FreeBSD Celebrating Its 30th Anniversary

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FreeBSD Celebrating Its 30th Anniversary

This month the FreeBSD project is celebrating its 30th anniversary since this open-source BSD operating system project was established...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-30th-Birthday

[mercster]

Good solid OS... maybe eclipsed by Linux these days, at least on the desktop, but much to admire. Have used it a lot, both at home and work. Chose FreeBSD for a Nagios server at work in the early aughts. Don't really have much use for it anymore, but, congrats to the team.

[jacob]

Happy anniversary!

[jacob]

Good solid OS... maybe eclipsed by Linux these days, at least on the desktop, but much to admire. Have used it a lot, both at home and work. Chose FreeBSD for a Nagios server at work in the early aughts. Don't really have much use for it anymore, but, congrats to the team.

It's on the desktop as much as on everything else. I'm not aware of any segment or market in which FreeBSD would be ahead of Linux. That's not to say FreeBSD isn't good of course. It has chosen a course that makes it a niche platform, but it's also the reason why its users like it

[mercster]

It's on the desktop as much as on everything else. I'm not aware of any segment or market in which FreeBSD would be ahead of Linux. That's not to say FreeBSD isn't good of course. It has chosen a course that makes it a niche platform, but it's also the reason why its users like it

Never said it wasn't on desktops, I said "eclipsed"... many desktop users are interested in goofy stuff like video games (Steam with NVIDIA proprietary drivers, etc) that wouldn't necessarily be available on FreeBSD, which is why Linux has eclipsed it there. But as a desktop OS for, ya know, actually getting work done... sure, it's on par. I remember liking things solely because they were niche, 25 years ago, when I was a young... now, being niche when all you need is something stable that meets your requirements isn't so alluring. ;-)

EDIT: Oh I see, I guess you're saying it's just as eclipsed on non-desktop... definitely true. I think that's just a consequence, however, of Linux's massive popularity, not technical reasons. There's no reason FreeBSD couldn't be massive in clouds and containers and all that jazz, it's just that Linux gets the eyeballs and most of the development attention. Whereas on the desktop, for a casual luser wanting to do casual end-luser desktop-y things, Linux is probably the better choice.

[jacob]

Never said it wasn't on desktops, I said "eclipsed"... many desktop users are interested in goofy stuff like video games (Steam with NVIDIA proprietary drivers, etc) that wouldn't necessarily be available on FreeBSD, which is why Linux has eclipsed it there. But as a desktop OS for, ya know, actually getting work done... sure, it's on par. I remember liking things solely because they were niche, 25 years ago, when I was a young... now, being niche when all you need is something stable that meets your requirements isn't so alluring. ;-)

EDIT: Oh I see, I guess you're saying it's just as eclipsed on non-desktop... definitely true. I think that's just a consequence, however, of Linux's massive popularity, not technical reasons. There's no reason FreeBSD couldn't be massive in clouds and containers and all that jazz, it's just that Linux gets the eyeballs and most of the development attention. Whereas on the desktop, for a casual luser wanting to do casual end-luser desktop-y things, Linux is probably the better choice.

I don't think that the likes of AWS, Google etc. select OSes for their data centers based on which one is popular with Steam players using proprietary NVIDIA drivers Of course the fact that cloud, large server farms, supercomputers but also mobile devices, IoT etc. use overwhelmingly Linux is due to technical reasons. These would include better hardware support, performance (FreeBSD was once ahead in that department, but that was then), features like cgroups and systemd (as much as BSD folks would hate to admit the latter) etc. Ultimately it's all the result of Linux getting vastly more funding and manpower than FreeBSD. As to why is it so, that's a different debate entirely.

[mercster]

As to why is it so, that's a different debate entirely.

Yeah I mean... it's a chicken and egg issue, really. Popular operating systems get worked on more and are better tuned/get more features... but you can't be popular without said advantages. The reasons Linux took off are varied (license, GNU userspace/C compiler, culture), but the situation is today, it is the preferred platform for almost anything. Still, lots of mundane stuff gets done out there that FreeBSD can do fine, it's just not on the cutting edge anymore, as far as newer tech. But like with systemd as a newer technology, there's no technical reason FreeBSD doesn't have a similar system... it just wasn't the target. FreeBSD has container/virt stuff as well, it just never got as much work and maturation as Linux did, for the same old reasons of momentum.

Anyway didn't really come to say FreeBSD was just as good, just saying... for what it does, it does fine. :-) Right tool for the right job and all that.

[jacob]

Yeah I mean... it's a chicken and egg issue, really. Popular operating systems get worked on more and are better tuned/get more features... but you can't be popular without said advantages. The reasons Linux took off are varied (license, GNU userspace/C compiler, culture), but the situation is today, it is the preferred platform for almost anything. Still, lots of mundane stuff gets done out there that FreeBSD can do fine, it's just not on the cutting edge anymore, as far as newer tech. But like with systemd as a newer technology, there's no technical reason FreeBSD doesn't have a similar system... it just wasn't the target. FreeBSD has container/virt stuff as well, it just never got as much work and maturation as Linux did, for the same old reasons of momentum.

My personal take on that it's that it comes down to the licence. With the GPL2, if you contribute to Linux, you are certain to stay on a level playing field. Your competitors may benefit from your contributions, but you also benefit from theirs and compete on equal terms. In practice it also means that whatever is contributed to Linux tends to stay in Linux as there is no other mainstream GPL-licensed OS. Effectively, when you contribute to Linux, you get back more than what you put in. That's not a given under the GPL of course, but the Linux project managed to achieve that state of affairs.

Anyway didn't really come to say FreeBSD was just as good, just saying... for what it does, it does fine. :-) Right tool for the right job and all that.

Absolutely.

[kylew77]

FreeBSD is a great OS. It was my first Unix in the 00s as a teen and then I would go on to build a FreeBSD box in 2016 that I used for years. It is a shame how all the *BSDs work on laptops and how there are no preload options like with Linux. It is weird to think how in a different world without the SCO lawsuit how FreeBSD would have taken off in a world without Linux but that is just a pipe dream of a world that is never to be.

[rogerx]

My choices of operating systems, Linux is number one with FreeBSD being number two within a world without Windows.

In a world without Linux, FreeBSD would be number one on my list.