> One of the best features of FreeBSD is that it can be used as a general-purpose operating system. That means that FreeBSD can be used as a server, as an embedded system, or in networking.
Same for Linux.
> FreeBSD provides simplified software management with the help of its packaging system and the ports collection.
Not a ports experts but the difference between ports and Gentoo portage does not really seem that big, certainly nothing of FreeBSD itself makes it more suitable to working with ports than a Linux kernel. And there is guix and nix also which really should cover most software management needs and flexibility anyone has.
> One of the many great advantages of FreeBSD is that it allows you to customize the operating system, according to your needs.
Again Gentoo, nix and guix covers this quite well.
> You don’t need lots of cores – but you can definitely run it on huge multicore systems, can easily run a highly graphical interface, or choose the simpler way; FreeBSD will support you either way.
Linux definitely does scale up and down, maybe FreeBSD scales down a bit smaller than Linux, but I would have to see numbers to back this up, and I don't think it is that significant in difference.
> FreeBSD has been ported to a variety of instruction set architectures.
Again this is not something unique to FreeBSD and Linux has a proven track record of portability.
> FreeBSD includes two native file systems, the Unix File System (UFS) and the Z File System (ZFS).
I guess "native" ZFS is the closest it comes to a UVP, but given Linux support for ZFS is quite good to the point where ZFS on root is possible I'm nto sure it qualifies.
Not saying FreeBSD is not great, but not sure it really has any unique value propositions.
As far as I know gentoo portage is based on freebsd's ports. Where Gentoo has different kernels (linux or freebsd) and an ever changing userland, FreeBSD has consistency they make a complete operating system they don't bolt stuff together like Linux distros do. The holistic approach of freebsd results in a more cohesive and considered environment linux doesn't have this.
The difference is not that one has the command pkg and the other portage but how the entire environment has been considered to work with ports.
> Linux definitely does scale up and down, maybe FreeBSD scales down a bit smaller than Linux
In my experience they both scale the same, it makes sense that they would both watch each other and implement any improvements they seen since they are both open source.
> I guess "native" ZFS is the closest it comes to a UVP
If you are looking for a killer feature that destroys linux you aren't going to find it they are both very similar, its like looking for a UVP for Fedora vs Gentoo vs Debian they all do pretty much the same thing but in different ways. I use Fedora on desktop and Debian on servers as they both seem to be well suited to those environments, I could just change one to work like the other but why bother? Same is true of FreeBSD.
Kernel and Userspace are developed, and packaged together, in the same repo.
Lack of such benchmarking, will be indicator of "no one cares on that platform anymore".
Nginx can be other one "indicator" - Nginx started as FreeBSD focused product in company heavily focused on FreeBSD (I know couple of persons from there by that times), nowdays not even mentioning ARM64 in list of supported product
> FreeBSD 3 — 12 / i386; FreeBSD 5 — 12 / amd64; FreeBSD 11 / ppc; FreeBSD 12 / ppc64;
from [1] and [2]. Not a big deal for _now_ but, but - more and more ARM servers in major hostings, even Hetzner has 2 of them. Seems this train have been missed too.
Let's see will I win my bet or not.
[1] https://nginx.org/en/#tested_os_and_platforms [2] https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/technical-specs/?_ga=2.23463900...