Random_BSD_Geek

There go my plans to visit New Zealand.

Be kind to everyone you meet.

Looks a little bit an ASCII-art Deathstar. I think I see where a direct hit could set off a chain reaction....

Long before the NYT article came out I had been hearing stories like this from ex-Amazon employees. This is only anecdotal evidence, but it's the same basic anecdote again and again. The NYT article may be many sensationalized and the characters in it may not be ideal people, but the story's core message is one I've heard from a diverse set of people in a diverse set of circumstances. There seems to be a kernel of truth in there.

find has a worse reputation than it deserves. Yes, its learning curve is steep; when I was learning Unix, find was one of the commands that really stymied me. But like many powerful tools once you've learned it you can do some wonderful things with it.

Here's a random example: Prune a a scratch directory of files older than one week.

find /dir -type f -mtime +7 -delete

How would you do it without find? (Serious question. I know it can be done with other tools but since I can do it in one line with find I've never bothered to look for another solution.)

I understand and agree with your outrage. But isn't the attention and humiliation they are receiving enough? Elevating the dialogue was the graceful thing to do.

It's curious to read contemporaneous reports about negative interest rates on record hoards of cash, the pending insolvency of social security and medicare (in the US), and high unemployment globally. You'd think we could find better uses for those massive piles of cash.

I for one welcome our pending transition to federation credits. ;)

I was also there, and I had a similar reaction to seeing the Wired article. (Sensationalist, whole article written on a 30-second exchange, click-bait, etc.)

That said, here's how I remember it:

1. Metz: ... would Microsoft ever open source Windows?

2. Crowd: Cheers. Applause. People shouting "Do it!"

3. Russinovich: You never know, it's definitely possible. Crazy stuff happens.

I found the middle part more interesting than anything else. It's a perilous road to be sure but I think Microsoft may underestimate how much good something like open sourcing Windows could do them.

I believe all the talks were filmed. Hopefully the video gets posted.

Sure, sometimes. Can't say it's been an issue for me. I'm sure it's more or less frequent depending on which ports you favor and how far you drift from release. (And it goes without saying: open source, send patches, etc.)

To be fair, I've found fewer excuses to not stay current on the OS since freebsd-update. cvsup and building your own source worked fine, but it was a little tedious.

pkg has done the same for the ports tree. If you just need the tool on the box now, pkg install bash. If you care about how the tool is configured, cd /usr/ports/mail/postfix; make config-recursive && make install clean. It all just works, works well, and works well together.

There have been some threads on HN lately about the frustration of changing the UI for the sake of changing the UI. FreeBSD rarely surprises me. When it does, the documentation usually sets me straight. (Or a few minutes browsing <https://docs.freebsd.org/mail/>.)

I lived through a lot of This vs. That flame wars and I've learned to roll with whatever the choice is. At the end of the day, they're all just tools I use to do my job; I use whatever tools are in vogue. But as a professional user of tools, FreeBSD is a very well designed tool and I wish I got to use it more. It makes my job easy.

Long time reader, first time poster.

I've run FreeBSD on laptops, desktops and servers since 2.2.7. Laptops are not its strong suit. It works great for me as a desktop, but I've been tinkering with X desktop configurations for a long time, and don't mind doing some work to have a desktop that functions precisely the way I want it to. Also, it is not my only desktop. (/usr/ports/sysutils/synergy FTW!)

Servers and network appliances are where FreeBSD really shines. The ports tree can be updated independent from the base OS and the base OS can be updated independent of ports. No upgrading to a new OS just to get a security fix for your web server.

ZFS is brilliant. ~7 years of FreeBSD/ZFS and no issues.

PF makes every other firewall I've run (including every commercial option) look silly. PF is like the Python of firewalls: optimized for readability. Add in CARP and PFsync for easy fault tolerance.

The project is managed by a democratically elected core group. Like a real democracy, sometimes this means change happens slowly. But the deliberate approach to change is part of what makes FreeBSD great. It's stable, predictable, and reliable. It functions as a well-engineered, well-documented whole.

FreeBSD's biggest fault is how little attention it draws to itself. It is quietly brilliant. It just works. It doesn't try to do everything. It's just good, reliable infrastructure.