> Failing that, there’s limited reasons to use BSD systems instead of Linux unless you have highly specialised requirements. Under many cases I’d imagine it would be more expensive in terms of effort required to hire/train skilled staff.
I'd expect you'd need more training for Linux, since it changes more often.
Linux systems hasn't changed a lot in the last 4 years or os. We mostly run Ubuntu LTS at my work and the 18.04 -> 20.04 -> 22.04 deltas have been really low on the server side, and not that significant on the desktop side either
During this time frame we've also migrated our last FreeBSD servers to Ubuntu
We deferred to switching to the new installer until 22.04 and kept using the legacy net boot image for as long as possible. The switchover wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would and took only a few days to make new internal app to drive our installations. The worst part of the new installer is it requires a minimum of 2GiB of RAM to run, so all of our new VMs have to start with at least that much and be scaled down later
My goodness. How can you possibly say that Ubuntu hasn't changed much from 18 -> 22? There are whole how-tos that are completely useless from those changes. All sorts of things are different. That's ridiculous.
The other comment pointed out the installer, which I did forget about. But other then that what significant has changed?
Ubuntu's documentation, and lots of third party documentation targeting ubuntu, is like 10 years out of date for lots of things anyways, and even when it _works_ often gives bad advice that either was never true or hasn't been true for years.
Netplan happened on 20.04 AFAIR. Doesn't matter much for your cloud vps you never change networking on, but still.
From my perspective, it's not changed much too - I was using apt-get install nginx - I keep using it. Was using systemctl - keep using it. Cannot say I've adjusted my habits during that moves.
> Linux systems hasn't changed a lot in the last 4 years or os. We mostly run Ubuntu LTS at my work and the 18.04 -> 20.04 -> 22.04 deltas have been really low on the server side, and not that significant on the desktop side either
You know, I actually set this comment aside because I was curious about how HN would engage with it. So far, it seems like folks are pointing out that there indeed have been changes in certain aspects of the OS, as well as probably the introduction of the whole snap mechanism.
Regardless, to me Ubuntu LTS seems like one of the better OS distros out there, both for desktop and server use. It's not ideal, but it's good enough in most respects, to the point where it's hard to recommend anything else.
Previously I recall many looking in the direction of CentOS as something to install on servers and have it serve them for a long time with security updates and pretty good stability, but I guess now one would have to count on Rocky Linux and Alma Linux for that. Additionally, I have to admit that some of the choices that RPM distros make can be a bit odd and the software support isn't where I'd like it to be, things like Docker were admittedly broken (DNS resolution, firewall masquerades and other oddness with SELinux) for a while. It feels like they have their own enterprise-focused way of doing everything, OpenShift being an example of this.
On the other hand, there's Debian and Ubuntu. Personally, I might even like Debian better, but Ubuntu's LTS lifecycle is far more worry free. You might not get 10 years of support, but setting up something and running it for 5 years (with security and other updates) is pretty freeing, especially when you're primarily interested in just keeping things running in a stable manner and don't always need the latest packages. There are changes, of course, there are packages that change names, that break or are deprecated, sometimes you get other growing pains that all of the OSes out there need to deal with.
But Ubuntu LTS to me feels like it's good enough for both server use in both development/testing/prod, as well as personal use, as a daily driver.
And nowadays I'm considering migrating my Debian servers after the EOL to Ubuntu, my new ones already running it.
I will say that every distro has its place and in certain domains there are better options than Ubuntu, of course, and OSes like the *BSDs have consistency and engineering that Linux cannot quite match (due to the "engineered vs grown" approach to building them), but sometimes you just want something that is simple to run, has ample tutorials and resources, and won't make you chase down odd issues.
That wasn’t their point. But to be honest I do think FreeBSD is.
Linux wins in terms of market share which makes it appear easier (eg more software support, bore install guides, etc). But if you look at the base OS itself, FreeBSD is a lot more consistent to manage.
I think it’s a great pity FreeBSD doesn’t get more traction to be honest with you. I have no major qualms with Linux on the whole but FreeBSD is a really nice platform to work on too.
I can't speak for the person you're asking, but BSD is worlds easier than using Linux.
A how-to for FreeBSD can be used with NetBSD with minimal changes. Why? Because the BSDs don't expend effort to deliberately try to differentiate themselves from each other. They're consistent and don't change gratuitously.
Try writing a how-to that has even the slightest consistency between the common Linux distros - Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch. Heck - many how-tos written for Ubuntu 18 can't be used with newer Ubuntu! It's a mess.
No, they're suggesting that BSD changes less. If you learn FreeBSD, and you learn, let's say Ubuntu, and then you keep using them for a decade, the stated position is that FreeBSD would require you to learn fewer new things than ex. Ubuntu over the same timespan.
I've been using Linux for 27 years, and it hasn't changed all that much in that time. Packaging has got better, systemd is a bit of a pain in the tits but necessary if you want to support the kind of things we expect to do with "real" computers instead of servers sitting in a dark room untouched for years.
I've been using NetBSD for about the same amount of time, and it hasn't changed all that much either.
> I've been using Linux for 27 years, and it hasn't changed all that much in that time.
First there's networking configuration. On Debian and Ubuntu the interfaces(5) used to be nice and simple, but dog knows what to use on any particular system nowadays since there are like three ways to do things: interface, netplan, system-networkd, other?
Plus there's resolv.conf(5) being fiddled with a myriad of ways and you have to figure out which system to use there as well.
ifconfig kind of works and kind of doesn't for some things.
How may firewall system changes have there been in the last 27 years? Are we supposed to be using iptables or nftables in 2022?
In roughly the same amount of time I've owned about ten or fifteen cars.
Every single one of them had the dashboard controls in slightly different places, with slightly different options. Some had four-speed gearboxes, some five-speed, some automatic with three-, four-, five-, or in one case 18-speed gearboxes.
Every single one of them was basically just a car, and drove me to the same places in the same way.
I have not tried recently to use BSD as a desktop, which is likely to have problems when using many recent GPUs, due to the lack of device drivers (but NVIDIA provides FreeBSD drivers, not only Linux, so I have used FreeBSD on a signage appliance with a fanless NVIDIA GPU).
However, when using a system without a GUI, e.g. for a networking or storage server, in most cases FreeBSD is definitely much easier to use than Linux.
There are a huge number of small details that matter. Even for something as simple as seeing the status of the network interfaces. If I type "ifconfig" without arguments on FreeBSD, it shows everything that I want to know, about all network interfaces. To obtain the same information on a Linux system, I have to type a large number of "ip" commands, each with many arguments that I fail to remember even after decades of using "ip", so I may need to consult the "man" page for "ip". (The legacy ifconfig of Linux does not provide the functionality of FreeBSD ifconfig)
In general, for any network-related task, using ifconfig and ipfw on FreeBSD is much easier than using ip and iptables on Linux.
There also many more niche applications where there are big differences. For example the "mt" command for magnetic tape control sucks badly on Linux, but it is very convenient on FreeBSD. Also for SCSI devices FreeBSD has more flexible commands.
While audio seems to be improving on Linux with things like pipewire, for a long time audio was in many cases easier to configure on FreeBSD than on Linux with the dreaded ALSA or pulseaudio, if the audio hardware was supported. Also, when I had to configure once some USB surveillance cameras, that was easier on FreeBSD with webcamd, than on Linux, but like for audio, FreeBSD has a shorter list of supported devices.
Some of the differences in the user interface between FreeBSD and Linux are caused by FreeBSD being more conservative, while in Linux some older tools have been replaced with newer tools, but the newer tools have been made with worse user interfaces, like in the replacement of ifconfig with ip, or in the introduction of ALSA and pulseaudio, which both have an extremely poor user interface, especially for computers with multiple audio devices.
Yes, much easier, Linux is a mess, the firewall disgusting, LVM...buah. The only problem BSD have, are drivers. But you obviously never worked with BSD...unbloated systems ARE easier to use.
Firewalls are the one thing I don't really like on FreeBSD. It gives you 3 options but the handbook doesn't provide much guidance on the pros and cons of each.
I'd prefer it if there was one favored one that all the effort went into to make it really good, just like with everything else FreeBSD. This is not arch where you have to handpick each component :)
Of the 3 FreeBSD firewalls, ipfw is the native firewall, like iptables is for Linux.
The pf firewall is a fork of the OpenBSD firewall. It is the normal choice for someone already familiar with using OpenBSD firewalls. Otherwise, a new user should choose between ipfw and pf the one whose configuration seems easier to understand.
I happen to prefer ipfw, because writing a configuration file for ipfw is exactly like writing a program in a programming language (a language very much like BASIC), which examines the incoming or outgoing packets, by executing instructions sequentially. Others find the syntax used by pf more pleasant, but I find it more difficult to reason about which is the matching rule that will be selected by pf for execution for a certain packet.
The third firewall, ipfilter, is also provided mainly for the former users of it on other operating systems. I am not aware of any particular advantage for it.
Exactly, I found out the same with some googling, but the handbook specifically mentions it will describe the differences and then neglects to do it :)
I was first considering pf because I used it on Mac before, but the problem is the freebsd version was forked quite a long time ago and has different features than the openbsd version as a result.
I went for ipfw mainly because it seems to see the most active development.
But really, I wish FreeBSD would just pick one as standard and keep the others around for compatibility reasons if needed. One of the reasons I like FreeBSD is that you don't have to make such choices. Things have well chosen defaults.
Contrast this with arch which I mentioned, that even lets you decide which mechanism to use for network management (e.g. net manager, connman, systemd-networkd, netctl). It describes this choice really well in its excellent wiki, but when I tried arch it meant I had to do this kind of decision for pretty much every part of the OS :) What I like for FreeBSD is that they keep things simple.
I think Arch and FreeBSD have a lot in common, they're both intended for users that don't expect to click through everything and just dump you on a command prompt where you can set up stuff the way you want, instead focusing on excellent documentation.
I use FreeBSD on my daily driver PC now as I thought Arch was too much work with all the choices, and on the other hand the one thing I did want to change (systemd) it didn't allow.
>>CRUX is a lightweight Linux distribution for the x86-64 architecture targeted at experienced Linux users. The primary focus of this distribution is keep it simple, which is reflected in a straightforward tar.gz-based package system, BSD-style initscripts, and a relatively small collection of trimmed packages.
>>Inspired by CRUX, another minimalist distribution, Judd Vinet started the Arch Linux project in March 2002. The name was chosen because Vinet liked the word's meaning of "the principal," as in "arch-enemy"
BTW Crux is still a great distro, limited packages yes, but absolutely simple and rocksolid.
I like FreeBSB too...well it's my main system since years >8 probably. But if it need's to be linux then Alpine Arch Crux....or the RHEL's Debian's...if i really have to use them.
It is. I honestly struggle to see how anyone would pick Linux over Windows but then pick Linux over BSD. It feels like the worst of both worlds - with Linux you don't get the hardware support and keep-going-at-all-costs of Windows, but you don't get the consistency and comprehensibility of BSD either.
Any commercial OS, like Windows, Mac OS or Android, will be easier to use than any free operating system, for those users who never attempt to do any action that is not on the restricted list of actions for which the commercial OS was designed.
Nevertheless, there are many people like myself, who always discover, when using a computer, that they want to do an action not anticipated by the designers of the commercial OS, either due to lack of awareness about the needs of some people, or because they do not bother to support those that are only a small percentage of their users, or because they have an interest in preventing the owners of the computers to use their property in certain ways.
Whenever it happens that I want to do such an action, I discover that it is much more difficult to do it on Windows than on Linux or on any *BSD, and sometimes even impossible. That is the reason why I have abandoned the use of MS Windows or Mac OS, many years ago, except for various occasions when I am forced to use them temporarily for professional reasons.
Being a BSD user myself, i just said that Windows is easier (overall). I especially talk about Active Directory and Group Policies, on Windows a matter of Hour's on Linux/BSD (a comparable system)...Weeks?
But yes *nix is much more flexible..but that comes with a cost, sometimes a massive one.
I'd expect you'd need more training for Linux, since it changes more often.