Comment by spaniard89277 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spaniard89277 | Hacker News Reader

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I always struggled with linux, because there's so many of everything. It's too much choice. I don't really have many sysadmin skills and discovering FreeBSD has been a blessing for me. When I have a problem the documentation is... IDK, consistent? It's like I can follow it, and it's useful, same with forums and the helpful community.

I'm so thankful, honestly. I finally can have my VPSs without feeling like I'm dumb or I need to devote so much time and effort to sysadmin skills that I don't have nor I enjoy.

I still use Xubuntu in my laptop and Windows in my desktop, because of the lack of drivers and because they work out of the box (well, almost with Xubuntu), but still, for some reason I really feel confortable with FreeBSD, and this is coming from someone who just wants to spin DBs, sites, and cron scripts, and I don't have enough knowledge to appreciate jails and so many other things that other people likes about FreeBSD.

So guys, thank you.

> When I have a problem the documentation is... IDK, consistent?

Yeah, it's almost like developing the OS as a singular entity instead of a kernel with random bits tacked-on has some advantages...

When you start using all the Linux ports, it must create some mention pollution as their methodologies differ from FreeBSD. Is that true?

A few things put their files in the "wrong" place, or have their documentation arranged differently, sure. But for an application program that's not too much of a problem - as long as your OS is working and your system is generally functional, you can figure out what's wrong with a particular application at leisure. The time when you really need high-quality help fast (and ideally offline) is when your system won't boot or your networking is broken or your DE won't come up, and that stuff is all in the FreeBSD core system.

Desktop environments (and indeed X) are in the ports tree on FreeBSD. Unlike say OpenBSD which has X11 in the tar sets. Generally agree with your comment though.

I so much agree. I am using FreeBSD on home server (and few others) trying to push it to the limits. I just love it. It seems like order in all the chaos of operating systems (from windows kernel32 getting com objects to all the chaos in linux, from systemd to docker,...).

Please if you are trying to use freebsd TRY jails (to shorten tldr, use iocage). They are just great :)

And dont go desktop. Just isnt worth it. Not enough people troubling with gfx support. Keep it as it is. Server.

There is a variant of FreeBSD with terrific graphics support, and although limited to just one hardware vendor, there’s no doubting its popularity: it’s in every PlayStation 4.

There’s FreeBSD in almost every data centre. But it’s at a level most application developers just never see. Many infrastructure elements - from storage heads, to core routers, to enterprise application and security appliances - have chosen FreeBSD as the high quality, reliable, consistent, and liberally licensed base for their control plane software.

The point being, this is where FreeBSD has the greatest influence and adoption: as a platform, not the product, and not at all obvious even to those that thereby rely upon it.

That being said, yes it works great as the instance OS in EC2 and as a die-hard acolyte since 2.1-RELEASE you’ll pry my production application jails from my cold dead hands

> There is a variant of FreeBSD with terrific graphics support, and although limited to just one hardware vendor, there’s no doubting its popularity: it’s in every PlayStation 4.

And since FreeBSD is not GPL-licensed, it has exactly zero relevance as it means that no "lambda person" can use it, write code against it, etc... without paying the 2500$ of a devkit.

Sony could write their proprietary drivers for any OS - just look at nvidia which uses the same driver with just a microscopic shim across linux and windows.

What about the Nintendo Switch?

The Switch doesn't run on FreeBSD but rather a custom microkernel operating system called Horizon, which is an evolution of the OS on the Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo do use some code from the FreeBSD kernel in the network / sockets stack though - https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Sockets_services

I don't think we need enumerate every known FreeBSD derivative to make the point.

I am a happy FreeBSD desktop user. There are Nvidia drivers. I have installed the drivers, enabled KDE5, and everything just works. Granted, you will need to edit a few configs, but nothing is out of ordinary, easier than in many Linux distributions like Arch.

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