# Some personal FreeBSD advocacy



## zirias@ (Dec 20, 2020)

Guess it was time to write my 2¢ as well, so here it is:
http://sekrit.de/webdocs/freebsd/advocacy.html
Ironically currently hosted on a Linux machine


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## shkhln (Dec 20, 2020)

It's generally a good idea to simply write Linux instead of GNU/Linux. We, as a community, don't give a shit about whatever FSF thinks is the proper terminology. See the Handbook for example.


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## zirias@ (Dec 20, 2020)

I use GNU/Linux for the whole system (as there are also things like Android/Linux) and just Linux for the kernel of course. For me, this makes sense. You don't have to agree.


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## Beastie7 (Dec 20, 2020)

Zirias said:


> (as there are also things like Android/Linux) and just Linux for the kernel of course.



Technically, It’s Dalvik/Linux, but you’re right. GNU/Linux is the correct idiom for a complete “base system”.


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## Holger (Dec 20, 2020)

Zirias said:


> I use GNU/Linux for the whole system (as there are also things like Android/Linux) and just Linux for the kernel of course. For me, this makes sense. You don't have to agree.


Small and/or embedded system usually use Busybox for userland tools like `grep` or `find`. No GNU stuff there. Should one call these Linux'es "Busybox/Linux"? Noone does that. I think the GNU guys are just a little pompous in that regard.


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## zirias@ (Dec 20, 2020)

Well, last response on that topic: I *do* use Linux as a generic term for Linux-based systems. I use specifically GNU/Linux for your typical OS with a GNU userland. And yes, there's a lot of GNU in it. If you disagree, fine, but honestly, I don't care much. That's definitely not the point of my little write-up.

(Well, actually, it's somewhat related to *one* point, as in my opinion, FreeBSD being a self-contained and complete OS is an actual advantage…)


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## shkhln (Dec 20, 2020)

"GNU/Linux" has nothing to do with the semantic correctness (never did in the first place), it rather signifies to which ideological camp you belong, which is why it's so jarring to see here.


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## kpedersen (Dec 20, 2020)

I like it. It doesn't come across as some zealot literature 
Sometimes that is actually hard because as you put into words why FreeBSD is useful, it makes you think just how absurredly inappropriate almost all other operating systems are. It almost gets a bit depressing this is all we have after ~50 years haha.

I don't know if your reasons are "ordered" but I would personally put good documentation above ZFS.

As for GNU/Linux, I reserve that for distros developed and maintained by GNU. None of these actually exist unfortunately. I don't even know if a GNU/Hurd exists at this point. Just a load of scrappy hobbiest projects, just like Linux


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## zirias@ (Dec 20, 2020)

Well, thanks kpedersen! I just tried to describe reasonably why I personally prefer FreeBSD over Linux, so people can hopefully understand even if they disagree 

The order really isn't meant as priorities. I just tried to find somewhat meaningful transitions from one section to the next, so you can read it as a whole… 

As for this "GNU/Linux" thing again  – I really don't get that, uhm, "GNU bashing"? Or is it because of this RMS guy? 
Seriously, of course you can have Linux without any GNU. Still, your typical Linux distribution ships a lot of GNU. At least, that's what I describe briefly in the section explaining why FreeBSD being a *complete* OS is an advantage. I assume the GNU toolchain alone has probably more lines of code than Linux.


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## a6h (Dec 20, 2020)

It's a well-written blog, I enjoyed reading it, and also I have to say typeface is beautiful!
I appreciate the proper use of technical terms, as it was reflected in the Zirias advocacy.
Personally, I prefer to refer to the whole shebang, i.e. FSF/GNU/systemd/Linux as: "Lili".

I have one problem. The last paragraph in the 8th section, i.e. Mindset and Community:
There are some questions which right in their face are stupid and must handle properly.

Also there's an inherent problem with "welcoming" attitude in any projects or systems.
Being helpful and not being rude are great values. We don't want to live in a cesspool.

But it's fine up to a point. There must be a limit. When it comes to the developers and
committers, the only working value systems is meritocracy. Contribution to the project
and quality of code is all that matter. Welcoming doesn't work. Strictness is the answer.


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## zirias@ (Dec 20, 2020)

vigole, thanks for your appreciation! First about the "typeface" ... uhm? I just made a list of preferred sans-serif fonts and put it in a simple CSS block that's prepended when generating the document, so nothing special  In fact, I'm too old and tired to write any HTML manually, I just write some markdown and process it with textproc/hs-pandoc … here's the actual source: https://github.com/Zirias/webdocs 

For your criticism: I don't say FreeBSD communities should "welcome" any ridiculous crap. Don't get me wrong on that. I'm arguing the communities are great the way they are, as you won't find arrogance and you WILL find a lot of willingness to help anyone. That's awesome. Of course, it can't be stretched too far.


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## a6h (Dec 20, 2020)

Zirias said:


> I just write some markdown and process it with textproc/hs-pandoc … here's the actual source: https://github.com/Zirias/webdocs


I certainly look into it. Thanks a lot for sharing the link. Web design is a black box for me.



Zirias said:


> I don't say FreeBSD communities should "welcome" any ridiculous crap. [...]I'm arguing the communities are great the way they are, as you won't find arrogance and  [...]


Well said! I couldn’t agree more.

I'm looking forward to reading more article from you.


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## PMc (Dec 21, 2020)

Zirias said:


> Guess it was time to write my 2¢ as well, so here it is:
> http://sekrit.de/webdocs/freebsd/advocacy.html
> Ironically currently hosted on a Linux machine



Nice writeup. I specifially like the mentioning of the "cathedral" vs. "bazaar" comparison - when that came up (when was that? 1998?), I was already thinking that the Berkeleys have mostly solved it, properly combining the advantages of both sides.
What I would have also mentioned is the networking capabilities and emulations - netgraph and dummynet/IPFW.


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## matt_k (Dec 21, 2020)

Zirias said:


> Guess it was time to write my 2¢ as well, so here it is:
> http://sekrit.de/webdocs/freebsd/advocacy.html
> Ironically currently hosted on a Linux machine


Very well written. I was thinking about doing something similar, but I always end up with something which looks like an ode written by a fanboy, which is embarrasing.
You avoided that, while nicely summarizing the most important points.


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## shkhln (Dec 21, 2020)

Zirias said:


> As for this "GNU/Linux" thing again  – I really don't get that, uhm, "GNU bashing"?


Let's just say, GNU is not in competition with FreeBSD, Linux is. It's quite possible use to both FreeBSD and Linux with or without GNU tools. They've been replaced multiple times (Android, for example, uses Bionic libc). They are getting comparatively less important with each passing year. At this point this is a just another compiler, just another libc and just another set of utilities. It's a commodity.

Not to mention, Linux is entirely controlled by corporations with no input from FSF.



Zirias said:


> Or is it because of this RMS guy?


Something like that.


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## zirias@ (Mar 11, 2021)

Right now, my build machine is busy building 13.0-RC1 (following versions should hopefully build quickly with metamode). I'll definitely try it on my desktop. Didn't decide yet whether to directly upgrade my server, maybe I'll wait for -RELEASE there.

Anyways, excited to see the new major release in action!


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## Deleted member 30996 (Mar 12, 2021)

> _FreeBSD_ *never* holds your hand (if you don’t count the excellent documentation). There’s no automatic configuration. The defaults mostly match a server workload; if you want to use it on a desktop, you have a lot of manual work to do and of course install many packages.



I think this should be presented upon download of the chosen installation medium as a checkmark box for everyone who intends on using FreeBSD as a desktop as an "I Agree" or "Nevermind" choice to start or decline the download. 

Just to show they know how deep the water is before they dive in and are ready to swim.


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## zirias@ (Mar 12, 2021)

Finally, 13.0-RC2 running on my desktop   

Boot environments saved me earlier today (needed the working 12.2-RELEASE for work). Maybe something to also mention – not a big thing, naturally built upon ZFS, but incredibly helpful!

Well, what made problems first was the `radeonkms` driver on my very old AMD "APU". Screen not found ("Cannot find any crtc or sizes"), and therefore, no display any more after loading the driver. Had this problem on 12.x already, but could work around it by building and using `drm-fbsd11.2-kmod` on 12.x.

Now, this definitely isn't an option any more on 13. Luckily, I found the solution – for my machine, I have to add `hw.radeonkms.hw_i2c=1`. Ironically, this leads to the following message in dmesg:
`[drm] hw_i2c forced on, you may experience display detection problems!`
Well…


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## Beastie7 (Mar 12, 2021)

I'm too lazy to learn ZFS. UFS is dumb simple. I should probably learn it at some point though.


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## CuatroTorres (Mar 12, 2021)

This personal case caught my attention a long time ago:

FreeBSD In Scientific Computing by Jason Bacon.


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