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Groups > comp.misc > #28111

Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD

From kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups comp.misc
Subject Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD
Date 2025-12-20 15:20 -0500
Organization Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000)
Message-ID <10i70dk$icf$1@panix2.panix.com> (permalink)
References <10i2v4d$103pu$1@dont-email.me> <wZl*bXuuA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>

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Theo  <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>The thing is, that's talking about the base system.  All the stuff with
>display managers and packages and so on aren't the base system.  That's more
>like the random stuff you bought on Amazon to bolt on to your car - the
>manufacturer does not have any say in their engineering or making them work
>well together.

Indeed.

And gnome is pretty precarious under Linux in spite of a huge amount of 
effort being expended on it.  It's fine if you want everything completely
default, but if you want any changes then things start going wrong.  And if
they didn't go wrong today, they will tomorrow when you install the mandatory
update because the way you make that change is different now.

>If you can stay within the base system (or a few limited services on top of
>it) you'll be ok.  If you stray off-piste into too much third party stuff
>it's only as good as the third party makes it - and often that third party
>is not interested in FreeBSD.

BSD pretty much follows the Unix philosophy of making everything as 
modular as possible, and using human-readable text files for everything.
Linux on the other hand has become very bloated and very non-modular in
recent years.  A lot of Linux distributions seem to expect that people
will use the gui for everything, and BSD treats the gui as kind of an
afterthought, which I think is a good thing.


>FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix.  There's no longer
>any AT&T code in it.  Linux is a clean sheet reimplementation.  Arguably
>both have diverged from AT&T's source code, but BSD was a piecemeal
>replacement so kept the original structure and feel while Linux started from
>scratch.

This is true, and the argument can be made that Linux has devolved very
far from the Unix philosophy, while the BSD variants have mostly kept to
the Unix philosophy.  

As a long-time proponent of the Unix philosophy ever since I was forced to
leave RSX-11 for v7, this makes me much more of a BSD fan than a Linux fan.

Most often I pick the OS for the applications... and when the applications
I want to use are the Software Tools kit as they most often are, I will
prefer BSD.  This is not always the case, though.

>If your stack is Kubenetes + Docker + systemd, agreed.  If your stack is
>plain nginx + DB then FreeBSD is still an contender. Albeit an increasingly
>niche one as everyone moves towards the former.

There is nothing more horrible and hellish that I could imagine than being
wrapped up inside Kubernetes + Docker + systemd.  I agree that everyone is
moving in that direction and as someone who cares about computers actually
being reliable I find this terrifying.

>It sounds like the writer took some memes and ran with them, without
>actually knowing too much about what people do for real nowadays.

What people do for real is mostly wait for updates.  And then waste time
fixing things that the updates broke.  Actually get work done with computers?
That's not in the requirements definition anymore.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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Thread

“Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-19 07:33 +0000
  Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-12-19 11:03 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-19 21:19 +0000
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-12-20 17:40 +0000
        Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-20 22:47 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2025-12-20 15:20 -0500
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-20 22:33 +0000
  Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2025-12-19 13:32 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-19 21:09 +0000
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2025-12-22 13:38 +0000
        Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-22 21:21 +0000
          Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2025-12-23 13:38 +0000
            Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-12-23 20:31 +0000
              Solaris (was: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2025-12-24 13:18 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> - 2026-01-14 11:29 +0200
      ZFS on Linux (was: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD) Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> - 2026-01-14 14:00 +0000
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2026-01-14 15:29 +0000
        Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> - 2026-01-21 14:31 +0200
          Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-01-22 14:14 +0000
            Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2026-01-22 18:51 +0000
              Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-22 20:46 +0000
              Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Ian <${send-direct-email-to-news1021-at-jusme-dot-com-if-you-must}@jusme.com> - 2026-01-23 08:13 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-23 20:51 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Ian <${send-direct-email-to-news1021-at-jusme-dot-com-if-you-must}@jusme.com> - 2026-01-24 08:49 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-24 21:27 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Ian <${send-direct-email-to-news1021-at-jusme-dot-com-if-you-must}@jusme.com> - 2026-01-25 08:50 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-25 18:56 +0000
              Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-01-23 12:25 +0000
              Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-01-25 11:02 +0100
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-25 18:56 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-01-28 19:25 +0100
            Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2026-01-24 10:46 -0500
              Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-01-26 23:10 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2026-01-27 19:03 -0500
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-01-28 13:23 +0000
                Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2026-01-28 11:58 -0500
  Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-05 22:50 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-01-06 09:42 +0000
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) - 2026-01-06 14:08 +0000
        Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-01-06 22:59 +0000
          Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) - 2026-01-07 06:41 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-06 06:14 +0000
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD vallor <vallor@vallor.earth> - 2026-02-07 03:55 +0000
  Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-21 00:11 +0000
    Re: ???Rock-Solid??? FreeBSD Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> - 2026-02-21 19:09 +0000
    Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2026-02-21 15:39 -0500
      Re: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-21 21:31 +0000

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