# Why do people use FreeBSD?



## deathbyfreezeray (Oct 11, 2014)

This is just a thread for people to post their experiences and explain why they use FreeBSD. 
I will start with me, I was initially a big Ubuntu fan. Slowly but surely, Ubuntu had grown more bloated and less efficient. Plus I grew to distrust Canonical, as my personal paranoia is that given that chance to, they would become exactly what many Ubuntu users think they are avoiding by not using Windows. Especially with a lot of articles like this where it seems like Canonical is bashing their competition http://www.howtogeek.com/176495/ubuntu-developers-say-linux-mint-is-insecure-are-they-right/ .
I then moved on to Arch Linux, which was fast but nothing in it seemed to work as advertised, much of its documentation was too out of date, and i wasting a lot of time figuring senseless things out (like why the Arch Linux implementation of systemd breaks flash player). So after half a year I started testing various Linux distributions. None of the prepackaged distributions really satisfied me. Finally, I was down to a choice of Gentoo vs FreeBSD. The Gentoo installer had issues loading for me, then when it did, it had an error when I was partitioning and managed to break my partition table. So I decided I didn't have the patience and tried FreeBSD instead. It just worked, exactly as it was supposed to, right out of the box. Thus, I am now using FreeBSD. Its documentation continues to impress me.


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## nakal (Oct 11, 2014)

I use FreeBSD because of the great work that the FreeBSD porters do. FreeBSD ports is the greatest collection of reasonable pre-configured software that I've ever seen. I've tried many different package management tools (Linux: many distributions, Solaris, other BSDs..) and I always come back to FreeBSD, because it beats everything. It is the most complete collection of up-to-date software and at the same time very good customizable.

By the time now, I know exactly how FreeBSD behaves and know where I can make adjustments, optimizations and comfort settings (from kernel to world and 3rd-party packages). It is increasingly an annoyance to try Linux for me (which I do from time to time). I believe that Linux has a good kernel, but the distributions (of which I favor Debian and Gentoo the most) are an utter catastrophe. Sometimes I figure this out after using a Linux distro for several months, sometimes (like this Wednesday) I find it just after an hour (because it does not want to install on a simple stock PC). This is plainly a horrible situation and I have never encountered so much problems on FreeBSD. FreeBSD is for me a safe thing to install and use. Everything else feels like an experiment.


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## deathbyfreezeray (Oct 11, 2014)

That is much of the problems I have. I have looked at Linux from scratch, but I had decided it isn't really worth the time given many issues such as the lack of documentation for the kernel. I found if I try to compile a Linux kernel from source, sure you can go with defaults and build another generic kernel, but what if you don't want to? Then you realize that most the available features have no documentation (especially in the networking section), anywhere, or even any explanation on the internet. Makes me wonder what it actually does, but of course a lot of these undocumented features will break your kernel if you remove them. Its as if somehow, despite being open source, the Linux kernel needs to be reverse-engineered.


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## CoTones (Oct 12, 2014)

To OP - how do you missed the mammoths of the Linux world - Debian and Red Hat Linux ( CentOS )? Without them, you just touched a tip of an iceberg.

To Nakal - obviously you in love with FreeBSD  I'm just curious, how much time it takes for you to have FULLY updated system ( I am talking about FreeBSD ( stable? release? ) AND all userland ) and how much it takes to upgrade. Because my experience is, politely speak, not so flawless and PC-BSD systems ( honestly, don't know about last releases ), made by real FreeBSD professionals, match my experience.


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## nakal (Oct 12, 2014)

CoTones said:
			
		

> obviously you in love with FreeBSD  I'm just curious, how much time it takes for you to have FULLY updated system ( I am talking about FreeBSD ( stable? release? ) AND all userland ) and how much it takes to upgrade. Because my experience is, politely speak, not so flawless and PC-BSD systems ( honestly, don't know about last releases ), made by real FreeBSD professionals, match my experience.



First, I want to mention that the upgrade procedure is not very relevant to me and does not matter that much. That said, I also have to say that upgrades of kernel are trivial, of world are relatively easy (depends on the complexity of your system, e.a. how many jails you have) and of ports are mostly easy and sometimes risky (I encounter bugs in upgrades and need to roll back to older versions). 

Since I don't use `freebsd-update`, a simple FreeBSD update takes roughly about 1 hour. Most of it is waiting until world and kernel compile. Merging in configuration changes is the most work-intensive phase which takes about 2 minutes. When the upgrade breaks the ABI (major update), it takes usually a lot more time, because many ports need to be recompiled (on this desktop PC, I've got about 800 packages). But this is basically just unattended compiling. I usually run it over night and when I wake up, it is ready or failed somewhere in the middle (then I need to take a look what happened and decide how to continue). The hardest upgrades are port upgrades that totally change configurations (for example recently apache22 -> apache24)... sometimes I need a day to figure out how to get the same result like with the older version. But this will also happen on any other system.

FreeBSD is not flawless. What matters to me is that the flaws don't confuse me (this is the worst when I cannot even understand what happened) or render my system inoperable. I say about FreeBSD that it is _tidy_, which matters much to me.


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## Oko (Oct 12, 2014)

Because Solaris desktop died circa 1999  and before that DEC (Digital Equipment Coorporation) went out of business 91-92 which killed my favorite desktop MicroVAX 3100 and my first OS (Tru64) :x BSDs were the only free UNIX of that time. At work we used IRIX on Desktops until 2000.


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## deathbyfreezeray (Oct 12, 2014)

CoTones said:
			
		

> To OP - how do you missed the mammoths of the Linux world - Debian and Red Hat Linux ( CentOS )? Without them, you just touched a tip of an iceberg.


I didn't try CentOS or Red Hat (though i did try Fedora), however I definitely tried Debian somewhere in there. Debian was easy to use but it left me with 3 choices:
1. Have an OS that is hideously out of date.
2. Have an OS that is up to date but unstable.
3. Compile everything I need from source.
Since there are much better distributions out there for option 3, I decided Debian wasn't too satisfying. Although I never tried CentOS, FreeBSD has been pretty satisfying and I don't really feel the need to now.

For what its worth, I prefer distributions that allow me to start from the command line and pick everything I am going to use. I think I will add now that this is all I will say on that subject, since its not the reason I started this thread.


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## ronaldlees (Oct 12, 2014)

I use FreeBSD less now because some other very simple hobby OSes have matured to my liking.  That said, FreeBSD is still often used around here.  I like it because it's possible to use a fairly minimal installation, but it's also possible to add flesh to the system, to make it almost as bloated as a contemporary Linux desktop. It's pretty easy to build up a minimal system with the installer, or just unpack the kernel.txz and base.txz tarballs onto a USB stick. 

I need a two tier operating system because security is inversely proportional to the number of bytes/programs/projects/applications on any system, in the same way that household security relates to the number of keys you've handed out. These days it doesn't make sense to connect a fully-bloated system to the internet.  I don't accept the risk that I'll  be compromised by some port/project/app from some unknown and unvettable entity with much less than my interest at heart.

Yet - I need to use some of those bloated (unvetted) applications on occasion.  I end up with a very bare bones setup, which FreeBSD easily provides, for using the internet, and another system with bells, whistles and bloat, but that doesn't connect to the internet.  
My internet is kernel+base+ text-browser | netsurf via framebuffer. The framebuffer approach may come with  unknown security risks (that I don't know), and there is a root priviledge issue to be worked out (which is why I wouldn't recommend it yet). But - it's a simple approach to things, and I *like* simple.  The bloated/bells/whistles machine gets set up with all kinds of arcane/unusual stuff I can use for various things (to give an example - graphics, typesetting and font tools used for my book writing)


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## ronaldlees (Oct 12, 2014)

Check that!  It's Netsurf + SDL I'm using on FreeBSD, and Netsurf + the Linux framebuffer on Linux (I rarely use the latter).  The Netsurf GUI is pretty good, but it'd be nice to jazz it up a little, maybe with SFML + TGUI. 

I haven't personally vetted either of Netsurf, SVGAlib, SDL, SFML or TGUI for security.  But - might it be easier to evaluate these two or three or four or five ports versus evaluating dozens or hundreds of them?  Opinions vary.   This idea assumes that FreeBSD itself is *fine* - which is something else I haven't done.

One more thing I haven't done is to find some clean way to perform root priviledge revocations for these types of low level apps (framebuffer, SDL, etc). In the meantime, I wouldn't suggest that others follow my path


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 13, 2014)

I don't normally answer these questions but I'm bored waiting for the ball game to start.

Someone approached me with an idea for the web, back in 2003. I had no interest in internet stuff then but this got me excited. I called my wife's sister's daughter's husband, who managed a large Microsoft shop for advice. He supplied me with a bunch of stuff to get going with ASP.NET, C#, IIS and so on. We spent about 10 months working on it until Microsoft upgraded .NET from version 1.5 to 2.5 (don't hold me to the version numbers) and everything came crashing down. The guy who was helping us advised us to dump Microsoft altogether and switch to Linux.

I tinkered with FreeBSD before but had trouble installing it. I tried Linux a bit but I had worked with IRIX over 10 years earlier. I wasn't really a Unix guy but I worked at SGI so I was familiar with it. I tried to buy an IRIX system but was turned off by the sales guy cause I wasn't going to spend a few million dollars. Doing some more research led me back to FreeBSD and was more interested that its roots were in the original Unix where Linux had its roots with a college kid. So, I think verion 5 of FreeBSD had just come out and, for whatever reason, I managed to install it easily. The documentation and understanding just flowed through my veins in a way nothing else ever did.

We rewrote all our code for FreeBSD in three months and have never touched a Microsoft product since.


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## deathbyfreezeray (Oct 13, 2014)

Honestly when it comes to web servers, even Microsoft doesn't use Microsoft products half the time.


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## hitest (Oct 13, 2014)

I've run FreeBSD since version 5.x.  It is an elegant, mature OS, that is secure, and stable.  Also, I like the FreeBSD community.  I'm a huge fan of the ample documentation available for FreeBSD users.  The Handbook is first rate!


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## radish (Oct 13, 2014)

Originally I never wanted to use anything like UNIX. I just wanted software that was free and open to study. The biggest reasons was so I could just use it when and where I wanted. No key codes or activation. Money was not as much the problem but paying less or nothing of course is great. It encouraged me instead to spend my time contributing rather than playing.

Why I moved from the popular Linux to FreeBSD I am not so clear myself. I was was seeking more reliability and a focus on quality engineering perhaps. Less hype. I guess if I had to claim any reasons why I was so eager to abandon Linux it would be..

Virtual Memory
Pulseaudio
Of course systemd

The first is that Linux virtual memory seems to just work badly for me. A common problem was accidentally opening "one too many" images in Gimp would cause a system lockup until swap filled and then crashed. It would be impossible to close programs or interact with a terminal. I do not have this issue on FreeBSD, on which swap is welcome.  While I am away from home the system can swap out my unused desktop programs to increase disk cache.

The last two are related. I am not a violent blind hater of the software (or developer) in question. Both have had many real world practical reasons for me to avoid them, and both seem to be impossible to avoid on Linux. Every distro I like forces Systemd now. I'll leave the reasons for another place and time.


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## CoTones (Oct 13, 2014)

nakal said:
			
		

> First, I want to mention that the upgrade procedure is not very relevant to me and does not matter that much. That said, I also have to say that upgrades of kernel are trivial, of world are relatively easy (depends on the complexity of your system, e.a. how many jails you have) and of ports are mostly easy and sometimes risky (I encounter bugs in upgrades and need to roll back to older versions).



Looks like common way to run FreeBSD. You trully an optimistic person with enough of free time. 

Just im amazed by the fact, that all FreeBSD users ( who cares about updates and security ), all of them all around the World, like ants rush doing things that supposed to be standard ( for generic world and userland with common configurations ) and made by developers ( implemented on most of other OS's).



			
				deathbyfreezeray said:
			
		

> I didn't try CentOS or Red Hat (though i did try Fedora), however I definitely tried Debian somewhere in there. Debian was easy to use but it left me with 3 choices:..



Well, now im sure, you see what you want to see. Use FreeBSD and feel happy.

Though, what I miss, is extensive and frequent FreeBSD comparition against Windows and MacOS. As of linux... linux is free, open, independent OS and dont care about compability with other OS'es. Thats fair, isn't?


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## nakal (Oct 13, 2014)

> You trully an optimistic person with enough of free time.



Not really. I don't want to sound arrogant towards Linux users, because, as I said, I like Linux and spend time to see how it improves from time to time. But... I am using FreeBSD because I find solutions quicker my system. There are of course situations where I need to sit down for a long time to understand what's going on. Mostly, after learning how something works, I feel like it looks reasonable how it works. And there are also times where such a journey ends in an bug report or an RFE ("request for enhancements").

So actually FreeBSD saves me time and just works. I admit that FreeBSD is hard to configure *until you are really satisfied with your setup*. But this is the price for having a system that makes my personal setup *possible*. The most common situation on Linux is (after some time of configuring it): I cannot do A, because a maintainer decided for B which prevents me to do A. And mostly in this case A is something I really need.

Now you can say that sometimes you cannot do C (which would be easy on Linux), because maintainer decided for D on FreeBSD, too. And this is true, but in all cases I have here on FreeBSD, no C is that important as A (above) that I cannot do on Linux. Why is that, you will ask. The answer is easy: because the FreeBSD team has reasonable priorities what needs to work well before other things will work well. And also important: things that already work well are not being changed without careful thinking about it.

And the original cause why it all works is that FreeBSD is managed by people who are pretty good at what they do. I haven't seen a single case where I would not be able to trust their decisions. I have different opinions how to do administration (as I said: I don't use freebsd-update and neither pkgng), but the important thing is: they don't force they ways down my throat. I can still use `make buildworld` and enjoy ports-mgmt/portmaster and I am sure that they will not destroy my favorite environment for a long time.

All in all, FreeBSD is a free distribution that fits my needs, ... *at the moment(!)*... and I really know much about it (and this is also something that affects my decision to keep FreeBSD as my main distribution).


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## ronaldlees (Oct 13, 2014)

It's like there are two types of people in the world.  The changers, and the changeless.

Some folks get started buying Chrylsers when their dads bought them one, and nothing but a Chrysler is any good after that. Or Chevy, or Nissan. I can't believe that Chryslers are Fiats now.  Whoda thought that?

Anyway, I used FreeBSD before Linux.  So, wow - I have my Chrysler!  Maybe I'm a little changeless.  But no - I have all sorts of mysterious hobby OSes on my drives.

So - maybe we're all some of both, but lean one way or the other.  Then there are the extremes, and they troll.

Linux could be minimally installed in just the same way as I describe a few messages up the page.  I just got started doing it the BSD way.


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## segfault (Oct 14, 2014)

I use FreeBSD because it just works. It does what I want and stays out of my way, without nagging me about minor package updates etc. I have also become very annoyed lately by Linux (Fedora specifically) making me jump through extra hoops in order to listen to my digital music. When I install FreeBSD and a media player I love the fact that the codecs are installed as well. This amplifies why I love the BSD license. Another thing that has made me irate lately is the selinux hoops I have to jump through at work simply to stand up a test server inside our network. Brutal. I don't have a rabid hate on for systemd yet as I have not been forced to use it at work but my first few brushes with it have not been overly pleasant. I love that FreeBSD allows me to install packages from binary OR source. Then there's the commonly listed features of jails, zfs and dtrace that draw me to using FreeBSD.
-edit- 
I should also mention the fact that I partially use FreeBSD because the guys on BSDnow.tv tell me to. Their advocacy efforts really do tend to make me feel more excited about working with/on this already great OS.


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## sossego (Oct 15, 2014)

As said before, it is a toolbox.
Take, for example, the PS4.
One could remove the hard drive and put it into another machine with more CPUs and a better graphics card.
Another could remove the Sony hard drive and put one with FreeBSD - open public version, of course, into the console. 

What's that? Hardware and software hacking without taking anything from others' pockets and ideas?!?!?

So, you have a system that can be changed around between parts; and, Linux + base is available also. We have the option of choosing the compiler and quite another number of items.


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## EmeraldBot (Oct 17, 2014)

For me, I use FreeBSD for a number of reasons. Its stability is a _big_ benefit to those of us who use it for work (like I do). It also lets me set it up the way I want it. In this regard, I'm not _too_ demanding, but ignoring my font preferences (which pretty much all recent Linux distros do) is absolutely _not_ okay. OS X is not an option because the hardware's too expensive with benefits I don't really want or need, and Windows is only used for games and a few applications that will only work with it. Although, to be honest, Windows 7 isn't too bad; it just doesn't have a tiling window manager  Lastly is also software compatibility, ironically. Windows has either butchered versions of the programs I use (a TeX environment, vim, the *A*udacious media player, etc.) or doesn't have the programs at all (the i3 window manager). OS X doesn't fare much better in this regard. Linux distributions have all the software, but I've run into one or two problems with each one, and they're always different. Ubuntu is too bloated and doesn't respect several of my options, Debian's apt breaks spectacularly if you try to use backports with the stable repositories, Slackware has hard coded defaults that I really don't like in several programs, Gentoo was a temperamental beast that I could never get to work properly, Arch has many broken packages and far too little stability, etc. I've considered NetBSD and OpenBSD, but both are missing many of my tools, and frankly, having a working graphics card is nice to have. FreeBSD hits a sweet spot in that it satisfies every single one of my requirements, and to date, is the only OS to do so.


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## CurlyTheStooge (Oct 17, 2014)

EmeraldBot said:


> Slackware has hard coded defaults that I really don't like in several programs.



Interesting. Slackware ships vanilla packages the way th*e*y are released from upstream, with very very little modification, most of the times 0 modfication. Mind naming one hard coded Slackware specific defaults which I may have missed, please?

Regards.


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## EmeraldBot (Oct 17, 2014)

CurlyTheStooge said:


> Interesting. Slackware ships vanilla packages the way th*e*y are released from upstream, with very very little modification, most of the times 0 modfication. Mind naming one hard coded Slackware specific defaults which I may have missed, please?
> 
> Regards.



No problem! One example is with Audacious itself, actually. I don't know if it's changed now (it's been a while), but when I used it, the Slackware developer (Pat) had a certain set of plugins compiled into it. You couldn't add or remove any. I planned to work around it by uninstalling it and compiling my own from source, but after a couple of hours I couldn't get it to compile, so I had to live without one of my favorites. With ports, it works correctly out of the box, and I can add in a plugin that doesn't ship by default. Another example is with rxvt, back when I used it. When combined with bash (I don't use that anymore either), if you tried to enter a command longer the a line, it wouldn't wrap the line. Instead, it would leave a greater than symbol ('>'), and shift the whole screen to the right. You couldn't see what you typed in earlier, and it grew to become annoying rather quickly. It sounds like a really simple problem to solve, but no matter what I tried (editing .bashrc, editing .Xdefaults, editing termcaps) it would refuse to wrap lines. Maybe it's different if one uses Xterm or tcsh (both of which I use now), but it was a pain at the time. The Nvidia drivers were another major hurdle - the slackbuild script was broken, so I had to get them installed on my own, and that took a while. In short, FreeBSD handles all of these just fine, so that's what I went with. Maybe things have changed though, I haven't checked. If they have, it would definitely be the Linux distribution I would go with if I had to jump ship from FreeBSD (for whatever reason, I don't plan on doing so anytime soon).


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## blackhaz (Oct 18, 2014)

Because if the world goes to hell, I will still have my FreeBSD.


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## sk8harddiefast (Oct 18, 2014)

FreeBSD is an addiction. The reality is that after four years on FreeBSD I still try to learn parts of it but I like so much the way it acts. If something goes wrong on Linux, I don't know how to fix it because everything is automated and I don't like systemd or a different package manager for every distribution and all this is just crap. This FreeBSD that I am running isn't perfect but is built step by step by me and if something crashes I have the possibility to understand why it is crashing and how I am going to handle it.


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## BSDBernd (Oct 18, 2014)

If I had that Broadcom WiFi driver, I swear that I would run FreeBSD as my main OS on my Macbook. I like OS X, wondering about where the stability of it came from led me to the BSDs and especially to FreeBSD. I like that FreeBSD is open source (I even prefer its licence over the GPL), I like that you have the same feeling and experience as with OS X that you are somehow safe. Your OS is not a stress-producing something where you cannot predict what is happening next. I like that you have no OS that imported a kernel from somewhere and built something around it. It is great that FreeBSD is the whole thing, a complete OS and this means even no stress for the developers who don't have to fear what is coming next from the outside. I like that the base system is separated from the userland in the way it is, it is quite hard to do damage to the system. It all leads to less stress. I need to get work done with my OS and don't want to fear about what damage my next software update could cause. No wonder that one doesn't want to change after getting to know FreeBSD. I changed in the past when using other OSes. It depends on the OS. I will close with a quote that stems from the FAQ of the OpenBSD site, dealing with the question if your OS can be used as desktop OS:



> *Can I use OpenBSD as a desktop system?*
> This question is often asked in exactly this manner -- with no explanation of what the asker means by "desktop". The only person who can answer that question is you, as it depends on what your needs and expectations are.
> While OpenBSD has a great reputation as a "server" operating system, it can be and is used on the desktop. Many "desktop" applications are available through packages and ports. As with all operating system decisions, the question is: can it do the job you desire in the way you wish? You must answer this question for yourself.



The same thing is true for FreeBSD. I answer that question with a big YES. I can do my work with FreeBSD and even have fun .


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## Martillo1 (Oct 18, 2014)

There are many reasons why I use BSD instead of any Windows wannabe OS (aka systemd's Linux (honourable exceptions still exist, though)). If I want a Windows-like OS, I have Microsoft Windows already for enterprise work (until everything will go through a browser and Google rules Middle Earth and the OS will be irrelevant). So why bother using systemd?

Mac is too expensive and I was an avid gamer until recently, so I did not ride that wave. I would like FreeBSD developers eating their own dog food instead of using OS X, but it is kind of acceptable since it surely helps them to meet dates.

Exotics are too exotic.

BSD: The main reason why I use FreeBSD instead of other BSDs is its support of Nvidia graphics cards. I also like OpenBSD and NetBSD, but I have just one graphics subsystem available and no integrated Intel on-board, so I have no choice. Why BSD? In one word: design.


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## protocelt (Oct 18, 2014)

For myself, the following:

Design
Development
Performance
Community
Documentation
License


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## CurlyTheStooge (Oct 18, 2014)

EmeraldBot said:


> No problem! One example is with Audacious itself, actually. I don't know if it's changed now (it's been a while), but when I used it, the Slackware developer (Pat) had a certain set of plugins compiled into it. You couldn't add or remove any. I planned to work around it by uninstalling it and compiling my own from source, but after a couple of hours I couldn't get it to compile, so I had to live without one of my favorites. With ports, it works correctly out of the box, and I can add in a plugin that doesn't ship by default. Another example is with rxvt, back when I used it. When combined with bash (I don't use that anymore either), if you tried to enter a command longer the a line, it wouldn't wrap the line. Instead, it would leave a greater than symbol ('>'), and shift the whole screen to the right. You couldn't see what you typed in earlier, and it grew to become annoying rather quickly. It sounds like a really simple problem to solve, but no matter what I tried (editing .bashrc, editing .Xdefaults, editing termcaps) it would refuse to wrap lines. Maybe it's different if one uses Xterm or tcsh (both of which I use now), but it was a pain at the time. The Nvidia drivers were another major hurdle - the slackbuild script was broken, so I had to get them installed on my own, and that took a while. In short, FreeBSD handles all of these just fine, so that's what I went with. Maybe things have changed though, I haven't checked. If they have, it would definitely be the Linux distribution I would go with if I had to jump ship from FreeBSD (for whatever reason, I don't plan on doing so anytime soon).



Thank you for explaining it in a very polite way. My take on these issues:

I started using Slackware from version 13.1 and right now my two main boxes run x64 14.1 and x64 -current. I can certainly tell that the default plugins come from a package named "audacious-plugins", when you choose a full install. I have all the freedom to uninstall this package anytime and go ahead with the Audacious way of installing the plugins but I never bothered because the three plugins I wanted were included in that plugin package. So in my use case, Slackware proved spot on.
I think I may have seen the rxvt line wrapping issue on my Linux Mint box, where I started using urxvt and I strongly suspect this was not Slackware specific. You can see on web that the issue has been discussed on Arch forums before.
In case of the broken Slackbuild, it is *totally* the fault of that Slackbuild's maintainer, not Slackware's. The individual maintainers can be contacted anytime for issues with their builds. Please note that Slackbuilds are not considered *official* repositories for Slackware, just a community effort.
I can say the same about FreeBSD. If the doomed day comes when I'm forced to leave Slackware for an alternative, FreeBSD is the only UNIX like OS I will install and start using. I use RHEL and other distributions for my professional use though.

Have a good day and best regards.


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## ShelLuser (Oct 20, 2014)

I run a small IT company and have a network of six servers. Four of them are FreeBSD, and also form the core of the network (for example; the main backup server is FreeBSD, stuff like that).

As to why, that is not easily answered.

First and foremost because using FreeBSD constantly brings me back to my Sun Solaris days. Although I consider the OS to be dead and buried by now (with many "thanks" to Oracle) Solaris is and has always been my favourite Unix environment. Even though I never intend to use it again.

When I first started with FreeBSD (beginning last year) I was immediately hooked on the familiar environment (for example; sh instead of bash), the extensive documentation, the specific but still logical approach on certain things (for example; using csh for the root user) and the OS in general.

Most of all the feeling that I was in total control over my environment (or could be, obviously I wasn't in the beginning).

So that's why I started using it. As for me continuing to use it, well, that sort of boils down to this:

*Secure environment*

No, I'm not talking about "It's BSD so it's more secure", that comment is in my opinion bogus. I'm talking about all the failsaves in the environment itself. By separating between the base system and the extra software (/usr/local) the system doesn't only give you full control over your additional installs. It _also_ protects itself from accidental tampering.

It doesn't matter how many libraries I remove from the list of installed packages; my OS will continue to work and at the very least boot normally.

On Linux this sense of security doesn't really exist, not in the likes of this anyway. Because its basically a kernel with the userland installed on top of it. Ergo: were I to remove libc on Linux then bye bye to your getty powered login prompt. On FreeBSD?

Well, lets check, shall we?


```
smtp2:/home/peter $ pkg info -x libc
libcheck-0.9.14
libcroco-0.6.8_2
```
Oh, that's right, I forgot 

The required libc.so.7 is part of the base system, thus secured from tampering through the package management system 

Now; don't get me wrong... I'm not claiming this to be a major problem on Linux, but it is one of the reasons why I use FreeBSD (to each his own, guys).

*(Native) ZFS support*

One of the reasons I adored _Sun_ Solaris was ZFS. It's simply one of the most brilliant file systems devised. In my humble opinion of course! Enter FreeBSD. Where rumour has it that Sun Microsystems, in their good days, even provided company resources to help the FreeBSD team port the whole thing into the kernel. You can't get more "real" or "native" than that in my opinion: getting help from the guys who developed the file system in the first place!

(Note: I'm well aware that my "fanboyism" towards Solaris may also make me a little biased.)

*Excellent documentation*

I don't think much needs to be said here, but I just can't help being utterly impressed and sometimes even overwhelmed when looking at the extensive amount of documentation. Especially (no sneer, just a statement): in comparison with your average Linux distribution.

Don't take my word for it; just compare the documentation which comes with the Linux kernel with chapter 9 of the FreeBSD handbook. Please note: I'm not trying to be overly negative towards Linux here. Nonsense.

But in all fairness: a well laid out chapter in a good manual is hard to compare to a huge collection of text files. Once again: this doesn't take away any of the credit and hard work which people put into that collection of text files. Its not as if I'm saying that it has no value at all.

But documentation isn't only valued by quantity. Quality, or better put: accessibility should also be taken into consideration.

(You know: "I downloaded the Linux kernel source, where do I start reading? How do I compile it?")

*TRUE "Long Term Support"*

The FreeBSD 9.x branch started around December 2012 and the current 9.3 version is said to be EOL'd at December 2016 (see release overview).

Make no mistake here: this isn't merely four years worth of update support. It's four years of _continuous_ update support. Meaning so much as: both versions (9.x and 10.x) are being supported and in the end you'll be doing one major update (from 9 to 10) but won't be forced to go from 9 to 11 for example.

The reason I mention this is because of Ubuntu (and partly Debian, but my experience here was with Ubuntu). They also provided LTS versions which worked quite well. However, the problems began when you wanted to upgrade from one LTS to the next.

Because the name "LTS" was just that: a name. In reality you were basically using a specific version, while others continued to be developed. To such extend that it wasn't always unthinkable that by going from one LTS to the other you were actually skipping two major releases. And such upgrade procedures don't always go as smoothly as they should 

It becomes worse when you end up manually installing all the individual versions in between because in the end that was the only reliable way to upgrade. Thus losing time and for me time is money (do note that this happened five to six years ago, they may have changed a lot since then).

*Reliability over 'fanciness'*

Simple example: from pkg_* to pkgng. So we have a new package manager, I bet that we have to keep some heavy changes in mind, right? With the new and 'fancy' pkg system we'll have to relearn all that we knew. Nope! `pkg_info -ix tmux` vs. `pkg info -ix tmux`. This would be different on Linux, I'm sure of it.

Even the revision control shows as much: svn instead of all the new and fancy tools we currently have. Now, change isn't always bad, but why re-invent the wheel when you have something that works?

I'm personally very attached to that reasoning. So yeah; it needs to be reliable, which is what FreeBSD is. Anything fancy can be grabbed from the ports collection if you so desire.

*I'm in control*

/usr/src contains the source code of the base OS I'm using. All my servers were customized; both the base OS as well as the kernel. So they don't contain anything I don't want or need, but do contain that which I do want to keep around.

Wireless tools, on my server? Yeah right! (WITHOUT_WIRELESS). Or what to think about the updater; I use the source so I have no use for that either (WITHOUT_FREEBSD_UPDATE). Floppy disk, what's that? (WITHOUT_FLOPPY).

The fun part?

My old 586 computer from years ago (which _does_ have a 3.5" diskdrive ) would like these things to be present. And it has. I'm in full control here.

Now, the reason I mention this is because many Linux distributions suffer from, what I call, dependency hell. Sometimes you need to have certain libraries and things installed because some programs rely on it. Even if it is kind of silly (like wireless tools on a wired computer).

*3-way awesomeness*

Now this section is pure bias and fanboyism for you. Or better put: strictly my own opinion. You have been warned 

To me FreeBSD is a 3-way SVN system. First of all there is the source code (/usr/src) from which you can configure and build the base OS. You can check it out using svn.

Second, just as important, is the documentation. You can also grab that using svn, and this time it'll end up in /usr/doc. Also "source code", you'll need a specific set of tools to set it up: textproc/docproj.

Which brings me to the third part, which can funnily enough also be described as the "third-party software collection". Of course I'm referring to the ports collection here (/usr/ports). Which can be kept up to date using portsnap (it's how I do it as well) but essentially you could also easily use svn once more.

I'm basically saying that one 'simple' RCS system can get you a full operating system with everything you might want from it.

*Community*

Lets be realistic; in our field of work we often deal with specific people who sometimes also tend to hold strong opinions. But in the 1.5 years that I've been here I hardly noticed anything uncivil or childish. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen at all, but even so...

I do think that if someone enters the forum and rants a little about how "FreeBSD sucks" then he won't be approached with the same amount of disdain as you sometimes see in "other forums".

Sometimes people use strong words out of frustration, and without the intent to insult others. And a "more mature" community usually spots that and deals with it appropriately.

Sure; no big deal (and I'm well aware of the trolls). But that does make a more mature community for you, IMO of course.

So yeah... That's why I use FreeBSD, more or less...

The last reason isn't mentioned but should be obvious enough: also because I actually like using it 

PS: Sorry for the small rant


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## rmoe (Oct 20, 2014)

My main reasons for using FreeBSD are:


it's a complete OS (rather than a kernel plus "stuff");
it has a very good track record;
it really free. No GPL Talibanism;
it's exclusively about technology and not about politics (like Linux);
it's not about hate against some OS but about love for good technology;
It's reliable. It's reliable. It's reliable;
no systemd, no PulseAudio;
no abominations or bootsector viruses (like GRUB2);
everything is accessible and as pure as possible (unlike, say, Debian source packages).
I sometimes have to use Linux (or even want to, for certain things). Usually I use versions like Alpine then. Or occasionally (like for my wife's notebook) Crunchbang (of, course with some colours and friendliness added).

As for FreeBSD being considered "inefficient" I disagree. One example: I fail to see how `portsnap fetch update` followed by `portsnap -rac` is supposed to be more inefficient than, say, `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade`. And that's already unfair because the FreeBSD command uses _source_ "packages" while apt-... is about binary packages. Probably FreeBSD's PKGNG has something even more convenient but I have to confess to not knowing that because I use the ports system only.


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## youngunix (Oct 21, 2014)

When it comes to OS use I don't discriminate, if it'll do what needs to be done, then I'm using it (except for Mac). However, I find FreeBSD peaceful, useful, and most importantly modular. It is similar to Lego, you can build servers for every need, fully customized desktops, routers, or full-fledged firewalls.


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## Crivens (Oct 21, 2014)

Oh, one of the easy questions 

The benefits of *BSD as a group and FreeBSD as a specific target have been written out pretty well in this thread, and I do not want to dublicate it. Those are reasons which speak to me as an engineer. But there is also one point which got me (and I think many others) here. I started using FreeBSD, of which I knew little at that point, because I knew an awful lot about the alternatives. And that pushed me hill up the learning curve. And the more I discovered, the more I liked it. Sure, you will not reach the end of the curve, someone is always pushing the peak of this hill up. But that is landscaping, not dropping a boulder somewhere and calling it a fancy name.


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## jjthomas (Oct 21, 2014)

My introduction to Unix was SCO Unix.  I cut my teeth on Red Hat in the '90s.  From there I went to Slackware.  I did a lot of distribution hopping.  Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Gentoo, Debian, Mandrake, SuSE, etc.  But I noticed a pattern.  I would always try FreeBSD and finally ended up back to Slackware.  My problems, initially, with FreeBSD, were no nVidia drivers and lately not being able to get my sound card nor my TV Tuner card to work.    My solution to the TV tuner card was to buy one compatible with FreeBSD.  I'm still working on the sound card problem, as time allows.

Currently, I'm running FreeBSD 10 (ZFS) as a media server with MythTV, serving up DNS (Unbound), and it will also be a file server, as well.  My laptop is being repurposed to run my websites on.  It started with CentOS and will finish with OpenBSD.  My computer in the living room will have Vista, Slackware and PC-BSD (or FreeBSD) on it.

Why do I use FreeBSD?  It works for me.

Installation time is one fully developed city, two partially, and profitable, cities in SimCity.

I think I'm hooked on *BSD.

-JJ


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## pwr2srv (Oct 24, 2014)

"Why do people use FreeBSD?" Funny you should ask since I've asked myself the same thing many times.

Professionally, I am an electronics tech and mechanic.  Then there are my hobbies:
In vocational college, my first computer was 8080A-based and may be seen here at the top of this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-board_computer.  Shortly after school I longed for a computer so I bread-boarded my own using a Zilog Z80.  Its first incarnation had three push buttons: a "0," a "1," and "store." There was one toggle switch for "run" and "program" and maybe another for "reset." It had 1024K of static RAM and no ROM.  The second incarnation had an EPROM and interfaced to a Jameco JE600 Hex Keyboard (http://www.decodesystems.com/je600.html).  There were 24 LED's for displaying address and data.  Life was easier in hex.

Later, for a short while, I had a working Xerox 820 motherboard running CP/M, but it was soon replaced by an IBM Portable PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Portable_Personal_Computer).  On it I ran Windows 1.1a, MASM, and terminal emulators to talk to other single board computers with which I tinkered.

For a while I played with an Intel 8052AH BASIC microcontroller but never went beyond its ROM BASIC.

Next came an Intel 486DX33 and Windows 3.1, MASM, then a Tyan (233Mhz?) dual CPU, NT4, and Visual Basic, then another dual Tyan with 1GHz P3's.  I did not have good luck with Windows 2000 and fixed it with Windows XP.  I became very disinterested with these Microsoft things.

A few years back I came across some books on the Intel 8052 microcontroller and was surprised to see it still around.  After obtaining some sample DS89C450's I went to work learning the 8052.  I always wanted to write my own ROM monitor / development system: file transfers, single-step, eeprom, dumps, etc.  Piece by piece over about six weeks it was coming together.  The last incarnation used about 9,000 lines of code.  It had single–stepping, dis-assembler, break points, etc. After powering it up you pressed the space key on your terminal and it would automatically match its baud rate to the terminal's. It even had a few "help files" and the input buffer featured "auto completion." It was fun, but, alas, the single stepper had a design flaw.  It did work, but my method was wrong.  As is often the case, I worked to a point then put the project down.

About this same time, around 2008, I became very interested in virtualization and was looking to the UNIX and open source world.  For whatever reason, right or wrong, the Linux world did not get my attention, though I had made some exploration of it.  Out of curiosity I ordered an Opensolaris CD and ran it as a virtual machine in Windows XP on a 2.6Ghz Pentium 4, hoping I could reverse this, and use Opensolaris as a VirtualBox host and look at other OS'es virtualized.  Then Opensolaris died.

FreeBSD got my attention.  (Some of this may have been due to my using FreeNAS 7 on a Dell Precision 420.)  After a few failed attempts at FreeBSD I stopped and made myself read through Greg Lehey's book and the FreeBSD Handbook a time or two.  For some time I dual-booted between XP and FreeBSD on a 2.6Ghz Pentium 4.  Ports took some time to build and I sure messed things up many times.  I used XP less and less, FreeBSD more and more.  Now I have a Lenovo TS140 Xeon and port building is a breeze.  I can still dual boot to XP because I have a second hard drive on a SATA adapter plugged in to its single PCI slot.  I do this for a few XP games.  An inexpensive Nvidia card serves both OS's and dual monitors beautifully.  I choose the boot device at startup.

In one application of FreeBSD 9.3, I have one box that serves as a print server, via CUPS, for FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows clients.  It's connected to a Lexmark T630 through a parallel port.  It also has a headless XP virtual machine which I start, and to which I connect via RDP, from an old Compaq laptop that has 32MB and runs NT4. (Compaq LTE Elite 4/40CX 486)  Before XP I ran NT4 and Windows 2000 virtual machines and connected via VNC.  Now with XP I use RDP or VNC.  Somehow it's just cool in 2014 having XP displayed on a 1995 era laptop running my NT4 apps at a resolution of 640X480 and 256 colors! They look exactly as they did on the real hardware of the late 90's, but they run faster and I keep all my Microsoft Word 97 macros I use to make the programs work together.  I have Bible-related programs from the NT4 days that I still use in the same way today.  If it's not broke, don't fix it; do one thing and do it well.  So, I sit at my kitchen table with it and have all my Bible apps working together as they always have for 15+ years.  Of course, I can connect from anywhere else, too.

I don't use FreeNAS 7 anymore on the Dell for simple file storage, but FreeBSD 10.0, and connect and share via SSH, SFTP, and SAMBA.  I have many old "junk" boxes given to me as was the laptop.  They all got FreeBSD'd at one point or another.

I've often asked myself, "Why do I use FreeBSD?" While attempting FreeBSD someone often asked me, "Why don't you just use Linux?" The question implies that such would be easier.  I could have, but I suspect I'd have done little more than point and click and learn little.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it was just not me.  However, I do recommend Linux to others when their already-installed Windows dies.  My daughter asked me one day, "Dad, what's a hard drive crash?" I did my best to explain.  A few days later it occurred to me, "Why did she ask me that?" She then told me it had happened to her laptop.  I gave her a new hard drive and Linux Mint and away she went to college with no problems.

I liked FreeBSD's documentation.  I liked its history.  I liked that it is not one of many, many "distros" from which to choose.  I liked the ports system making it possible to build VirtualBox for my needs.  I liked the idea of it being a complete base system with "A core team of developers [that] serve as arbitrators and provide leadership for the project." I like to tinker, the flat part of the learning curve has been steep for me, but it has been fun.  Did I mention the documentation?

Some day maybe I'll locate my misplaced 8052 board and perhaps, if time permits, re-do my single stepper.  Why? Because it is fun.

I hesitate to offer opinions on operating systems.  They are, to me, fascinating, complicated, powerful things.  After a few lines of code any software reaches a high degree of complexity and takes on a life of its own.  If you enjoy it, then enjoy it.  FreeBSD has been FunBSD for me.  And yes, I do support the foundation.

Above all, have fun.


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## Orson B. Garnsey (Oct 25, 2014)

Cut my *nix teeth on Slackware in the early '90s. A whole new world, fell in love immediately, and had Internet routing around the house via PPTPD (the joy of compiling non-modular kernels) and ATDT scripts.

Fell in love with Solaris and AIX ('running man' in CDE was lovely) in 1997 and still have an UltraSPARC in the woodshed. Did the Caldera thing and the SCO (Windows NT domain emulator ;-) thing around this time.

Moved from Slackware to Red Hat in 2000 or so, moved away from Red Hat when it became Red Hat :-(, started using Debian.

Left *nix for commercial use in 2010, new job was pure Microsoft, save one very important application on SUSE.

Since I'm the 'boss' (cough, cough) started using Ubuntu on VMWare and AWS for a mail gateway last year (fronting a popular and costly groupware). Had a working FreeBSD configuration on 9.x and 10.x setup with Maia Mailguard, but it was overkill. However, I did fall for FreeBSD at the time, but was concerned my App Support guys couldn't handle it. Love that $$ Microsoft education.

Snowden: dumped Gmail, built a personal mail server at home on CentOS6.x; nice, skinny, reliable and reasonably secure.

CentOS7 = systemd = are you kidding? = install open-vm-tools = reboot = huh?

Researched systemd = THE BORG = YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED.

Back to FreeBSD, Postfix, Amavis, sa-spamd and p5-clamd at home and probably shouldn't have left. Will migrate this configuration to AWS around Xmas replacing Ubuntu.

Santa will reward me and The Borg will not assimilate me.


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## deathbyfreezeray (Oct 25, 2014)

Although I understand you, I quite frankly can't help but say that was difficult to read. Your story is good and you make good points, it's just the formatting and grammar was very confusing.

EDIT: If I am bashing your formatting, I should probably make this somewhat constructive. You should have a look at this. It can help you in the future: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...ums-2-spelling-grammar-punctuation-etc.18043/

Note: The thread tag doesn't appear to work properly. Either that or I am using it wrong.


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## youngunix (Oct 25, 2014)

deathbyfreezeray said:


> Although I understand you, I quite frankly can't help but say that was difficult to read. Your story is good and you make good points, it's just the formatting and grammar was very confusing.
> 
> EDIT: If I am bashing your formatting, I should probably make this somewhat constructive. You should have a look at this. It can help you in the future: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...ums-2-spelling-grammar-punctuation-etc.18043/
> 
> Note: The thread tag doesn't appear to work properly. Either that or I am using it wrong.


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## Glaukos (Oct 25, 2014)

I use it because I really miss the UNIX workflow when I'm doing my computations, like pipes, sh scripts, sed/awk/fun in general, excellent programming environment and excellent tools, cat/grep, good old obscure ed and all that jazz. Windows hurts me bad taking all this freedom from me. PowerShell? Really? No, not at the slightest it is close to *sh. Everything is big, monolithic and kind of "standalone". I can't do seamless integration with basically nothing at the (ridiculous) command prompt and even PowerShell is REALLY dumb for those matters, really bureaucratic in some senses, and worse than useless in general.

I use FreeBSD because it is one of the closest OSes to UNIX we have, being touched in this rank by very few other BSDs like OpenBSD, which have saner and simpler things than FreeBSD in one hand, but lacks others that FreeBSD has on the other hand, so there's no sovereignty.

And, of course, I love to use FreeBSD. It is a very cool system, I just love to boot my machine and see my own personal daemon waking up from the nether of my disk to ruthlessly fulfill my computational "fetishes". Hehe.


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## jjthomas (Oct 28, 2014)

My first bread-boarded computer was a Motorolla 6800.  I also wrote an assembly program on it. 

I forgot, I like the documentation.  It is complete and awesome.  And the way these forums are run.  I like the professionalism.  

-JJ


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## deathbyfreezeray (Dec 3, 2014)

Altogether, here are some recurring elements I've seen in why people use FreeBSD:

FreeBSD is very close to a true UNIX environment.
FreeBSD is very reliable and stable.
FreeBSD offers a level of control other operating systems don't hand out so easily.
FreeBSD is well documented and easy to learn.
FreeBSD takes an engineered approach to most issues. (OSS vs PulseAudio, for example.)


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## Adam193 (Feb 16, 2016)

This fantastic thread brought me to these forums and finally pushed me into installing FreeBSD. I briefly toyed around with FreeBSD and OpenBSD years ago in my teens, but mostly I've stuck with Linux and Windows. While it is an improvement on Windows, Linux does not perform as well as I think it should. After using its console feature I noticed a few advantages.  It was easier to concentrate on a single task and to to get the task done because there were no sudden pauses or crashes. 

Since my desire for a sleek GUI is rapidly diminshing, why shouldn't I start dancing with the daemon? I downloaded my Memstick image of FreeBSD last night and I am eager to install it today. Cheers!


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## PacketMan (Feb 16, 2016)

ronaldlees said:


> I use FreeBSD less now because some other very simple hobby OSes have matured to my liking.



From my viewpoint in the world FreeBSD is no where near being a hobby OS.  Billion dollar internet companies (like Juniper, NetFlix, Sony just to name three) don't use hobby OSs in their next big play.



ronaldlees said:


> It's like there are two types of people in the world.  The changers, and the changeless.



NetFlix is a disruptive changer. They use FreeBSD.  Juniper not so disruptive but certainly they have make great (different thinking built) products and brought change to the industry. They juse JunOS (FreeBSD whacked n smacked). Hardly changeless.

Which brings me to why I started to use, and continue to use FreeBSD:

It works! Its serves heavy duty.
The internet community support is the best I have ever seen. Very very friendly people.
I touched in DEC ALPHA UNIX years ago. What was it called? System V? Really like its rock solidness. FreeBSD seems to be very similar to what I was used to back then.

Love the ports management tools: ports-mgmt/portmaster fer sure, and still trialling ports-mgmt/synth.
I love the fact that I can overlay from a choice of desktops on it.
I get no where near the issues as I did with Windows. My family never complain to me any more "...the computer's not working".
I'm interested in virtualization with FreeBSD both host and guest roles. (Lots more to learn first.)
I see SDN (Software Defined Networking) becoming big in the next few years and I think smart folks would be well served to have FreeBSD doing various roles in this new internetworking model.
The more I know FreeBSD the more I see that its 'internals' are much like well thought out designed building blocks that click together nicely.
Its costs way less to buy and maintain good usable computers in my house than if I used Windows.
Lots of good usable documentation.
Like a UNIX its command line is pure joy in ones hands.
Ask me next year and I'm sure I will have more nice things to say.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Feb 17, 2016)

I started on DOS and moved to Linux when it became easy enough for a dimwit like me. Never used Windows and, other than DOS, refuse to touch proprietary software anyway. As Linux got more popular it started to become influenced by that and change too fast and in an unpleasant populist way. One day I was setting up a new system and because of its "newness" it took me half an hour to figure out how to set up a simple static IP because they had some newfangled way of doing it. That was it.

I moved to FreeBSD where things stay the same for long periods. I can make notes and refer to them later, and they're still applicable. FreeBSD also has the advantage of having less users so when I Google stuff I don't have a hundred wrong guesses to wade through to get an answer.


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## Monti (Feb 20, 2016)

1. Because I love it
2. Because I love it
3. Because I love it
4. Very reliable and stable. The best system that I have used.
5. Closer relationship to the OS than with the most used ones. Configuration is directly done without bloat.
6. Well documented
7. Nice and helpful people at the forum
8. Possibility to install a desktop system with several desktops to choose from. I chose MATE to avoid bling and bloat.

I've seen that a link to PC-BSD has been added as a suggestion to the new FreeBSD website front page. So people would learn what FreeBSD actually is I think it is better without that link. The reason for this is that when I started looking at BSD, coming from MSW, I was more or less searching for something that resembled what I previously used. Trying both PC-BSD and GhostBSD, not being able to install the latter, I didn't get the feel that things was hanging together properly. So I was forced to learn the real deal. Will never leave pure FreeBSD.


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## zspider (Feb 21, 2016)

It works day after day and has served me well for the last 6 years as my daily driver and main computer as well as it's variants running a file server and firewall. 



Adam193 said:


> Since my desire for a sleek GUI is rapidly diminshing, why shouldn't I start dancing with the daemon?



This is good. I like this, it shows fortitude and will take you a long way in life.



OJ said:


> I moved to FreeBSD where things stay the same for long periods. I can make notes and refer to them later, and they're still applicable. FreeBSD also has the advantage of having less users so when I Google stuff I don't have a hundred wrong guesses to wade through to get an answer.



I agree with that, especially the first point about consistency.


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## freebuser (Feb 21, 2016)

Only because I didn't have to fix it differently every time I updated/upgraded the system or package like in Debian/RedHat.
Everything is where it supposed to be and how I want it to be, nothing less nothing more.

Now I have more time doing what I am supposed to do compared to fixing little things (configs.. etc) to get the server work properly.


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## Maxnix (Feb 21, 2016)

For me it's because:

Has better ACPI support (Never shut down for overheating, and powers down without problems).
Old good UNIX way (all you need is a shell, an editor and plain text files, and you can manage the system without too many complications or tools that pretend to do the same things in different ways).
Has a coherent style (it doesn't seem a mass of many different pieces that look like they are each one on its own).
I can install a bare bone system and then add only what I need. IMHO it's preferable and easier adding what you want than removing what you don't.
UFS2 never gave me problems like switching to read-only mode due to errors, and I can mount my partitions synchronously without losing in performance.


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## fernandel (Feb 21, 2016)

OJ said:


> I started on DOS and moved to Linux when it became easy enough for a dimwit like me. Never used Windows and, other than DOS, refuse to touch proprietary software anyway. As Linux got more popular it started to become influenced by that and change too fast and in an unpleasant populist way. One day I was setting up a new system and because of its "newness" it took me half an hour to figure out how to set up a simple static IP because they had some newfangled way of doing it. That was it.
> 
> I moved to FreeBSD where things stay the same for long periods. I can make notes and refer to them later, and they're still applicable. FreeBSD also has the advantage of having less users so when I Google stuff I don't have a hundred wrong guesses to wade through to get an answer.



waaau...
Start with DOS than OS2, Warp, Linux and FreeBSD from version 6.
I remember StarOffice which I start to use on OS2 and now I am using LibreOffice ...


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## zspider (Feb 22, 2016)

Elaborating further on the consistency thing. Once you know a solution to a problem that solution almost always works when you need it. I have yet to encounter any problems I couldn't fix, or any overhaul that wasn't doable with the live dvd.


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## Maelstorm (Feb 22, 2016)

I actually use a few different operating systems.  At work, we use Solaris on Sun Workstations.  These were bought before Sun Microsystems was gobbled up by Oracle.  At home, have computers with Win XP, Win 7, Win 8, Win 10, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.  The OpenBSD runs on a SunFire T2000 server because FreeBSD won't run on it for some strange reason.  Something about a CPU instruction...  I have used OS/2 back in the early 1990s, but it went in favor of Windows because of software.  Before that however, it was DOS with Win 3.11, then Windows 98, and 98SE.  I tried SuSE Linux, but didn't like it.  Then using spare parts I had laying around, I built a few computers and loaded FreeBSD on them.  I remember a guy at work who mentioned FreeBSD so I tried it and I liked it.

As to why I use FreeBSD...


I like it.
I started on it at version 3.2.
It's a real Unix.
It's reliable.
Not too many changes at one time.
Good security.
Excellent network platform.
Excellent server platform.
Excellent software development platform.
Excellent platform for web applications.

In addition to this, there was another guy at work who I think holds the record for the most operating systems installed on a computer.  He had BeOS, Linux, Win 98, Win 2k, FreeBSD, and maybe others on his machine at one time.  After that, he bought a Mac.  Go figure.


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## Crivens (Feb 22, 2016)

Maelstorm said:


> After that, he bought a Mac. Go figure.


Integer overflow. 

I had my first contact with *BSD using NetBSD, then used Linux as it was smaller and faster (then). Had to use Windows for earning my bread, but used Linux for my private needs. Then the bloat and the erratic development model droe me away, and since 7.0 I use FreeBSD wherever possible.


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## jjthomas (Feb 23, 2016)

OJ said:


> I started on DOS...
> 
> ...FreeBSD also has the advantage of having less users so when I Google stuff I don't have a hundred wrong guesses to wade through to get an answer.



CP/M was my start.  Although... I did write a program in Fortan a couple of years before that.

One of my struggles with non-BSD searches, the engine returns the same result copied on a hundred plus websites.

-JJ


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## aht0 (Feb 28, 2016)

..for SOME privacy.

It's increasingly scarce these days..


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## Purkuapas (Mar 5, 2016)

I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD. May be only for improving your personal development of skills. FreeBSD services is much more expensive - because all planet writes for Linux and uses Linux. Porting requires a lot of effort and usually ported software works much worse (often missing some features that are turned off - only software run on FreeBSD). In addition, there is no any support from the authors (bugs which are peculiar to the FreeBSD, the authors are not interested in) and there is no certainty. In addition, on FreeBSD no very good products like OpenStack, Ceph, glusterfs (it does not work as it should), XEN (very limited number of the FreeBSD equipment and has a number of defects), OpenNebula, OpenVZ, Docker, LXC (yes - I know about jail, but it had not been developing for more than 10 years, rctl cpu limit can not be used, shared memory between jail - unless it is for production, really) where you have to follow the unique UID between jail?. FreeBSD now interesting only for the installation of localhost, unfortunately.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 5, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> a novice FreeBSD user


Yes. We can tell.

Can I now complain that there are things on FreeBSD that don't work or exist on Linux and that is why Linux is an awful OS? You need to ask Netflix, Juniper and Whatsapp why they use FreeBSD.


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## ANOKNUSA (Mar 5, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD.


One must then wonder why you saw the point in even posting. If the only reason you registered here is to tell the community its preferences suck and its efforts are wasted, then you should save yourself the time and energy.

As for the content of your post, I'll say this again: it amazes me that Linux advocates toss around the same baseless denigrations of *BSD that Windows advocates do of Linux. One would think that after a person sees past the nonsense about Windows being objectively superior to Linux, they'd be less susceptible to believing the same bullshit about any other operating system. Also, while you listed eight different Linux-centric products, they're all just variations of the same technology. You've really only said "Linux is better because it has more virtualization programs." That's a pretty shoddy foundation upon which to build an argument.



drhowarddrfine said:


> You need to ask Netflix, Juniper and Whatsapp why they use FreeBSD.



Also Sony, and by extension the United States Air Force.

While I'm at it, I suppose my response above makes for a good segue into an answer to the OP: There are several reasons why I fell in love with FreeBSD as a former Arch Linux user. To avoid repeating what anyone else has said, though, one of the things that amazed me about FreeBSD is the negligible degree of superfluity. There's no inane illusion of "choice" in the form of a half-dozen different tools that essentially do the same thing. Wanna manage your disks? gpart and newfs. Which filesystem should you use? Well, there are only two to choose from, depending on your needs, a lot of care has gone into both, and neither is objectively superior to the other. Need to manage network connections? ifconfig. And so on. In most cases you have one tool, it works well, and it will continue to work for the foreseeable future. There's little push to reinvent the wheel, and if you ever find yourself on a FreeBSD system you didn't set up yourself you don't need a twenty-minute crash course in how to interface with it.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Mar 5, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD.


Then why the *&^% are you posting in this thread? This thread is about why people use FreeBSD.


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## Crivens (Mar 5, 2016)

And now let me introduce exhibit #1, a rare species in the realm of FreeBSD. A Troll. Please do not feed trolls, not before midnight and not after. Trolls tend to be clueless, abrasive, and generally look much better mounted on a wooden plate hung over the fireplace. Trolls also are considered an endangered species in this forum. We have our own in-house trolls, and do not need more of them.


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## Oldrancher (Mar 5, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD. May be only for improving your personal development of skills. FreeBSD services is much more expensive - because all planet writes for Linux and uses Linux.



Hey, Toto, FreeBSD doesn't look like Linux (in it's infinite varieties).  
This forum is not the comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup.
Now buzz off and go study Cobol and JCL.

Moderators: Please take note.


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## scottro (Mar 6, 2016)

Dang, I thought the whole angry teenage angst was for the ArchLinux forums. Oh heck, now I've got Katy Perry's Teenage Dream stuck in my head, but I'm singing Teenage angst........

ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


(walks off humming 
Teenage angst
Makes me think they should be spanked
Chains getting yanked
Don't ever look back, don't ever look back)


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## sidetone (Mar 6, 2016)

I see what was meant by FreeBSD being like a pristine beach, and unwanted guests not respecting it.



Purkuapas said:


> do not see the point in using FreeBSD.





Purkuapas said:


> there is no [sic] any support from the authors...


 and more useless complaints aimed at volunteers.

It's spoiled attitudes, and lack of appreciation for anything done for BSD.


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## zspider (Mar 6, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> I can say as an experienced Linux user and a novice FreeBSD user - I absolutely do not see the point in using FreeBSD.



That's what happens when you only judge the system by how it looks and not what it is comprised of internally. You and Linux were born to ride.



sidetone said:


> I see this is what was meant by FreeBSD or any BSD being like a pristine beach, and everyone rushing in and ruining it.



and I hope the beach does stay pristine.


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## jjthomas (Mar 6, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> FreeBSD services is much more expensive - because all planet writes for Linux and uses Linux


How is free expensive?  I've never been satisfied with installed packages, anyway.  I don't think there is a Linux distro that I have fully installed without compiling some oddball package.

And to think I've been spending the last two weeks moving 2GB of data from Windows to FreeBSD.  What a waste of time!




aht0 said:


> ..for SOME privacy.
> 
> It's increasingly scarce these days..



Oh yeah!  Now where is that dedupe port?
sysutils/fdupes.

-JJ


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## Purkuapas (Mar 6, 2016)

OJ said:


> Then why the *&^% are you posting in this thread? This thread is about why people use FreeBSD.



Because there are people outside of our circle and I wanted to share something looks like the meaning of FreeBSD uses for them. For example, I saw a large number of broken functionality in ported software (XEN, libvrt-manager and other), 99% of *chef* modules or *puppet* does not support FreeBSD. This means that system maintenance is more expensive. The number FreeBSD vacancies on the job sites is 1 percent compared with Linux. Yes, FreeBSD was once popular in the ISP, due to the fact that Linux was small and FreeBSD code based on BSD44 that was licked years. I give the facts, you - call me a troll. Great.


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## Crivens (Mar 6, 2016)

Oldrancher said:


> Now buzz off and go study Cobol and JCL.


Ain't that cobol on rails, or something like that? It may be possible, is untried, and therefore the path to the future?

But back on topic. I use FreeBSD because it, unlike the ${ESTABLISHED_LINUX_DISTRO} I used before that, would update and come up again with no problem. For years. Without a reinstall. Without buggering around with config files which change behind your back, or are replaced by something incompatible. It accumulates very little debris over time. It does not need that much maintainence, and is much better documented. That's why I use it.


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## mzs47 (Mar 6, 2016)

Purkuapas,

Blaming FreeBSD for not supporting third party software is like blaming GNU/Linux for not able to run MS office(on wine), or, Skype properly.
Or, MS windows for not able to run some software...
Some things were designed to run on specific operating systems.

In my opinion, OpenVZ is one of the best thing GNU/Linux could have, unfortunately it is not in mainline kernel, LXC has its own bugs.
Btrfs still does not instill confidence.

I moved from using OpenVZ on GNU/Linux to FreeBSD, as it had feature rich container tech, file system(ZFS), and a new package manager with almost all open source software.
Pretty soon BHyve will fill the missing piece.
Other BSDs have some nice features but FreeBSD is unique in its offerings, and adopts other useful features from the BSDs.

Edit: Forgot to add the excellent documentation FreeBSD has, no need to search the web for how tos, etc.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Mar 6, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> I give the facts,


I know I shouldn't bite, but it seems you still didn't notice the title of the thread. This is about why people use BSD. Obviously the facts about what's wrong with it are not reasons to use FreeBSD but rather reasons why somebody might not want to use it. Not using it is a perfectly good idea for many people, but it is still the opposite of using it.

You don't need to answer me (and please don't) but I just wanted to help you understand.


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## Purkuapas (Mar 6, 2016)

I *use *FreeBSD to learn something new and to expand my horizons of knowledge


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 6, 2016)

Purkuapas said:


> I give the facts


*Your "facts" are flat out wrong.* Come back in a year once you learn how wrong you are and tell us how foolish you were. Then we can all have a good laugh. Until then, you are only taking up space with your blind stabs in the dark at something you think is there when it's not. *It is blatantly obvious you don't know anything about FreeBSD *so you need to stop now.


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## sidetone (Mar 6, 2016)

I use FreeBSD for several reasons:

It is fast.
It has the latest programs, available the second they are updated by program developers.
It has a wide variety of ports.

It is secure.
It's updating is standard.
I can contribute to it, and see the improvements soon made to it. If It's pointing out problems, or figuring out how to do something then sharing that.
It can be difficult to customize, but it can be customized to the system I find ideal for me.
I imagine it doing anything I want it to. While theoretically it can do that, it takes more knowledge than I have, and it can't do it over proprietary software. There can be alternatives. Some windows programs can run emulated on emulators/i386-wine. Imagination, knowledge and ability is the limit with FreeBSD.


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## Oldrancher (Mar 6, 2016)

I installed FreeBSD on a Sun Ultra 27 that had been running Solaris 10 update 11 1/13.  I run a small server operation that supports some ISP services as a retirement hobby.  I need a good stable base O/S with good resources, and don't see an upgrade path with Solaris.  I also don't have, or want to, devote anything resembling "full time" to getting a Solaris replacement into "production."  One question I needed to answer was what Solaris resources I would have to find and develop for another O/S to build a production server/desktop system.  After two months of running FreeBSD, I've concluded that it's a suitable platform for my needs.  FreeBSD 10.3 Release is due at the end of the month, and I'll build a production box with it. 

Some things I like about FreeBSD:

1. Security.  There is no such thing as "too much security."  FreeBSD has `ipfilter`, so I can configure it by copying ipf.conf from Solaris.
The other NIC-based resources are in addition to what Solaris has, and I'll be configuring them.  My production boxes run behind Fortinet Fortigate hardware firewall/routers, so some of my security is redundant.  The script kiddies and botnets are out there, and some of what I see here gets fed back to my upstream provider for their benefit.

2.  Basic resources I've used, like `sendmail` and `bind`, are either already installed or available in /usr/ports.  I can use the Solaris configurations to set them up with very little work needed.  Some other things I use locally, like `trn`,`elm`,and `mutt`
build from ports.  And, since I prefer it, I built and installed the CDE desktop (not ported to FreeBSD).   Some people may not like that `Xorg` has to be installed on top of the base install.  So what?  Big deal.  Install the package, if you don't want to do a local build, and install the desktop of your choice from
those available---and there are plenty of them available. 

3. Two compilers, one semi-native.  It's not `gcc` or nothing. 

In short, I'd expected to have to do more work than I have, to get FreeBSD configured to replace Solaris for my needs.


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## zspider (Mar 6, 2016)

sidetone said:


> I see what was meant by FreeBSD being like a pristine beach, and unwanted guests not respecting it. It's that spoiled attitude, and lack of appreciation for anything done for BSD, and maybe towards anything else for that matter.



Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, but some people have the sense to protect what is good and right in the world and there's nothing wrong with that, at all. I and other prominent individuals don't want this project to be californicated as well.

If it does you'll be right back where you started, so be careful what you wish for.


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## sidetone (Mar 6, 2016)

I think you understood the first time around. I'll edit the second sentence, because it wasn't referring to the first sentence. It was not criticizing people who want FreeBSD to be respected. I was criticizing an attitude of "gimmie" "gimmie" "gimmie", followed up by negative criticisms.

There is some clarification needed anyway. FreeBSD can use more people, but this also means the project will unfortunately accept unappreciative actions towards FreeBSD's community. That will have to be accepted by me, because widespread use can do more good than irritation.


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## protocelt (Mar 6, 2016)

FreeBSD evolves just like any other operating system. The thing I like about it is changes are generally well thought out before hand, agreed upon and made based on technical merit and need, not because of NIH or to have the newest shiny thing available. 

It's really amazing when you step back and look at the quality of the project compared to Linux considering it has maybe 5 to 10 percent(guess) of the developers at best.


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## zspider (Mar 6, 2016)

sidetone said:


> I think you understood the first time around. I'll edit the second sentence, because it wasn't referring to the first sentence. It was not criticizing people who want FreeBSD to be respected. I was criticizing an attitude of "gimmie" "gimmie" "gimmie", followed up by negative criticisms.
> 
> There is some clarification needed anyway. FreeBSD can use more people, but the project will unfortunately accept unappreciative actions towards it. That will have to be accepted by me, because it can do more good than irritation.



Understood. 

I usually take a dim view of any who would act in a manner detrimental to the project. Sorry you got caught up in it.


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## sidetone (Mar 6, 2016)

zspider said:


> Sorry you got caught up in it.


 Caught up in? the misunderstanding? or something else?

I apologize for updating my posts, I keep clarifying as I think out my ideas.


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## zspider (Mar 6, 2016)

sidetone said:


> Caught up in? the misunderstanding? or something else?



I misunderstood your stance on the matter, which drew my ire, which you didn't actually deserve. I apologize.


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## sidetone (Mar 6, 2016)

sidetone said:


> FreeBSD can use more people, but this also means the project will unfortunately accept unappreciative actions towards FreeBSD's community. That will have to be accepted by me, because widespread use can do more good than irritation.


It's an opinion probably shared by many, but it's not my say, while it is irritating. Also, I understand that FreeBSD is not a charity, every company and person (including myself) gets something out of it first, then they give back what they like. I don't mind if people are unable to put something back, but I think they should at least appreciate it, while they aren't required to.

(Sorry for quoting myself, but I didn't want to heavily edit an established post of mine.)


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## Simba7 (Mar 18, 2016)

Ahh.. I've been using FreeBSD since 3.1. It started when I was in the Navy back in 1998. They put me in charge of the ships library computer network, which consisted of 2x Pentium 166MHz systems and a crashed NT4 server. They didn't have the software, nor could not find the license keys to reinstall it.

So, I goofed around the internet for a few days and bumped into FreeBSD. I was going to try Linux, but the Linux society at the time was really rude and unhelpful. I was new to the whole *n*x world, so I started to learn it. I decided to subscribe to their CD-ROM kit due to dial-up being incredibly slow and I could get updated packs while deployed. I installed it without issues and started to tinker with it. This was on an (initial) P166 with 32MB of RAM. It was later bumped to a dual P90 with 128MB (the P166 was then turned into a 3rd workstation).

I ended up turning it into an on-demand dial-up router and a file server. The network was rather secure as well and was utilized by both enlisted and officers alike.

So, now I'm using pfSense on my router and FreeNAS on my home storage server (with a few arrays attached to it). I also use FreeBSD on a couple servers as well as running Gentoo on my MyBook Live drives (until I can figure out how to get FreeBSD installed on them as well).


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## sidetone (Mar 18, 2016)

Simba7 said:


> Ahh.. I've been using FreeBSD since 3.1. It started when I was in the Navy back in 1998. They put me in charge of the ships library computer network, which consisted of 2x Pentium 166MHz systems and a crashed NT4 server. They didn't have the software, nor could not find the license keys to reinstall it.
> 
> So, I goofed around the internet for a few days and bumped into FreeBSD...
> 
> I ended up turning it into an on-demand dial-up router and a file server. The network was rather secure as well and was utilized by both enlisted and officers alike.


 That's an interesting story. They allowed use of FreeBSD, without getting some kind of authorization, or was it a private library?


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## Crivens (Mar 18, 2016)

sidetone said:


> That's an interesting story. They allowed use of FreeBSD, without getting some kind of authorization, or was it a private library?


That being on a navy ship, it is hard not to read that as "pirate" library  I must clean my glasses, it seems.

My first contact was with NetBSD 1.0, which came on a CD rom set bootable on i386 (yuk), SPARC (drool) and m68k (which I had). I used that for a long time, and still have that installation on that old machine. I hope it boots these days. Last week, I got out that CD set and re-installed it on VMWare, partly just for fun. It felt a bit awkward to set the settings to 32MB memory. But it worked well, only the configuration was as I remembered it to be. Without a printed manual you have a bit of a struggle at hand. That part came a long way.


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## Simba7 (Mar 18, 2016)

sidetone said:


> That's an interesting story. They allowed use of FreeBSD, without getting some kind of authorization, or was it a private library?


It was a public library, but completely separate from the main network.


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## zirias@ (Mar 22, 2016)

As for me, I'm still evaluating it (right now running 11-CURRENT on my notebook again). I'm a professional software developer and -architect with a CS diploma. My first computer was a Commodore 64 and I'd say the first "real" operating system for me was AmigaOS. At university, I got to use all kinds of machines running Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and so on -- only later, more Windows machines were added. So, coming from AmigaOS, you can imagine I was never really happy with Windows back then (I'm now, kind of, Windows 7 is usable as my development machine at work, but that's another story). On the other hand, I hated CDE and the clumsy dtterm, too. The next best thing in reach for a private server was, of course, Linux (after some evaluation, Debian seemed to fit the bill best). I also looked for alternatives on the desktop and, also with some testing, finally found KDE very usable. And that's more or less status quo.

So, why FreeBSD when Debian + KDE does the job quite well? The latest release annoyed me. I got used to a transparent OS without lots of black-box magic and still with powerful administrative tools, and that's what I want. But it seems Debian is changing away from that -- the inclusion of systemd is of course the single biggest offender, but there are other things as well. So far, FreeBSD seems to deliver what I'm looking for, so maybe it'll be on my main desktop soon and some time later on my server -- we will see.


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## Maelstorm (Mar 23, 2016)

The big issue that I have with Linux is that it is a kernel with a bunch of addons.  FreeBSD is a complete and integrated operating system, like Windows and Max OS-X is.  The piecemeal nature of Linux, however, is its biggest advantage and its biggest Achilles's heel.  Linux is highly modular, which is a great because you can pick and choose that stuff that you want and need in the base OS.  However, that flexibility comes with a high price: You have to update those individual parts separately, and the new versions may or may not play nice with each other.  It's a roll of the dice.  The 200+ distros do help alot, but it is still a fragmented mess because everyone has a different way of doing things.  I don't need 12 different tools that all do the same thing.  But different distros use different tools to do the exact same thing.  I see this problem even in cygwin.

FreeBSD offers stability, a complete and unified OS, regular updates that make sense, good performance, good security, and a generally unified community.  Linux, on the other hand, is a fragmented mess because everyone has a different way of doing things.  At least this is my personal opinion.


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## Maxnix (Mar 23, 2016)

Maelstorm said:


> The big issue that I have with Linux is that it is a kernel with a bunch of addons.  FreeBSD is a complete and integrated operating system, like Windows and Max OS-X is.  The piecemeal nature of Linux, however, is its biggest advantage and its biggest Achilles's heel.  Linux is highly modular, which is a great because you can pick and choose that stuff that you want and need in the base OS.  However, that flexibility comes with a high price: You have to update those individual parts separately, and the new versions may or may not play nice with each other.  It's a roll of the dice.  The 200+ distros do help alot, but it is still a fragmented mess because everyone has a different way of doing things.  I don't need 12 different tools that all do the same thing.  But different distros use different tools to do the exact same thing.  I see this problem even in cygwin.
> 
> FreeBSD offers stability, a complete and unified OS, regular updates that make sense, good performance, good security, and a generally unified community.  Linux, on the other hand, is a fragmented mess because everyone has a different way of doing things.  At least this is my personal opinion.


You are right. Components fragmentation AND lack of standardization is Linux's biggest plague. While modularity can give some advantages and flexibility, lack of standards across components could ends in poor integration between them.


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## ronaldlees (Mar 23, 2016)

Really, I think it's often a matter of what we're familiar with ... just like it is with cars, boats, and sports teams.  I've looked at the Linux models, but they seem to want all the options on it, when I'm looking for the standard model.  Heck, I even asked them to remove the AM radio, and the standard wheel covers.

I've found it's pretty easy to put FreeBSD on a diet, and make it really skinny (LInux sometimes gets ruffled feathers when it can't eat what it wants to eat.  Hard to live with then ...).   But - that's also probably a matter of which system I'm more familiar with ...


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## nevarmaor (May 9, 2016)

Well, I have just recently returned to FreeBSD after being "lost" in the wilderness of Linux for a number of years.

I use(d) Windows(DOS) at work because I have to. As a designer, the programs I use only run on those (AutoCAD / SolidWorks).

At home I started with DOS -> OS/2 (definitely better than Windows 3.0) -> Debian (2.0.something - after OS/2 died) -> FreeBSD (around 4.2 I believe) -> Arch Linux (the closest Linux to BSD, it was that or Slack) -> FreeBSD. Note this is strictly desktop usage.

Why?

1.  BSD init scripts. They make sense to me, much more so than sysv6. And systemd is the reason I'm not using Arch anymore. Frankly, systemd turned my rock-solid Arch desktop into a pile of unresponsive unstable crap (to paraphrase). And yes I DID use Arch/systemd from early 2012 until mid 2014, but never happily, and never successfully understanding what had happened to my computer.
2.  Integration. No Linux distro (technically GNU/Linux) is as tightly integrated as FreeBSD (or any of the BSD's) as far as kernel and userland. Linux gives you a kernel. Technically, everything else is not Linux at all. Usually GNU, but still a completely separate entity from Linux. With FreeBSD it's all integrated together. And. It. Just. Works.
3.  Compactness. I only install what I want to install. No extras that the distro supplier thinks I need, like Pulse Audio (thus I am not using PCBSD).
4.  Transparency. I KNOW what's going on with my computer, something I no longer did with Linux, and something I have never had with Windows.
5.  I just got really sick and tired of the political bullcrap (to paraphrase) in Linux these days.
6.  BSD license. I am also getting thoroughly fed up with GPL's superiority complex. Probably related to 5.

I first tried a number of non-systemd Linux distros but there were always issues. Closest was Void Linux. Tried PCBSD, but there were major issues with upgrading (and Pulse Audio, which I've never really understood the need for). Finally decided to try FreeBSD again and I think I'm back to stay. Installed 10.2, upgraded to 10.3, no issues at all. Even when I was using Arch I would think back fondly on using FreeBSD 4/5/6.


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## a6h (May 9, 2016)

Why does *Steve Gibson* use FreeBSD?
Sources: Gibson Research Corporation (Steve Gibson)

STEVE: The increasing load on our Microsoft-based news server began causing frequent system crashes. So I switched to FreeBSD UNIX and the INN server.
STEVE: The newsgroup server that I talked about at the beginning of the show, news.grc.com? That's a FreeBSD UNIX machine. FreeBSD is my, you know, Linux/UNIX-style platform of choice.
STEVE: Yeah, we've got a very active, super useful group of gurus who hang out there.  It's news.grc.com is the machine.  And so that's a FreeBSD box.  So I use the appropriate one for the appropriate application.
STEVE: But what’s so cool is I do have FreeBSD servers at, you know, in our main facility at Level 3, and I’ve got one here on my own local gateway And so it’s a very simple way to set up a NAS using FreeBSD, absolutely free.
STEVE: I have a - one of the crazy boxes that I'm running OpenVPN on that I was talking about before - I built a diskless FreeBSD system because I just wanted to.  It's where I'm running BIND 9 locally.
STEVE: But I do wish that I was on open source platform. And again, I'm not going to go rewrite everything now for it. But if I had to do it again, yeah, I probably would have chosen FreeBSD. That's my platform of choice when I'm not on Windows. And I do have a FreeBSD server running. My DNS server at GRC is on FreeBSD. I'm running a true NNTP server on FreeBSD Unix.
STEVE: This is an instance of the proper tool for the proper purpose.  I am a FreeBSD person.  I was turned on to FreeBSD by Brett Glass, who I mentioned before.  Brett said this is the one you want, and I think Brett was right.  I love FreeBSD.  I've got a FreeBSD server running at Level 3, also one here.  At Level 3 it is my OpenVPN terminus.  So I run OpenVPN on that box.  But also I run INN, the traditional NNTP, the Network News server which hosts GRC's newsgroups.
STEVE: FreeBSD is my personal favorite flavor of the Unix operating system. Whereas Linux is, of course, the wildly popular "Unix-like" operating system, FreeBSD is actually real Unix.
STEVE: So FreeBSD is the UNIX that I had chosen years ago.  It's been good to me.
STEVE: I love FreeBSD.
*Note (from Wikipedia):*
_Steven Gibson is an American software engineer, security researcher, and IT security proponent. In the early 1980s, Gibson was best known for his work on light pen technology for use with Apple and Atari systems. In 1985, Gibson founded Gibson Research Corporation, best known for its SpinRite software._


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## tomxor (May 9, 2016)

vigole said:


> _1985, Gibson founded Gibson Research Corporation, best known for its SpinRite software._



SpinRite is an awesome piece of software... but I discovered it too late :/ and haven't owned any magnetic spinning platters in many years... I did wonder if low level NAND page information was exposed though SSD controllers in a similar way - though I suppose NAND technology is likely to become obsolete faster than magnetic platters.

I had better keep on topic:

I don't have lots of Linux experience or experience with SystemD etc. I mainly use Ubuntu and Mac OS 10.6 outside of BSD. The later is obsolete, later versions have become bloated and slow, Ubuntu doesn't give me the ground up experience I want so it was Arch or FreeBSD, and FreeBSD added EFI last year making life easier on my hardware so here I am 

Also although I can't give comparison, being a kernel newbie, compiling the kernel and playing with module source on FreeBSD has been a painless pleasure even with no prior experience.


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## PacketMan (May 12, 2016)

Same reason I like Juniper Networks (routers, switches, etc); it works!  I might be biased since Juniper Junos is based on FreeBSD.


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## sossego (May 13, 2016)

I just did a short clean up job at a local television station. Out of the mess, there are two PowerMacintosh G4 towers available.
Both FreeBSD and Debian will go on them for a audio/video animation studio setup for a local volunteer/charity organization.
This is a reason I use FreeBSD, to benefit others at little to no cost to/for them.


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