# Apparently I cannot use FreeBSD because Plesk does not support it..



## EGS (Jul 7, 2011)

I am so sad and bummed out right now.. 

I was so fanatical to finally be able to switch back over to FreeBSD to come to the conclusion that I cannot use FreeBSD because Plesk control panel does not support it, and it's the only control panel in which I really want to use, that I find easy to use, powerful, and makes managing and administrating a server easy.

I talked to a support technician on the phone from Parallels, the company behind Plesk control panel, for over a half hour and am very grateful for his time. I talked to him to try to put in the word to support FreeBSD. His main argument was that the "board of developers" denied supporting FreeBSD further because of the lack of people using it these days. I can't believe they would use this an excuse to stop supporting it.

FreeBSD, from what I have learned, read, and researched, is truly a superior operating system that has evolved from over 40-50 year old Unix operating system. FreeBSD is also more stable and secure; I've read from several sources that the number of vulnerabilities FreeBSD faces is in the 300's, while Linux has over 1,200 vulnerabilities. 

Now I am scared that the end of life and support of FreeBSD and BSD-based operating systems is near, all because of Linux, and I don't find Linux to be any more suitable, stable, or secure or anything close to what FreeBSD is. Now what can we do to resurrect FreeBSD, spread the word, and have more companies like Parallel's Plesk control panel support it? Did you even know that according to a Wikipedia article that I read the other day, that Unix 64-bit was developed in the early 1990's? Can you believe that? It's such an advanced system, yet people underestimate it and undermine it for being old and such retired.

So now I am faced with the choice of using Windows for my new server or a new Linux distro, and so I've made the final decision to choose Linux but a different flavor, and that's openSUSE. openSUSE has made Linux as easy as possible for me in a desktop environment after testing it on a liveCD. Suse enterprise seems like it could rival Windows one day. But still, I can't help but wonder where FreeBSD's place will be in a couple of years? The number of users using it is declining; people fail to see that big corporations and big websites are powered by Unix and BSD-based operating systems because of speed, stability, and security.

My fastest servers were run by FreeBSD when I first got a dedicated server back in 2005. It was single core Intel Celeron server that ran faster than most sites using Linux with dual-core and quad-core processors. I do not even think that cPanel supports FreeBSD any longer, so where will people turn to for server control panels? The end of FreeBSD's life is near, and there is something that must can be done about it..?

What can we do? How can we prove to people that FreeBSD 64-bit is just as great, if not greater, than Linux 64-bit? There's so many Linux distros out there that make it vulnerable in their own ways, yet only one popular flavor of BSD that has its own source license. It was smart making FreeBSD under the license it was created, and now look, what's to become of FreeBSD now?


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## UNIXgod (Jul 7, 2011)

According to Wikipedia Plesk is FreeBSD compatible. 

Don't be scared. FreeBSD is not dying. Plesk is not open source. Maybe you should be evaluating another tool.


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## EGS (Jul 7, 2011)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> according to wikipedia plesk is freebsd compatible.
> 
> Don't be scared. FreeBSD is not dying. Plesk is not open source. Maybe you should be evaluating another tool.


Plesk is compatible within its 9.5 and only FreeBSD 6 is compatible with that. Both of the versions are dying.


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## UNIXgod (Jul 7, 2011)

Let me re-state what I said. If I was going to pick a tool to use I wouldn't pick a tool that dictated what other tools or operating systems I could use. Nor a tool that I couldn't modify and 'update' on my own.

To make it more interesting is your a paying customer for this tool. You basically need them to support your preferred OS to aid your administration. They have denied you. Sounds like a crappy company which doesn't care about their customers.

The wiki page for plesk also has a list of open source tools that basically do the same thing as plesk or do it better.

Use one of those. I promise you less anxiety than depending on the so called enterprise software Parallels' Plesk Panel.


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## tingo (Jul 7, 2011)

IMNSHO; "control panels" like Plesk are a crutch for inexperienced server / systems admins. Experienced admins evaluate tools available on the operating systems they use; they learn some, and select which tools they want to use.

Are you really sure that you need a crutch?


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## overmind (Jul 11, 2011)

try DirectAdmin (commercial)
Plesk is slow and some versions were buggy on some supported OSes (antivirus crashing mail server), but that is just what I've heard. If you want to know for sure about Plesk issues, do some research.

DirectAdmin is simpler but has all basic features.
And it's cheaper.

You can also try Syscp which is open source but I don't know if is still maintained.

Or better: try Froxlor, which is a Syscp fork, this is more active than Syscp.

And I notice that Froxlor is in FreeBSD's ports. Things are changing fast.


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## cgigeek (Jul 15, 2011)

sorry DA is nice when you first install it, in time it becomes very hard to maintain


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## saxon3049 (Jul 15, 2011)

How about Cpannel? I know they support FreeBSD or there is the free alternative of Webmin / Usermin the latter is open source and can be tweaked to your hearts content.


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