that prepackaged system suits my needs and whims so well. it was uncanny, how somebody elses computing habits fitted my own :D and when it hid itself behind Windows boot (wanted to preserve original OS on this machine) it blew my mind - if you don't touch the computer, it will boot Windows, and there is no way to boot Artix except to call boot menu, and choose non-uefi boot. neat! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- motific · 2023-06-21 17:59 I know that… you know that… try telling them and you’ll spend all night dodging the toys being thrown from the pram ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Stock-Self-4028 · 2023-06-21 18:11 As for systemd free Linux distros there is GNU Guix as well. Some software lacks prebuilt packages and needs to be compiled from source (just like Arch), but otherwise it's just fine. It's also nice middle ground between rolling release imo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deafphate · 2023-06-21 18:32 When I got back into C programming a few years ago, I decided on FreeBSD and never regretted it. The documentation that comes with the OS is top notch as well. I honestly am curious about the systemd hate. Is it philosophical in nature? Until a few years ago I managed dozens of Red Hat production servers and had no problems with systemd. Back on topic, I bet you'll be very happy with FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-21 18:59 \+ antiX + MX Just saying, antiX is my bread&butter linux, completely systemd-free, rather "small" but does the job. MX is sort-of the big brother of antix, "richer" in terms of number-of-applications, initially systemd- free, but it might happen that dependencies drag in systemd and then you can't get back - happened to me once, some years ago, no idea whether the situation got better or worse. Edit, while I'm here and to go back on-topic: I'd love to use some \*BSD, but it needs to play along with Windows-7 ***and*** Linux, at least for some time, and given the strange partitioning names/scheme(?) \*BSD uses, I did not dare to try installing it alongside Windows-7 and antiX. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crit52 · 2023-06-21 18:59 Don't do it. Debian is so much easier to use. Just setting up your video card can be a big chore. I used both for a long time, and there really is no comparison. Freebsd if you want full control and you have all day to tinker. Debian just works. Not sure if they fixed this but you can run a samba server but can't mount a samba share. Very annoying. If you like tweaking freebsd is fun. If just want things to work and have modern hardware I would recommend Debian. Also if you use things like Google Chrome it's not available for freebsd. Try freebsd on some old hardware it is not resource hungry. It's a 5 min install. And decide for yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-21 19:12 What's AWS? Amazon Web Service? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- knightjp · 2023-06-21 19:16 I've used a number of Linux distros over the years. I'm not what you would describe as a power user since I don't code. I don't game on my system. I just use it for the usual email, web browsing, media and the odd video editing and stuff. FreeBSD works well and I choose it over any Linux distro. Frankly, if you have any doubts on whether you can use FreeBSD for all that you do, then l3t me assure that you will be able to because a majority of the applications that you use on Linux will be available for FreeBSD. There will be the odd app that isn't in the repository. But then you are a poweruser, I suppose that you can compile it from source or find an alternative. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- odhiambo0 · 2023-06-21 19:16 When it comes to using FreeBSD as a Desktop driver, I'd advise you to stay away. You do not need that pain at your age!Also, you will find that pain when it comes to WiFi support for DesktopOS. But if you just wanna live on the CLI, then why not? And what is the real problem with systemd anyway? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sinethial · 2023-06-21 19:25 Before you all decide to mod me down to an oblivion please read my text below ... My 2 cents. Learn System D? It's 2023 man and you may want to chat with someone who is very familiar with Redhat and SystemD on why it was created and why it exists. I like you went ballistic reading slashdot org comments. SystemD was cool until someone posted something around 2016 and then it went viral on how Terrible it is. Slashdot was fine with systemD for 2 years 😂. Now it's cool to hate. A colleague from work who got RedHat certified explained why init was not cloud ready. Imagine this scenario? You create a VM on ESX that needs to sleep and wake up on AWS. How could you do this with inet? SystemD is event driven so if the VM went asleep and woke up it can handle changes dynamically. You can also do event driven scenarios like if a hack attempt is detected the VM can close ports and do extra logging. Inet can't do this I love FreeBSD and there is nothing wrong with it. But Apple and Sun went to event driven inet systems for a reason. Laptops waking up and things moving to containers made more issues than they are worth. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-21 19:32 > I honestly am curious about the systemd hate. Is it philosophical in nature? Partly. Perhaps mostly. Systemd violates the idea that "one tool should do only one job and do it well". Instead, systemd cannibalized more and more other services and integrated them via modules. There are (or at least were) bugs. There was one particular incident where systemd debug messages clogged up the kernel messaging system to the point that the machine became unable to boot when debug messages were on - *and L. Poettering refused to fix this and argued that the Linux kernel guys need to come up with a fix.* L. Torvalds didn't take that well... Since then things have calmed down but I guess that meanwhile (or already several years ago) systemd has replaced the init system of all major Linux systems. Except the niche ones with a small development team, these "don't count". Niche Linux systems appear to be (at least were) also Guix, NixOS and Gentoo. Me? I'm one of the haters. (Last time I admitted that I got downvoted into oblivion, let's see if it happens again.) I understand that systemd really solves certain problems. I do. But I don't trust it. Do you happen to know why DEVUAN came into existence? Because those guys were majorly unsatisfied by the way systemd found its way into Debian. Once I wrote a longer comment about why I don't trust it specifically, let me try to find it... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msbic · 2023-06-21 19:35 It's an excellent server, but I wouldn't use it on a laptop. I had too quite a few issues getting it to work reliably even on older Thinkpads. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dragasit · 2023-06-21 19:51 We did it: https://it-notes.dragas.net/2022/01/24/why-were-migrating- many-of-our-servers-from-linux-to-freebsd/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-21 20:47 Can't find my comment - does anybody know how to search for a comment from a certain author that contains a certain keyword? Anyway, here is a recent and short thread about it: [why_not_systemd](https://old.reddit.com/r/artixlinux/comments/14ecdye /why_not_systemd/) So it seems that it still contains bugs that do show up in all-day use. Here ist something a bit longer: [eli5_pros_cons_with_systemd](https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/commen ts/2omlkd/eli5_pros_cons_with_systemd/) If you have more time and you really want to know, here's the Wiki page. I just had a look and I'm surprised how "now so positive" it is about systemd. My major reasons for avoiding it are: - it is much much bigger than an init system should be. The problems with are: it uses a lot more RAM than it should, and it's prone to bugs. (An init system should be as simple and small as possible, PID 1 will never get swapped out, OK one megabyte more or less, who cares when the PCs come with 64GB RAM or maybe more. But, you can't use that RAM for an application.) - And it MUST be bug-free, if it crashes, the whole system crashes or hangs. Most (that is, all I ever encountered with the exception of Upstart which I only know by name) init-systems, including sysv-init, match these requirements. Systemd does not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-21 20:54 Can't find my comment - does anybody know how to search for a comment from a certain author that contains a certain keyword? Anyway, here is a recent and short thread about it: [why_not_systemd](https://old.reddit.com/r/artixlinux/comments/14ecdye /why_not_systemd/) So it seems that it still contains bugs that do show up in all-day use. Here ist something a bit longer: [eli5_pros_cons_with_systemd](https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/commen ts/2omlkd/eli5_pros_cons_with_systemd/) If you have more time and you really want to know, here's the [Wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd). I just had a look and I'm surprised how "now so positive" it is about systemd. My major reasons for avoiding it are: - it is much much bigger than an init system should be. The problems with are: it uses a lot more RAM than it should, and it's prone to bugs. (An init system should be as simple and small as possible, PID 1 will never get swapped out, OK, one megabyte more or less, who cares when the PCs come with 64GB RAM or maybe more. But, you can't use that 1MB RAM that is occupied by the init system for an application.) - And it MUST be bug-free, if it crashes, the whole system crashes or hangs. Most (that is, all I ever encountered with the exception of Upstart which I only know by name) init-systems, including sysv-init, match these requirements. Systemd does not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mafiadoener36 · 2023-06-21 20:54 Dont fix a working system ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ivan_linux · 2023-06-21 20:59 I write tons of PHP, Perl, and C on FreeBSD with Emacs. The only thing that you'll need to get used to is the lack of docker (not sure if you use it or not but that hurt me a bit). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-21 20:59 Can't find my comment - does anybody know how to search for a comment from a certain author that contains a certain keyword? Anyway, here is a recent and short thread about it: [why_not_systemd](https://old.reddit.com/r/artixlinux/comments/14ecdye /why_not_systemd/) So it seems that it still contains bugs that do show up in all-day use. Here ist something a bit longer: [eli5_pros_cons_with_systemd](https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/commen ts/2omlkd/eli5_pros_cons_with_systemd/) If you have more time and you really want to know, here's the [Wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd). I just had a look and I'm surprised how "not all positive" it is about systemd. My major reasons for avoiding it are: - it is much much bigger than an init system should be. The problems with are: it uses a lot more RAM than it should, and it's prone to bugs. (An init system should be as simple and small as possible, PID 1 will never get swapped out, OK, one megabyte more or less, who cares when the PCs come with 64GB RAM or maybe more. But, you can't use that 1MB RAM that is occupied by the init system for an application.) - And it MUST be bug-free, if it crashes, the whole system crashes or hangs. Most (that is, all I ever encountered with the exception of Upstart which I only know by name) init-systems, including sysv-init, match these requirements. Systemd does not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IanArcad · 2023-06-21 21:16 OSX used to be the undisputed king of the Unixes - back in the early to mid 00s. It could basically do everything, you could use it for your dev server, your home office, your media PC, your gaming system, etc etc. Other Unixes were toys and trash by comparison, including both Linux and FreeBSD. (IMHO) But now it's 2023 and Gondor has no King. OSX, FreeBSD, and Linux are all good in their own way. FreeBSD's strength is on the server side, and there it completely dominates. Once you put your data on a FreeBSD server running ZFS, NFS, etc you will never go back to anything else. The only weakness FreeBSD has on the server side is Java, where it isn't quite as well supported as Linux. On the client side, Linux is in the lead for sure, it installs easily, supports a lot of hardware, and has a great selection of apps and environments,. However it also has significant package management / software stability issues that is starting to look like an unsolvable problem, so if you've had a bad experience with Linux, you have other options. FreeBSD is a good option -if- your hardware is supported, and -if- it has the apps that you need. Since it has the same desktop environments and apps as Linux (for the most part), it won't be all that different, but it should be a lot easier to administer. Installing FreeBSD can be a little tricky for newbies, but if you know Unix you shouldn't have any issues. OSX is also a good option, and maybe the best option if you just need a really solid laptop that can run a Unix variant out of the box, and if you're happy with the Apple ecosystem. Unfortunately OSX's issue is the same issue that it's had since the mid-00s, which is that it really isn't getting any better and may even be getting worse. Lots of people still consider Snow Leopard and/or Mountain Lion peak OSX. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Physical-Patience209 · 2023-06-21 21:57 How come that in every discussion against systemD, a comment similar to this pops up? Why is it that other people could only turn against it by reading a hateful post on a forum, and not from experience? Why is it always that some like to belittle the other side by saying it is cool to stand there? Reading several disputes on the topic, I personally can't decide whether the posts, comments and replies have any kind of factual truth about either standing points. Both sides had good points, some even shared their experience whether it was good or bad. So I decided to learn systemD (still doing it) and the alternatives (only OpenRC for the moment). Just in case. I myself don't have anything against systemD, however the choice to choose init is taken away from everyone by standardizing it. One should have the opportunity to exclude from their system, use other init and other service and journaling controlling system if they wish. Oh and by the way - who cares what the date is? Just because it's 2023 doesn't mean someone should just go with the flow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sqomoa · 2023-06-21 22:45 And adding to that, FreeBSD jails are a very amazing feature and will often get the job done in lieu of deploying VMs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _gyu_ · 2023-06-21 22:57 Can you share details? I am about to retire Ubuntu on my laptop and replace it with FreeBSD. I've already replaced arch and Ubuntu on my desktop systems over the last few years. The only thing I have to find out, how will that work reliably: * Yubikey * exFat thumbdrives All other usecases I am using the Ubuntu is already covered on freebsd. I've already made a 10$ worth webcam work on my desktop. I don't think that would be an issue with the laptop. What I haven't tested yet: suspend. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Traquestin · 2023-06-21 23:43 DO ITTTT !!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msbic · 2023-06-22 00:15 Suspend / resume wasnt working, had issues with sound. No such issues with Debian. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boomertsfx · 2023-06-22 02:03 Systemd is great. It took me a while to appreciate it, but I don't miss the wild west of janky init scripts 🤷🏼‍♂️ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- housepuma · 2023-06-22 02:12 May I recommend using the best tool for the job at hand? Linux and the BSDs have their place. I actually like and use both for different tasks. The common thread here is my love of all things open source. I've found Mastodon runs faster in FreeBSD. I use Ghost for blogging and performance is better on Arch Linux for that. OpenBSD powers my firewall. I'd rather of a heterogeneous computing environment ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DimestoreProstitute · 2023-06-22 03:03 I suggest trying FreeBSD out, see what works for you and what doesn't, and use it accordingly. No need to throw all your eggs in a single basket all at once when there are many baskets that all provide great capabilities. I've run it for many many years now, along with Linux, Windows, Illumos and others where the need was best matched. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EatTomatos · 2023-06-22 03:18 Just knowing that I'm not forced to use some posix specific definition that's not even portable on posix systems, is actually a good quality of life thing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EatTomatos · 2023-06-22 03:21 Also systemd has a hard dependency on new frame buffers that support kms. Why is it necessary? Someone could tell me but idc to know why xD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- raidersalami · 2023-06-22 04:51 But can you run windows in feebsd jail? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Careful_Pie_7728 · 2023-06-22 04:52 In what scenario do you plan to use io\_uring? I suspect there is a way to do the same on FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sqomoa · 2023-06-22 04:55 You can run bhyve in a jail, so yes you actually can ---------------------------------------------------------------------- raidersalami · 2023-06-22 05:04 Hmmm interesting. Can you walk me through how to set that up or direct me to the appropriate resource? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Middlewarian · 2023-06-22 05:16 Well, I used to use the kevent API. That's inferior in terms of performance. I also find it easier to structure my program with io\_uring than I did with kevent. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Careful_Pie_7728 · 2023-06-22 05:47 That's still vague. But if you don't want my suggestions, that's fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chesheersmile · 2023-06-22 06:48 Systemd might be good as an init system. But it's not an init system. They turned it into everything everywhere all at once. It manages services, DNS, NTP, boot process, devices, even wants to crawl into kernel. And also it moves backwards to userland, making hard dependencies with user software which are harder to break, patch out or mitigate with middleware by the year. I can see this uphill battle in Slackware, for example. It's really sad. So you're right when you don't trust it. When they thrust a software so persistently on every side, breaking things, especially when it comes from a big corporation, well, you don't need a tinfoil hat to see malevolent intentions or malevolent consequences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bgpepi · 2023-06-22 08:04 I don't know is this a problem -security, but see what I am speak: FreeBSD - a lesson in poor defaults https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- External-Theme-9320 · 2023-06-22 10:13 [https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/eodhit/comment/fecggue/](ht tps://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/eodhit/comment/fecggue/) Another successful migration story ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Larma-Zepp · 2023-06-22 11:33 jails and vnet are just plain awesome. pf deserves an honorable mention ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IanArcad · 2023-06-22 13:03 Docker is a solution for problems that FreeBSD doesn't have. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deafphate · 2023-06-22 17:11 That makes a lot of sense. It definitely moves away from "do one thing well" philosophy. Systemd is definitely a beast. Thank you for writing this up and sharing! Not sure why you would have been down voted here for not liking systemd...especially since you have valid complaints about it. Again thank you for helping me understand better. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deafphate · 2023-06-22 17:12 That's very fair and a great point. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Holiday-Ad-6063 · 2023-06-22 20:25 Runs perfect on a Thinkpad X220. Even have two SSDs ZFS Mirrored just for the heck of it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msbic · 2023-06-22 21:09 T420. I am past the age when I had too much time to tinker with systems. I tried to follow some suggestions regarding sound and hibernate, it didn't work so I reinstalled Debian. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-22 22:16 It wasn't here where I was downvoted. Just for completeness & from what I remember, someone asked about antiX and MX and systemd and whether MX was actively opposing systemd and I said that you can have systemd with MX and that the one that really actively opposed systemd was antiX and that I preferred antiX because of that. Tbh, there was not *that* much downvoting but the post ended up well below zero. And for the sake of the redditors I assumed that the downvotes happened because I admitted liking antiX better than MX and not because giving a correct answer to the question. (Edit: fixed a bad, misleading expression) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edthesmokebeard · 2023-06-22 22:25 I just moved my LAMP server over to FreeBSD. Once you learn where things are (FreeBSD honors /usr/local) and a few system related command equivalents, its largely the same. It's a sane unix. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- heimeyer72 · 2023-06-23 00:04 Ha. Yesterday I stumbled upon a comment somewhere (not reddit, maybe slashdot) elaborating on that but (I could kick myself!!) I went on and now I can't find it anymore. Here's my paranoia partying: There's a rumor that L. Torvalds had been approached by the CIA to build a backdoor into the Linux kernel. His answer was about like, no can do, too many eyes on the code. Shortly after I learned that, I learned about some break-in on kernel.org, and a modification somewhere that involved "if ((userid = 0 && ...))" note the double brackets that tell the compiler to not complain about an assignment in an if statement. Even though this was put into the code by circumventing their code management, the change was caught nearly immediately, before it went public (or so). There was some investigation about who did it but nothing came up. Now I cannot be sure... but this outcome kinda supported L. Torvald's claim about "too many eyes on the code" to put in a backdoor. So now (I assume) the CIA knows that there is no workable way to put a backdoor into the Linux kernel that can stay uncovered for some longer time. So if you are the CIA and can't backdoor the kernel, what is your 2nd best option? What is the thing that every Linux must have? :D But you can't backdoor SysV-init, it's old, small and known to work as-is, you need some big piece of software to hide a backdoor in and you never get that past the community with SysV. What can you do... SysV-init is not perfect in every aspect. What if you *order* someone to develop a better init system, a very big one? Again, I don't know if it happened like that or if L. Poettering was already at developing a new, better, bigger, mightier init system on his own and the CIA noticed the opportunity. Maybe nothing like that happened at all. But thinking about it, what would you (being the CIA) need: - An American company that has a good, big name in the Linux area. You can simply order them to develop a huge init system (even better if they are already at by their own). Of course you serve them a gag order, too. - The new init system must be huge so that you can put several backdoors in it (or prepare some code for being turned into a backdoor later on) and if one is found, remove it and say "oh that was a bug, sorry". - It must be under "constant development" so you can put in new bugs every time one is found. - A good way to ensure that it stays under constant development would be incorporating more and more stuff. Note - to the best of my knowledge, no backdoor has been found in systemd. But it checks all the boxes doesn't it? Oh and: Debian. (Again, I may be totally paranoid.) Of course Debian was not the first to adopt systemd, there was all of Red Hat and OpenSUSE (also an American company). But if you get Debian pocketed, you "own" the majority of all Linux distributions... So... From what I got and remember, the conditions that were chosen for the new init system to replace SysV-init were chosen so that most (if not all) existing init-system fell through. Maybe not everybody would vote for it anyway. Try to carefully convince some. How many committee member were living in the USA? You can just order them to vote for it, together with a gag order. If you get a majority, you got 'em. And so, DEVUAN happened... (I hope I didn't lean out too much with this. It's my genuine opinion. I can't prove any of it, I don't know anything. It's all just assumptions "based on the looks of things" and my premise, that, when it comes to security vs hackability and something can either explained by stupidity (= a real, accidental bug) or malevolence, assume malevolence.) Edit: There is an even more paranoid idea: L. Poettering's attitude. IF he or Red Hat at large WOULD HAVE gotten an order to build a backdoor into that init system, he, as the major developer, must have known that. Let's assume he didn't like that. But he couldn't talk about it. Maybe his attitude (being rude all over, [refusing to fix bad behavior](https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76935) and whatnot) was an attempt to warn the Linux community? :P ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chesheersmile · 2023-06-23 06:40 I like a good conspiracy theory! =) Well, everything can be explained by sheer greediness of big corporations. But it's no coincidence that Poettering is responsible for another hugely controversial project called pulseaudio. And on a more serious note: given enough complexity, open sources do not protect from malevolent intentions or sheet stupidity. There's no such thing like millions of eyes watching the source. Almost no one reads the sources. Recent history with malevolent commits in research purposes kinda confirms that. Or that story about 11 year old bug CVE-2017-6074. It actually permitted arbitrary code execution. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plenty-Librarian-777 · 2023-06-24 12:34 Apart from another good old 'Do it", I'd like to also point out that release 14.0 is not far off too, and shaping up to be another good leap forward. At this pace, it's just getting better every release, like the turtle and the hare. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sahkanaga_Writer · 2023-06-26 05:05 Your outcome will be predicated on whether FreeBSD supports your hardware. If it does, then you will likely be very content. If your hardware is not supported, then you will likely be greatly disappointed. For example, I have been waiting for over 5 years for touch pad support for Dell laptops that never manifested. My workaround is to use a USB mouse. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Suitedbadge401 · 2023-06-28 22:00 AntiX is fantastic. It provides GUI tools to easily manage the openbox WM, tint2 panel, and system administration. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Secure_Eye5090 · 2023-06-30 15:54 I use Arch Linux with ZFS on root. It's not a big deal, sometimes you need to hold kernel upgrades if OpenZFS doesn't support it yet and that's it. I also have Debian servers with ZFS on root and those do not have the holding kernel upgrades inconvenience because Debian doesn't use the newest kernels. Btw, you can use a LTS kernel in Arch Linux if you don't want to worry about kernel compatibility with ZFS. This is much better than FreeBSD for me because I have more software options like Steam, Spotify and stuff like that and having KVM is a big thing for me too. I'm actually posting this from a Windows Virtual Machine that has control of my Nvidia GPU because I have PCI passthrough set up. Also, I actually like systemd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Secure_Eye5090 · 2023-06-30 16:07 You don't understand systemd. systemd is an init system but it also has an OPTIONAL family of software that do other things as well. systemd doesn't do DNS. There is an optional software that you don't need to install or use called systemd-resolved that does DNS, but if you want to use dnsmasq or anything else you can and that will work with systemd as well. Systemd doesn't do NTP, there is an optional software called systemd-timesyncd that does NTP but you don't need to use it or have it installed. Fedora uses chrony for NTP even though it is a systemd distro. Ubuntu is a systemd distro but uses NetworkManager for networking but there is an optional program called systemd-networkd that does networking as well. systemd-resolved systemd-networkd systemd-timesyncd systemd-udev systemd-machined systemd-homed systemd-boot and other software under the systemd family are all SEPARATE and OPTIONAL software that work very well with each other but systemd works with all the alternatives. The only systemd software that is not 100% optional afaik is systemd-journald. Edit: Just so you know some of these were not originally from the systemd family. Udev and systemd-boot were created outside of the systemd project and joined later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- violentalechuga · 2023-09-24 00:54 I did that exactly that. Great experience for the most part, and it's quite easy to keep some amount of Debian within a jail thanks to Devuan. A very interesting journey, which, funnily, makes me appreciate Debian & FreeBSD both even more! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- highedutechsup · 2023-11-14 18:47 I see nothing in your post to upvote. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- highedutechsup · 2023-11-14 18:49 Do people really need docker or is just another crutch that gives control to someone else. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- highedutechsup · 2023-11-14 18:50 Exactly why M$ adopted it so fast. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- highedutechsup · 2023-11-14 18:51 Found the Mac guy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- plonkster · 2023-11-20 14:15 I gave FBSD a honest shot. I was really pumped about it. Brought back sweet memories from the 90s. I think the last time I ran a FBSD box, it had maybe 16 megs of RAM. It was so nice to use a system untainted by all the bloatware^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hgreat features that Linux is now burdened by (hello sy****d). It all went crashing when I realized that in order to run Chrome you need to maintain a freaking Ubuntu emu system inside the FBSD box. Chromium doesn't cut it for me - I heavily rely on Google account syncing across devices. I must say that I was really disappointed that I had to give up on switching to FBSD. Definitely going to try again when and if Google decides to publish a native FBSD Chrome build.