#Doubt.
Tomorrow is the day for me 
3 Likes
brb downloading now
you get a like to classically condition you
1 Like
Bro. Just saw on Phoronix that someone made a OS based on NetBSD that includes the MATE desktop out of the box.
Phoronix article:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OS108-NetBSD-MATE
The website of the OS:
4 Likes
oh, nice! I like out of the box.
I tried last night to get BSD on a computer before you… I did not understand the USB instructions lol
2 Likes
A post was merged into an existing topic: The Lounge - 2019/05 May [Goalkeeper Liked Your Post Edition]
As far as I saw, besides ‘works better’, only ZFS was listed as the pro.
From my perspective, ZFS works well enough on Linux, and I use btrfs in some cases as well.
So, what are the current benefits, if I’d switch to / use a BSD distro next time on my desktop/laptop/server?
The good part of *BSD, is that you can mix and match them without issues and they are still easy to maintain. It’s not out of the question to see FreeBSD on storage servers (for ZFS), OpenBSD on service hosting servers (mail, web, VPN etc.) and DragonFlyBSD on desktops / workstations. Depending if you want speed or security, you go with either FreeBSD or OpenBSD on your router or firewall.
I never hear BSD people online unironically telling people to stick with X_BSD variant. Most of the time I see people telling others to try them all (and unlike GNU/Linux and non-GNU Linux distros, you can actually reasonably test all *BSD).
4 Likes
Isn’t the ports system one of the Pro’s for *BSD? And networking? And lack of SystemD? (I actually like systemd)
By which I mean, it seems like @compose was asking what the pros/cons for BSD were, with ZFS no longer being an exclusive BSD thing, what other reasons are there to use BSD?
1 Like
From what I have heard BSD is not well suited for specialized applications like virtualization. I have heard also that the quality of the code as well as documentation is better then on Linux. So basically BSD is trying to be better than Linux, but given the limited development resources in this niche lacks some features.
2 Likes
Sometimes BSD is better at being GNU/Linux than Linux. Since there are few BSDs, the seems to each have a niche that the cater to.
I use tomato router which is built on BSD. I trust my networking stuff more to BSD due to the better throughput and network security features. for when I need to get stuff done, GNU/Linux better serves my needs.
I used to use Slow-laris (Solaris) for development until Oracle killed it.
2 Likes
FreeBSD and OpenBSD userland are a joy to use. Init scripts are also very easy to create.
4 Likes
The thing that gets me are some of the flag arguments. I don’t use BSD user land nearly as often as the GNU user land so I sometimes forget that a flag my operate slightly differently. After some head scratching and a man query, I am back on track. The documentation is grade A on BSD.
2 Likes
Trooper_ish,
Maybe you just never used FreeBSD for an extensive amount of time? Or for no time whatsoever? ZFS is thought of as a first-class citizen filesystem in their world. Not quite the same on Linux. One of the main examples of this is something as simple as the bootloader. FreeBSD’s bootloader has ZFS support and if that breaks, for whatever reason, it’ll be seen as a major bug by their developers. You ARE able to pick snapshots to rollback to from the bootloader in a default install. On the Linux side of things, all the tools that get anywhere near this level of integration are kind of janky. Hence people’s praise for FreeBSD’s ZFS support. And don’t even get me started on how it’s not as great as how it was in Solaris.
Best regards,
vhns
3 Likes
Nevermind
Any other pro’s for BSD?
I would look towards performance or networking and the like?
I did not mean to say ZFS was the Only reason, simply one of the compelling reasons.
And before Docker was a thing, Jails was pretty darn good for containers
1 Like
They’re not Linux :^). Jokes aside, and I’m gonna stick to this specific BSD because it’s the one I have most experience with, development with active security from the developer’s view is easier and better in OpenBSD. You have pledge() and unveil which are wonderful. Sure, in Linux you have seccomp, but it’s not the same thing. ldap support was recently merged in as part of base. PF, it’s firewall, is probably one of the best libre firewalls out there, made entirely out of spite due to the re-licensing of the one used previously. You can stick to ifconfig instead of juggling the many new options introduced with ip. Hell, even wireless networking is now better on it than on Linux, provided the drivers for your card are available and you don’t need newer wireless standards. No need for things like wpa-supplicant, networkmanager, etc. ifconfig will do that for you, save the SSID passwords and connect to them automatically. doas has a syntax which is way simpler and it ties in with the kernel security measures just right. Storage raid management is also included, granted it’s not even near the same level as ZFS, but it gets the job done.
Ehhh. This is kind of iffy. I recommend reading this blogpost: actually, BSD kqueue is a mountain of technical debt – Ariadne’s Space
And the now-known video by Netflix people and their forays into NUMA on EPYC: NUMA Optimizations in the FreeBSD Network Stack - YouTube
And on a little note a satirical video that shows some thoughts I don’t completely disagree with when it comes to the BSDs: BSD: AN OS MADE FOR AND BY CUCKS (FULL DOCUMENTARY, HD) - YouTube
3 Likes
Also worth mentioning, OpenBSD was the first OS to implement and get IPSEC to work.
(Wants to talk smack about BSD, looks at pfSense router, looks over at TrueNAS server… walks away quietly)…
2 Likes
I have been gradually working through gateway config on OpenBSD to replace my Edgerouters. A lot of it is weird, but once you get used to the quirks it’s very easy to use, and it’s very powerful.
One thing I really don’t get or like is anything you install as a package has all of it’s data in /var including config. I understand how technically anything installed outside of the base OS could be considered transient and thus should be in /var but I’d really prefer the config to be consolidated in root /etc or an etc directory in under /usr to make backups more straightforward. Also FFS is kind of delicate.
2 Likes
oO.o,
could you post the options you’re passing to mount your FFS filesystems?
What packages did you install that are putting their config files under /var?
Best regards,
vhns
2 Likes