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“Rock-Solid” FreeBSD

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  “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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#28105 — “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD

Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:

    And that's one of the big draws to FreeBSD: it is as rock-solid as
    they come.

    Sure, I talk a lot about how reliable Debian is, but even Debian
    can't touch the stability of FreeBSD.

Only ...

    Unfortunately, PackageKit continually crashed, which meant KDE
    Discover was useless, so installation of all apps would have to be
    done via the command line.

... and ...

    On a whim, I decided to install GNOME, but the GDM login manager
    wouldn't start, so I decided to stick with KDE Plasma.

So much for “rock-solid as they come”, eh? Irony, this writer has
heard of it.

Also:

    Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.

No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

    To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
    server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
    geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
    is what you want.

That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any more.
All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
networking stack, service management, security modules and privilege
isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now, while the BSD
folks try to figure out how to port some small part of it to their
aging platform.

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#28106

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
> <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:
> 
>     And that's one of the big draws to FreeBSD: it is as rock-solid as
>     they come.
> 
>     Sure, I talk a lot about how reliable Debian is, but even Debian
>     can't touch the stability of FreeBSD.
> 
> Only ...
> 
>     Unfortunately, PackageKit continually crashed, which meant KDE
>     Discover was useless, so installation of all apps would have to be
>     done via the command line.
> 
> ... and ...
> 
>     On a whim, I decided to install GNOME, but the GDM login manager
>     wouldn't start, so I decided to stick with KDE Plasma.
> 
> So much for “rock-solid as they come”, eh? Irony, this writer has
> heard of it.

"As you might assume, the second manufacturer's cars most likely work and
perform better than the first because it knows every piece that comes
together to create the car, and can make all sorts of adjustments to improve
every aspect of it.  The first manufacturer, on the other hand, doesn't have
nearly the control over how those components are built.

FreeBSD is the manufacturer that builds everything in-house.

Once you get FreeBSD up and running, you can absolutely rely on it."


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.

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.

> Also:
> 
>     Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.
> 
> No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

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.

>     To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
>     server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
>     geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
>     is what you want.
> 
> That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any more.
> All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
> networking stack, service management, security modules and privilege
> isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now, while the BSD
> folks try to figure out how to port some small part of it to their
> aging platform.

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.

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

Theo

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#28109

On 19 Dec 2025 11:03:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:

> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
>> <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:
>
> 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.

Interesting. All these pieces work fine on Linux. But as you say,
they’re not included in the monolithic blob of code that is the base
*BSD system.

Linux development has traditionally been much more modular, with
distros made up of a much wider variety of pieces. So there has been
plenty of time to knock off most of the rough edges, such that those
pieces fit much more seamlessly together.

>> Also:
>>
>>     Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.
>>
>> No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.
>
> FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix. There's no
> longer any AT&T code in it.

So it is in fact no longer “derived from” AT&T Unix -- the lawsuit saw
to that. Which means my point stands: BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux
is.

> 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.

Why is it, then that it is so hard to move between BSD variants, if
they all in fact keep “the original structure and feel”?
Distro-hopping is a real, commonplace thing in the Linux world, but it
isn’t so easy to do in the BSD world.

>>     To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
>>     server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
>>     geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
>>     is what you want.
>>
>> That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any
>> more. All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
>> networking stack, service management, security modules and
>> privilege isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now,
>> while the BSD folks try to figure out how to port some small part
>> of it to their aging platform.
>
> 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’s a lot more to Linux deployments than the above pieces. There
is in fact a greater variety of pieces that you can use on Linux, than
on BSD.

Consider how the BSD world has been trying to come up with its own
equivalents to things like Docker, systemd, and also Wayland.

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

But that article is a first-hand account of trying to set up a FreeBSD
system.

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#28110

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 19 Dec 2025 11:03:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:
> 
> > Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >> Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
> >> <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:
> >
> > 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.
> 
> Interesting. All these pieces work fine on Linux. But as you say,
> they’re not included in the monolithic blob of code that is the base
> *BSD system.

The base system is not a 'monolithic blob of code', it's a collection of
programs just like any other system.  It just so happens to all be managed
together in one repository.

> Linux development has traditionally been much more modular, with
> distros made up of a much wider variety of pieces. So there has been
> plenty of time to knock off most of the rough edges, such that those
> pieces fit much more seamlessly together.

The similarity is more with someone like Debian, who picks upstream projects
and makes them work together, sometimes diverging them substantially to fit
'the Debian way'.  This is a lot of additional work, on top of the work of
the original software developers.  In the BSDs the upstream and the distro
are one and the same, although with BSD the 'distro' is just the base system
and not the packages too, which are more like third party repositories on
Linux.

Just because Linux is bigger things tend to work better together.  Anyone
who has tried to run command line tools on a Mac will have experienced the
same issues - either things work or they don't, in which case somebody needs
to go in and dig out the Mac-specific problem and submit a patch.  Any time
you try to follow some build instructions on a Mac written by somebody on
Linux there will usually be points of pain (eg bashisms in shell scripts when
your /bin/sh isn't bash), assuming a GNU userland when you are running a BSD
userland, etc (BSD make v GNU make, BSD sed v GNU sed, or whatever).

> >> Also:
> >>
> >>     Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.
> >>
> >> No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.
> >
> > FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix. There's no
> > longer any AT&T code in it.
> 
> So it is in fact no longer “derived from” AT&T Unix -- the lawsuit saw
> to that. Which means my point stands: BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux
> is.

'Unix' is a concept from 1990s.  We are now 30 years on.  How we got here is
interesting but is mostly irrelevant now.  You can still get Unix
certification if for some reason you want that (Mac OS is Unix certified). 
Two Linux distros (Inspur's K-UX and Huawei's EulerOS) previously were
certified but that has lapsed.  I'm not sure why they went to the trouble.

> > 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.
> 
> Why is it, then that it is so hard to move between BSD variants, if
> they all in fact keep “the original structure and feel”?
> Distro-hopping is a real, commonplace thing in the Linux world, but it
> isn’t so easy to do in the BSD world.

The point of divergence was 30-35 years ago.  That's a lot of time for
divergent evolution.  Meanwhile Linux distros are generally rely on the same
underlying projects (eg GNU tools) which haven't diverged because they're
still a single project.

In the analogy, if Tesla and VW make everything in house, their parts design
would be customised to their vehicles such that you can't swap parts between
brands.  But if Ford and GM share a parts supplier then it's more likely the
part can be swapped from a Ford vehicle to a GM vehicle because the supplier
uses the same attachment or connector for both.

> >>     To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
> >>     server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
> >>     geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
> >>     is what you want.
> >>
> >> That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any
> >> more. All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
> >> networking stack, service management, security modules and
> >> privilege isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now,
> >> while the BSD folks try to figure out how to port some small part
> >> of it to their aging platform.
> >
> > 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’s a lot more to Linux deployments than the above pieces. There
> is in fact a greater variety of pieces that you can use on Linux, than
> on BSD.
> 
> Consider how the BSD world has been trying to come up with its own
> equivalents to things like Docker, systemd, and also Wayland.

Those are mostly because some feature gets added to the Linux kernel, then
the systemd folks use it, and Docker on top of that.  They are not
interested in compatibility with non-Linux systems.  To keep up, BSD has to
implement the same feature the same way, even if they already have a better
solution.

BSDs have had jails for decades, but suddenly Docker is the new hotness. 
Because jails aren't piece-for-piece identical to Docker (they were invented
first, so that's impossible), you can't just drop in a jail into a Docker
pipeline.  That means the BSD has to implement its own Docker clone, ie is
always playing catchup.

If you were starting from scratch using BSD you'd start with the jail as
your building block rather than a Docker container.  You'd end up with
something similar but the tooling would be different.  But because there is
not the ecosystem around jails that there has latterly developed around
Docker, you'd end up doing more work yourself.

In a pragmatic world where you just want to get the job done, the Linux
ecosystem is clearly better.  On a technical level there is not so much
difference.

> > It sounds like the writer took some memes and ran with them, without
> > actually knowing too much about what people do for real nowadays.
> 
> But that article is a first-hand account of trying to set up a FreeBSD
> system.

The author repeats an internet meme: 'FreeBSD is rock solid' and then
proceeds to use it not in the way that people mean by that, while still
repeating the meme: "However, any time I have a situation where stability is
absolutely key, you can bet FreeBSD will be my first choice.".

In their account the meme is self-evidently not true (things crashed or
didn't work) yet they repeat it as a mantra.  And despite that they show no
evidence of ever getting to the point of a system that "you can absolutely
rely on", which means they are just repeating what they've been told rather
than any experience they have validated the statement for themselves.

Theo

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#28113

On 20 Dec 2025 17:40:31 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:

> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> On 19 Dec 2025 11:03:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
>>>> <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Interesting. All these pieces work fine on Linux. But as you say,
>> they’re not included in the monolithic blob of code that is the
>> base *BSD system.
>
> The base system is not a 'monolithic blob of code', it's a
> collection of programs just like any other system. It just so
> happens to all be managed together in one repository.

That’s not the way to do modular development. This is why Linux
distros can achieve greater modularity than the BSDs can manage.

> The similarity is more with someone like Debian, who picks upstream
> projects and makes them work together, sometimes diverging them
> substantially to fit 'the Debian way'. This is a lot of additional
> work, on top of the work of the original software developers.

Can you give some examples of this? From what I see of Debian
packaging, they are careful to separate their own patches, where they
need them, from upstream. Besides which, Debian must be doing
something right, given it is probably the single most popular base
distro from which others create their own offshoots.

> In the BSDs the upstream and the distro are one and the same,
> although with BSD the 'distro' is just the base system and not the
> packages too, which are more like third party repositories on Linux.

Unfortunately there seems to be no discipline about divergence between
different BSD variants. This is what leads to fragmentation among
those variants, whereas there are something like 50-100 times as many
Linux distros offering much smoother interchangeability.

> Just because Linux is bigger things tend to work better together.
> Anyone who has tried to run command line tools on a Mac will have
> experienced the same issues - either things work or they don't, in
> which case somebody needs to go in and dig out the Mac-specific
> problem and submit a patch.

The problem is Apple itself is the one diverging from the “Unix
philosophy”. It has legally licensed the trademark, but when even
someone like “Mr Unix” himself, Ken Thompson of Bell Labs, has decided
he doesn’t want to use what Apple tries to pass for “Unix” any more,
and prefers Linux nowadays, that should be telling you something.

> 'Unix' is a concept from 1990s.

What does that mean for the “Unix philosophy” that you mentioned
above?

>> Why is it, then that it is so hard to move between BSD variants, if
>> they all in fact keep “the original structure and feel”?
>> Distro-hopping is a real, commonplace thing in the Linux world, but
>> it isn’t so easy to do in the BSD world.
>
> The point of divergence was 30-35 years ago. That's a lot of time
> for divergent evolution. Meanwhile Linux distros are generally rely
> on the same underlying projects (eg GNU tools) which haven't
> diverged because they're still a single project.

But the Linux kernel is from that time, too. And the GNU project is
even older than that, more like 40 years old. By your argument, based
purely on timing, this “divergence” into incompatibility should have
afflicted the Linux world just as much as it has the BSD world. But it
hasn’t.

> In the analogy, if Tesla and VW make everything in house, their
> parts design would be customised to their vehicles such that you
> can't swap parts between brands. But if Ford and GM share a parts
> supplier then it's more likely the part can be swapped from a Ford
> vehicle to a GM vehicle because the supplier uses the same
> attachment or connector for both.

So the BSDs suffer from “Not Invented Here” Syndrome, is that it?

>> Consider how the BSD world has been trying to come up with its own
>> equivalents to things like Docker, systemd, and also Wayland.
>
> Those are mostly because some feature gets added to the Linux
> kernel, then the systemd folks use it, and Docker on top of that.
> They are not interested in compatibility with non-Linux systems. To
> keep up, BSD has to implement the same feature the same way, even if
> they already have a better solution.

If they have a better solution, why wouldn’t their own users (like
you) stick to that?

> BSDs have had jails for decades, but suddenly Docker is the new
> hotness.

Docker is just one implementation of containers on Linux. Remember
that “Docker” and “containers” are not primitives offered up by the
Linux per se: they are all built out of lower-level pieces, like
namespaces and cgroups.

> If you were starting from scratch using BSD you'd start with the
> jail as your building block rather than a Docker container.

Why doesn’t somebody do that, then?

> In a pragmatic world where you just want to get the job done, the
> Linux ecosystem is clearly better.

How did it get that way? What were the BSDs doing in the meantime?

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#28111

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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#28112

On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:20:04 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:

> 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.

GNOME is not designed to be very customizable: you are supposed to use
it as designed.

If you want a customizable UI, there are other more versatile options,
like KDE Plasma.

> BSD pretty much follows the Unix philosophy of making everything as
> modular as possible ...

It’s the opposite, really. Linux distros are made out of lots of
modular pieces, while BSDs are constructed out of large, monolithic
blobs of code.

> ... 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.

If you are thinking of the hoary old cliché of “do one thing and do it
well”, note that the modular Linux kernel is a much closer adherent of
the “Unix philosophy” than any BSD can manage.

> 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.

Even the BSDs, it seems, want to move in that direction.

Thankfully, on Linux itself, because of its modularity, you have many
other options besides that particular stack.

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#28107

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

>     To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
>     server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
>     geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
>     is what you want.
> 
> That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any more.
> All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
> networking stack, service management, security modules and privilege
> isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now, while the BSD
> folks try to figure out how to port some small part of it to their
> aging platform.

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

When it was time to replace my ageing Open Solaris file/media server,
I chose FreeBSD over Linux for that reason. (But all my other systems
run Linux.)

-- 
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

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#28108

On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:32:25 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

> A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
> FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
> fragile dkms mess in Linux.

ZFS is a memory hog, though, isn’t it (it is to filesystems like Java
is for programming languages). Best confined to a dedicated storage
appliance, not something you want to run on a general-purpose machine.

Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro, but
it will give you btrfs instead.

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#28119

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:32:25 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:
> 
>> A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
>> FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
>> fragile dkms mess in Linux.
> 
> ZFS is a memory hog, though, isn’t it 

Not really when compared to e.g. modern web browsers.  IIRC the rule
of thumb with ZFS is to have at least 1GB of RAM for each TB of
storage.  My old file/media server had 4.5TB of storage and 4GB of RAM
and worked fine.  The new one has 6TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. 
(Thankfully purchased months ago before RAM prices skyrocketed.)

> Best confined to a dedicated storage
> appliance, not something you want to run on a general-purpose machine.

My file/media server is effectively a dedicated "appliance" although
I built it myself instead of buying something off-the-shelf.  However,
I believe plenty of people use FreeBSD with ZFS as a general purpose
desktop/laptop system.

> Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro, but
> it will give you btrfs instead.

No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has to
be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.

-- 
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

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#28121

On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:38:24 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

> Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro,
>> but it will give you btrfs instead.
>
> No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has
> to be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.

Guess who controls the licensing of ZFS?

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#28124

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:38:24 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:
> 
>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro,
>>> but it will give you btrfs instead.
>>
>> No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has
>> to be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.
> 
> Guess who controls the licensing of ZFS?

Indeed, although the situation is more complicated than that simple
phrasing implies.

When Sun open-sourced Solaris (including the original ZFS) they created
their own licence for it, and the reason ZFS can't be included in the
Linux kernel is that Sun's licence is incompatible with the GPLv2
licence used for Linux.

When Oracle bought Sun they took Solaris back to being closed source
and the community forked the OpenSolaris code as Illumos and the ZFS
code as OpenZFS.  Since ownership of the original code transferred
to Oracle, only they could change it to a different licence (e.g. one
compatible with GPLv2), which I suppose could be considered a form of
control over the OpenZFS licensing, but equally they can't prevent
OpenZFS (or Illumos) from being developed and distributed under the
original Sun licence.

At least, that's how I understand the current situation (IANAL).

-- 
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

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#28128

On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:38:44 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

> Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:38:24 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro,
>>>> but it will give you btrfs instead.
>>>
>>> No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has
>>> to be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.
>>
>> Guess who controls the licensing of ZFS?
>
> Indeed, although the situation is more complicated than that simple
> phrasing implies.

Oracle control the copyright on (original) ZFS. They own it. They can
license it under any terms they wish. They can offer it with their own
Linux distro if they wish. But they can’t, or won’t. But they will
include btrfs.

The only Oracle product that includes ZFS, that I know of, is Solaris.
Which has been in “legacy maintenance” state for some decades now.

Vote of confidence in the quality of your own product? They have heard
of it!

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#28131 — Solaris (was: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD)

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> The only Oracle product that includes ZFS, that I know of, is Solaris.
> Which has been in “legacy maintenance” state for some decades now.

Only seven years actually.  They made significant updates to Solaris
between 11.3 and 11.4 in order to get 11.4 certified to UNIX V7 in
2018 (and they were the first vendor to certify - AIX was two years
later).

-- 
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

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#28178

Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:

> A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
> FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
> fragile dkms mess in Linux.

How is ZFS fragile and messy in Linux, please? I only run it on my two
file servers, but no issues in the last decade or so. Haven't bothered
with it as root FS though.

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#28179 — ZFS on Linux (was: “Rock-Solid” FreeBSD)

Anssi Saari wrote:

> Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:
> 
>> A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
>> FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
>> fragile dkms mess in Linux.
> 
> How is ZFS fragile and messy in Linux, please? I only run it on my two
> file servers, but no issues in the last decade or so. Haven't bothered
> with it as root FS though.

Every time you upgrade the kernel there is a chance that the ZFS dkms
install will fail.

I have ZFS on an external SSD that I use to back up the Linux system on
my work laptop.  (Being a work machine, I don't back it up to my
personal file server.)  I got so fed up with dkms install failures that
I actually resorted to ZFS-fuse and took the performance hit (since it
didn't matter too much if the backup took longer).

Reports of ZFS dkms problems on Linux are easy to find...

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=280416

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1539311/downgrade-kernel-to-install-zfs-dkms

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=402097

https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/cannot-install-zfs/62770

That last one includes an answer that says, "In general, when using zfs
you are better off using the LTS kernel"

That's all well and good if your hardware is supported by an LTS
kernel, but if you need a newer kernel then you run a significant risk
of dkms install failures (while you wait for a new enough LTS kernel).

-- 
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

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#28180

Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:
> Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:
> 
>> A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
>> FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
>> fragile dkms mess in Linux.
> 
> How is ZFS fragile and messy in Linux, please? I only run it on my two
> file servers, but no issues in the last decade or so. Haven't bothered
> with it as root FS though.

It is an "out of kernel" blob of code.  So any kernel change /could/ 
break it (and the kernel developers won't help fix the breakage because 
it is "out of kernel" code.

So fragile -- yes, any kernel upgrade could cause ZFS to not compile so 
you'd have no ZFS until you download the updated ZFS compatible with 
the new kernel.

Mess -- maybe a bit of over statement there.  It's no more a mess than 
any other "out of kernel" driver that has to be patched to keep up with 
internal kernel changes.

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#28191

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

> It is an "out of kernel" blob of code.  So any kernel change /could/ 
> break it (and the kernel developers won't help fix the breakage because 
> it is "out of kernel" code.
>
> So fragile -- yes, any kernel upgrade could cause ZFS to not compile so 
> you'd have no ZFS until you download the updated ZFS compatible with 
> the new kernel.

If one uses a little caution and checks ZFS compatibility before
updating the kernel then this is avoided.

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#28193

In article <sm0tswfp2ok.fsf@lakka.kapsi.fi>,
Anssi Saari  <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:
>Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> It is an "out of kernel" blob of code.  So any kernel change /could/ 
>> break it (and the kernel developers won't help fix the breakage because 
>> it is "out of kernel" code.
>>
>> So fragile -- yes, any kernel upgrade could cause ZFS to not compile so 
>> you'd have no ZFS until you download the updated ZFS compatible with 
>> the new kernel.
>
>If one uses a little caution and checks ZFS compatibility before
>updating the kernel then this is avoided.

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue.  Why
bother with Linux?  What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

	- Dan C.

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#28194

In article <10ktbbd$ge1$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue.  Why
>bother with Linux?  What's so special about it that people feel
>_compelled_ to run it?

I don't use ZFS, so maybe your question is what's so special
about the combination of ZFS and Linux?

But if you're really asking the general question, I can tell you:

1. The user land is usually based on the GNU tools: No arbitrary limits
applies.  I have no idea if there are still fixed limits in
the BSD user land.

2. These days, just about *everything* just works, without fuss or muss.

	- Install on even fairly new hardware goes smoothly
	- Installers are usually graphical
	- One's choice of GUI environments (I use Ubuntu Mate)
	- Software updates (at least on Ubuntu) work super smoothly
	- Installing additional software is trivial

3. Linux performs quite well, and certainly better than Windows
(yeah, not the comparison).

I don't remember which BSD I recently tried to bring up in a VM
(maybe FreeBSD) but installation was like jumping back 40 years
in time to the ASCII-art spinning wheel. It didn't even come up
with a GUI, or else it was X with TWM and no menus, or something
ridiculous like that.

I'll agree. A lot of it is familiarity, but also the fact that I see no
compelling reason to switch.  Why climb a brand new learning curve
just to get to the same point I'm already at?

I have real work to get done, I don't need to spend weeks learning
how BSD does the same thing I already know how to do.

4. The elephant in the room: Everybody else is on Linux, which
means if I want something commercial that only runs on Linux, I
can get it. Not so on *BSD.

I've been using Linux as my daily driver since mid-1997. It's done
real well for me. Why switch to something that I don't see is
better?

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