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Comment by vivin | Hacker News Reader

I was a long-time FreeBSD user. Started using it in college and continued for a long time. I started using Linux because I had bought myself a new laptop and BSD didn't recognize the wifi card. I continued using FreeBSD at home for a few more years on my webserver before ultimately moving to dreamhost (I just didn't have the time to keep maintaining my own server).

I like using Linux, but I still miss the predictability of a BSD system - you know where things are, and where they are supposed to be. When I first started using Linux, I was absolutely flummoxed by the lack of distinction between the base system and add-on utilities.

Linux definitely feels more "organic" and "grown" whereas FreeBSD seems like it was architected and planned out. Not that this is a bad thing for Linux. My FreeBSD heritage still shines through when I use Linux; anything I install from source sits in /usr/local :).

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> anything I install from source sits in /usr/local

To be fair, this is the norm on Linux too. I have never used BSD as a desktop operating system, but everything I've installed from source also sits in /usr/local. It's the default install directory for most Linux build scripts and I feel dirty if I add anything directly to /usr that the package manager isn't aware of.

Right; the distinction isn't so much "installed from source" as "installed without the package-manager's knowledge." If you `apt-get source`a Debian package, apply a few patches, and `debuild` it, the resulting package should install to the /usr prefix like the rest—because it's being tracked like the rest.

> Linux definitely feels more "organic" and "grown" whereas FreeBSD seems like it was architected and planned out.

This is 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar'. I've often seen the phrase used to contrast Microsoft/Apple with 'open source in general', but it's this right here: a fully integrated and designed system contrasted with an organically created system. Which approach is better is up for discussion.

> you know where things are, and where they are supposed to be

Does this not depend on the distro you're using?

In Linux, it does.

It's more than what you see in Linux. For example in Linux you have system packages, packages that are in distro repo, and 3rd party repo all sorting configuration and startup scripts in /etc.

In FreeBSD anything you find in /etc is part of the system, applications that you install are fully contained in /usr/local including etc and rc.d (init.d). /usr/local is also completely empty when you first install the system.

> It's more than what you see in Linux. For example in Linux you have system packages, packages that are in distro repo,

System packages are packages in the distro repo, so those are the same thing.

> and 3rd party repo all sorting configuration and startup scripts in /etc.

Stuff you compile/install from random sources on the internet will place its stuff wherever the upstream decided to place it. The same will happen if you compile that software on FreeBSD. If you're thinking of ports, those are patched to install to the usual places, exactly the same as the packages in the linux distribution repositories.

FreeBSD's base system is very neat and well-organised, and they have an impressive ports tree with ports that integrate fairly well for the most part. But that doesn't extend to third-party software, and it seems silly to include that in a comparison on the linux side.

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