In this series, I'll be trying out each of the four major BSD operating systems (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFlyBSD), including install, configuration, and web serving. We're paying a visit to the weird cousins from the other continent, and we'll have some fun exploring the OTHER free opera...
BSD will always be faster. That's a given. It is not flexible, however. It has a very specific purpose. This is why Apple chose this as the origin for OS X, which has now been bastardized to an unrecognizable variation, but if you check the main kernel, will still read as DragonFlyBSD.
BSD might be faster but companies choose BSD because the BSD License is much more flexible than the Linux General Public License. Apple was even able to create their own license, the APSL. They would not be able to do that using Linux.
Smaller footprint in general, compiled as one (not multimodal kernel+extensions), simpler security models, and simpler init system. All of these will make it snappier out of the box than Linux, just not in the ways you'd want, say, a desktop to be faster.
I have 3 *BSD vms on proxmox, OpnSense and TrueNAS as well as a GhostBSD desktop for 'play'. The TrueNAS started as a bare metal install and is now in it'd 3rd 4th server
I also have 2 Macs in the house...
So I guess *BSD is well represented here, looking forward to the read
Very excited to see the rest of this series. I still run some BSD boxâs. I really really enjoy it. I really wish they would support Docker at this point but itâs complex and I get it with the developers they have. Jails still work so so well. I am on a box I think I installed end of FreeBSD 9 or 10 on and just keep upgrading. Thatâs probably get to the 10 year mark at this point. I will have to go and check. Itâs such a smooth system to run really a dream. Wish more people tried it especially
I feel like the FreeBSD Community ist really underestimating how important OCI containers are in the Linux world. And how much easier they are to setup than vms and jails.
i've had to use netapp ontap's freebsd and solaris 9 & 10 professionally and going to canada is exactly how it felt; one is vancouver (compared to california) and the other was new foundland.
I tried FreeBSD for several months about 15-20 years ago. I really liked how clean the filesystem and environment felt, and have suggested it for many people over the years. In the end I couldn't get around their license vs GPL.