FreeBSD In Q2-2022: More Than 30k Ports, Driver Improvements, Better Linux Compatibility

[Volta]

I've been using Linux in one way or another since '99... always been slightly jealous of the fact all FreeBSD development goes toward a single distro.... instead of 50+ irrelevant and less than a handful relevant Linux distros.

There are more people working on the Linux kernel than entire FreeBSD distribution (maybe even all *BSD distributions).

[Volta]

Why don't Linux users just go and use Windows?

Because of simple and smart reason Open Source (in its best - GPL) vs proprietary spying trash.

[arQon]

Most FreeBSD (Unix) usage is corporate - for example, Netflix uses it.

Just gonna point out here that Facebook - a company worth over *half a billion dollars* - provided nearly 1/3 of FreeBSD's funding for the year. A whopping *$50K* of it. Be still, my beating heart...

IDK how many BSD servers FB runs, but that's not even close to a year's salary for a single entry-level webmonkey in the Bay Area, let alone a developer, let alone a whole group of them that write your damn OS! And yet, it's *still* more than Netflix did.

Gotta love how all these megacorps take from FOSS and give literally nothing back, to the point where "only" giving *effectively* nothing back is still better... :/

[Vistaus]

The same reason Linux doesn't move to C64.

That wasn't my point.

[darkoverlordofdata]

FreeBSD was founded 1993, Linux was founded 1991. You could argue that the Berkley Software Distribution is older, it sure is, but its not FreeBSD. The first time the Berkley Software Distribution was 100% free of "Unix" code was around 1995.

Thanks for correcting my memory. I was thinking of my old MicroVaxII running on BSD back in the 80's.

[Classical]

Yeah, right. Many will tell you opposite. Linux is much more tested than FreeBSD has ever been.

You always do this, when something positive is said about FreeBSD, you always come to question it and say how good Linux is. But I really wonder, how much experience do you have with both systems. I have used Linux as a daily driver myself for over 10 years and now I have been using FreeBSD as a daily driver for 5 years. I can't say for any Linux system that your session can never crash completely. I can say that FreeBSD has never completely crashed in over 5 years with daily and active use.

This is mainly about the file system: Which is more stable and more robust, FreeBSD or Linux? https://www.quora.com/Which-is-more-...eeBSD-or-Linux

I would like to say that pkg is also more reliable than apt from Ubuntu. I'm not going to say that no operating system is more stable and reliable than FreeBSD. I'm just saying that this is a very difficult task to accomplish. FreeBSD is pretty much the absolute pinnacle of reliability, stability and robustness.

[Volta]

I can't say for any Linux system that your session can never crash completely. I can say that FreeBSD has never completely crashed in over 5 years with daily and active use.

I'm using Linux for more than 20 years and only crashes I had were due to hardware. I'm not counting experimental software like bleeding edge graphic drivers. I've been using FreeBSD for some little time, because I have no single reason to use it instead of Linux.

This is mainly about the file system: Which is more stable and more robust, FreeBSD or Linux? https://www.quora.com/Which-is-more-...eeBSD-or-Linux

Too bad the one from quoted site doesn't have clue about Linux file systems. He acknowledges ext3 was ok, but he had some problems with ext4. I bet those are early days of ext4 or he doesn't know he can switch ext4 modes. Opposite experience:

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/f...n-crash.30683/

So the question I have is: is this "just the way it has to be" when running FreeBSD on UFS, or are there tricks to avoid this from happening? Is UFS really that fragile when it come to unclean shutdowns?

I understand that data can be lost, but when different files all over the FS get messed up (when they haven't been edited recently) is a bit annoying and unexpected. I've never experienced anything similar on Linux, but I might've just been lucky.

FreeBSD is pretty much the absolute pinnacle of reliability, stability and robustness.

FreeBSD is far from it. It's only tested on limited hardware, lacks many features of modern OSes (servers included), it's one of the least secure OSes and doesn't come even close to Linux performance. Even Apple is not using it on their servers.. Furthermore, the FreeBSD foundation achieved only 11% if their goal: $158,184 USD of its 1,400,000. It seems it's losing interest.

[aht0]

Why don't they just move to Linux instead?

Why dont ya move to Windows instead?

[aht0]

Sure Netflix uses it, not because it is better though but simply because they do not want to share code back. Which they don't, which is not a win for FreeBSD either.



FreeBSD was founded 1993, Linux was founded 1991. You could argue that the Berkley Software Distribution is older, it sure is, but its not FreeBSD. The first time the Berkley Software Distribution was 100% free of "Unix" code was around 1995.

Netflix is one of the biggest FreeBSD code contributors and sponsors.

They have also stated that reason they chose FreeBSD is simply better performance, equivalent of they could not achieve testing out Linux boxes in file server role. Plain and simple, google for it, its pretty easy to find.

Due court battles BSD development was held up significantly, that gave Linux initial traction. Users couldnt be sure whats gonna happen with BSD, so until 1994 Linux was felt as "safer" choice. I might be off by year but cant be arsed to check. Linus has stated tho that had there been free BSD variant available at the time, he would not have even started with Linux.

Im sick as hell from noobs who keep bashing FreeBSD. "BSD sucks because x,y,z" then at some point that wannabe would admit that he has either never used or barely looked at it. But they sure as hell sneer and whoop as they have 20y under their belt with Linux and BSD both along with commit-rights. Such experts, lol.

[uid313]

Why dont ya move to Windows instead?

While I do use Linux at home, I use Windows at work and I really like it, I think it is a great operating system and I am happy with it.
I don't strongly prefer Windows over Linux or vice versa, I am quite content with both.

I think the reason I still use Linux is that it is free and open source, else I would probably just have used Windows at home too.