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1 • Docker requires very much course studies, skills & time? (by Greg Zeng on 2020-09-14 00:57:01 GMT from Australia)
Still very puzzled. Seems it is available for both Windows & Linux. Equally & easily? Appimage, snap & Flatpak can be done by some people, without any diploma. These three have trouble if you have unusual user settings, such as font, colors, HiDPI, etc. Docker seems more comnplex than VirtualBox, etc. If it is "so easy", why is it not used so much, in some Linux systems, or in comparative benchmarks?
2 • Docker non use there of.. (by Bobbie Sellers on 2020-09-14 02:44:46 GMT from United States)
There are other solutions for people who want to isolate applications and processes.
Qubes is one and works well from what I have seen but I prefer probably because
I have been using Linux without a computer science degree for 15 years or so.
Before that I used my Amiga OS 3.9 for everything important and of course it is not suited to
the modern web environment being designed for single user use, with web use sort of tacked on. But I stopped using my second-hand Amiga A2000b with 68060/50 MHz/64 Megabytes
of ram when it stopped working. No longer handy Amiga repair shops so i tried to use emulation but it was really meant for games and I used principally text and word processing applications. XP was usable but Mandriva Linux 2006 really was the good replacement
and so I switched on over.
None of the these had containerized processing which I find awkward and rather slow even
on my present hardware which is based on Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4800MQ CPU @ 2.70GHz with 16 GB of ram,
The future may be with Docker and Qubes-like systems but it will take a lot more power and memory than I care to think about.
bliss
3 • GhostBSD (by sammy_cda on 2020-09-14 03:35:42 GMT from United States)
Interesting that you couldn’t get it running. Like you I try it every few years and the issue I have after every install is a buzzing noise, if my recollection is right, like a 60 Hz hum through the speakers. Never could figure out how to stop it and always gave up at that point.
4 • docker use (by dave on 2020-09-14 06:27:17 GMT from Australia)
We use Windows docker containers (running Windows on Windows) for running a specific service service for many clients. It's actually been surprisingly good. You can build disposable, reproducible operating system images that are easy to upgrade, use almost no space, boot instantly and can be created and destroyed on demand. It forces you to separate your config/data, your guest OS and your Host OS - each is independent of the other.
Docker containers are not a drop in replacement for vms, I think sometimes people might think of containers that way and try to use them for that purpose.
For linux, you have Docker as well as lxd, chroot and yes Flatpak and Snaps, ostree - all of which have some overlapping and some completely different use cases and functionality.
5 • Docker (by Jim on 2020-09-14 07:48:32 GMT from United States)
I run Pi-Hole in a Docker container on my Open Media Vault-based home media server. Prevented me from having to add another switch to my network or deploy additional hardware and keeps the Pi-Hole functionality isolated from the rest of the OS for the most part. Super easy to set up and configure right from the web GUI or ssh with the Open Media Vault "Extras" package.
6 • GhostBSD (by NoName313 on 2020-09-14 10:10:03 GMT from Czechia)
Very sad for GhostBSD,
which is really interesting project and hope that next review will end much better. Lading installed boot loader is the very basic of any installation and its functionality should be very well tested. What else should be working then even basic installation and loading installed OS...
How could a man believe in OS, it's stability and reliability if even loading OS is such a fail.
Is there any testing? I know, it's Open Source, no-profit teams... thanks for they are doing but honestly, could GhostBSD be my OS to work on daily? How can I even think about it in this state....
Best regards
NoName313
7 • Docker (by NN on 2020-09-14 10:59:30 GMT from Germany)
I also have experienced Docker for the first time a month ago, because I wanted to install a software for a small team enabling collaborative work on several projects. The most difficult part was to install a reverse proxy in order for everyone to access the software while out of the site. I didn't know anything about Docker before, and I am far tp be a Docker specialist, but so far it is easy to install, to customize and to maintain + you can get Docker images with a lot of services as stated in the Q&A vignette, which is good if you don't want to multiplicate the services that you have to administrate on your server (if you, like me, run a simple server which is also your personal PC). All in all, very good experience.
8 • Easy Containers (by igor on 2020-09-14 11:12:46 GMT from Croatia)
@1 Maybe you should take a look at EasyOS. It is all about containers. I didn't try it myself, but judging from Barry Kauler's early work, Puppy, which is the most user friendly piece of software I ever tried, this is everything you ask for: easy to use, lightweight and taking a user by hand to show her how to do it, and what to do next.
I guess the issue with containers is not the learning curve or the consumption of resources, but rather finding some use case in personal desktop computing. Isolating the potentially dangerous applications is the only one consistently mentioned, and for that task there are other good solutions, Qubes being just one.
9 • oops, a double disaster + docker (by fonz on 2020-09-14 13:13:05 GMT from Indonesia)
was hoping it wouldnt end in ghostBSD failing. on my bucket list, both ghost and nomad are really high up since they both were listed as noob friendly BSDs. i still do want to try them though, it might not be a good time to try ghost, so nomad it is.
dockers do seem nice, but seem a bit complicated as others say. it might be nice to jump into the deep waters from time to time.
@8 kudos on mentioning easyOS, i keep forgetting about them even though i use puppy a lot in the past. it does look a bit more familiar as the pkg list has more familiar tools in them instead of the usual pup stuff (nothing wrong with that).
10 • GhostBSD (by Otis on 2020-09-14 13:43:38 GMT from United States)
Same as Jesse's findings. I did get it up and running once and still don't know why that happened because I could not get it going before and had tried with multiple installation settings and the bios changes etc mentioned in the review.
Once it was up and running I was happy but an update notice appeared and I ran it through the upgrade and it would not reboot; back to the same problem as before.. so..
No GhostBSD.
11 • Desktop BSD (by voidpin on 2020-09-14 15:46:59 GMT from Sweden)
I understand that these BSD-"distros" are supposed to be user friendly but, they are all dressed-up FreeBSD.
Getting a full BSD desktop experience can be achieved starting from the parent BSD. Moreover, you're then free to choose which BSD you want to run and are not limited to FreeBSD.
Disclaimer: I run NetBSD.
12 • BSD not working (by Friar Tux on 2020-09-14 15:49:55 GMT from Canada)
@10 (Otis) I'm curious about that. I ran into the same issue. In fact, every single BSD distro I tried came up the same (Ghost, Free, Open, Nomad, Midnight, and Trident (when it was BSD)). Either the install failed or at first update it went with the Grim Reaper. I thought, at first it was a hardware issue, but all the machines I tried them on gave the same result. Any ideas, anyone?
This may help... I checked my notes and for Trident, which actually installed, here's a snippet:- ... I got all the way past reboot. BUT, that's where things got hung up. First I got all kinds of FAILS. Three that I caught were ‘dhcpcd.nfe0 and dhcpcd.wlan0’ failed; something about a ‘dumpon’ fail; and a ‘can’t find host 0.freebsd.pool.ntp.org', and finally it displayed ‘ath0: ath_legacy_rx_tasklet: sc_inreset_cnt > 0: skipping’ over and over and over (maybe twenty or thirty times) before I hit the power button.
13 • I use Docker both at home and at work (by Sitwon on 2020-09-14 16:33:10 GMT from United States)
From a developer perspective, Docker is not very complicated. It's actually a very slick toolkit for packaging up software.
I think where people get intimidated is that the Docker ecosystem is feature rich and provides a lot of sophisticated functionality that most people don't need most of the time. And also that the basic tooling and interfaces are developer-oriented rather than user-oriented.
If you're just interested in using Docker as an end user, you can run Docker containers on a number of home appliances like Synology or QNAP NAS appliances. These allow you to install and run all kinds of services that weren't specifically packaged for that particular appliance, or run multiple copies at the same time with different configurations, without having to fight with dependencies or delve deep into the configuration of the appliance.
For any kind of server application you want to run at home, you probably want to run it as a Docker container rather than as a Snap or Flatpack. Snaps and Flatpacks are better for desktop applications.
In the work realm, Docker enables teams of developers to work on large applications as a collection of smaller, isolated components (microservices). This is where Docker can start to seem more intimidating, because unlike in the home appliance scenario where you have a single container, many companies will internally deploy applications that are composed of a dozen or more containers that are inter-connected and running across a cluster of different hosts to present a single cohesive system. But for all that seeming complexity, for the developers and sysadmins who are maintaining the system Docker is actually simplifying what used to be a nightmare to develop and maintain.
14 • GhostBSD (by Tim on 2020-09-14 16:41:50 GMT from United States)
Ouch! I have a recently freed up PC host, and I decided I wanted to try GhostBSD on it. But, after all the bootup problems reported here, I guess not.
15 • BSD boot issues (by Otis on 2020-09-14 17:32:51 GMT from United States)
@12 yeah .. I don't understand enough about the boot processes, found this upon searching for "bsd boot problems":
https://docs.freebsd.org/doc/6.1-RELEASE/usr/share/doc/handbook/boot-introduction.html
Heck I don't like leaving the BSD ecosystem over this; I have been very intrigued by GhostBSD.. looks great at their website. Jesse hit on what I'd experienced, and now you.. and this site at docs.freebsd. So.. there's an issue, and an old one as that spiel there is not new.
16 • @11 "Dressed up" FreeBSD (by Robert on 2020-09-14 18:16:21 GMT from United States)
While you're not wrong, that's just like saying Ubuntu is dressed up Debian, or Manjaro is just dressed up Arch.
These distros exist for users that don't want to boot to a text interface and configure everything from scratch. And that's plenty worthwhile.
Obligatory BTW I use Arch.
17 • My use of Docker (by CS on 2020-09-14 20:14:00 GMT from United States)
Personally I've been using Docker for several years now to run databases. Nothing production grade just databases I use for various things. The advantage is it doesn't pollute your OS, you don't have to worry about dependencies so you can stick on old versions as/if needed. Works the same on Linux, Mac or Windows.
e.g.
docker pull postgres:9.6
docker run --name mydb -p 5432:5432 -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password -d postgres:9.6
And now you've got a fully functional database on port 5432. Need to back that database up?
docker exec -u postgres mydb pg_dump myschema | gzip -9 > myschema.db.gz
Can't top that simplicity.
18 • Common Issue With My Multiple BSD Installations (by David on 2020-09-14 22:07:25 GMT from United States)
The good news is that I have been able to successfully install and boot FuryBSD, GhostBSD and MidnightBSD on two bare metal test PC's, though it was a time-consuming struggle to get it done in each case.
The bad news is I encountered the same negative issue with each and every installation, that being fuzzy, blurry and virtually unreadable fonts / text.
Admittedly, this may be a hardware issue, as my Lenovo test machines run older Intel CPU's, but having hopped through dozens of flavors of Linux distros, I've never experienced this problem to the consistent degree that I did with my BSD experimentation.
Unreadable text would certainly be a deal breaker for a large majority of potential users, as it most assuredly is for me.
So, just like @16, I'll be sticking with Arch.
JMHO
19 • Docker/Flatkpak/Snap seem beneficial for developers, not as much for users. (by Martin on 2020-09-14 23:47:36 GMT from United States)
Maybe I'm old-fashioned. I like everything to be packaged and maintained under my distribution's package management system. In other words, I like my distribution--and its tools--to be responsible for *distribution* and updating of the software.
As a user, I just don't see the benefit for most cases. There are only 2 possible advantages I can see from a user perspective. I don't find either of them very convincing, and only one of them *somewhat* convincing.
1. For pre-configured "turn-key" server set ups that tend to be complicated and fraught with rabbit holes, it does seem like a container-package can benefit an end-user. It might make it easier, especially for a less experienced user who could find it harder to sift through the filesystem looking for config files that father-time (or old-man Debian) have relocated from their traditional place. This seems like a somewhat convincing benefit for the end-user.
Even still, my personal preference is to keep things simple and run them the regular way, even if takes a little extra effort. I installed Nextcloud through the Snap store recently, but I got so annoyed by all the extra things I had to learn about snaps. I ended up getting rid of it and starting over the traditional way for the final set-up.
2. Isolating un-trusted software: In my view, this is an unconvincing justification for using a distributed container. If you don't trust the developer enough to run their software directly on your system, then running it in a container they've configured doesn't seem like a meaningful improvement.
From what I've read containers aren't primarily intended as a way to isolate processes. While it can be a side-benefit, it's also not a guarantee. There are often still ways for a host to be affected by a running container. And that's especially true if you don't take time to configure the container yourself.
Recently, I learned about Firejail, is a tool specifically designed to isolate software from the system and only give processes access to the components YOU want them to have access to. I find this much better suited to the purpose of isolating software, especially those not-very trustworthy proprietary apps that some of us are forced to us, like Zoom. Firejail is a much more direct solution for isolating code.
20 • Alternatives to Docker? (by Scott Dowdle on 2020-09-15 00:35:52 GMT from United States)
Docker Inc. has taken issue with some of the patches provided by Red Hat and others... and has been seen by some as adverse to patches that they believe might impact their revenue stream (do they have one yet?). Red Hat/Fedora and others decided to maintain the non-accepted patches and maintain their own branches that they provided with their distros... but after time, Red Hat decided just to make an alternative. That alternative, which can be found in EL7, EL8 and Fedora (and some other distros), is podman. podman is a fairly capable clone of Docker that doesn't use a big-fat-daemon... and has excelled in unprivileged containers using all of the cgroup resource controls including User namespace.
I'd also like to mention that system containers came *long before* the application container style that Docker introduced in 2014. The commercial Virtuozzo came out in 2001 whereas Linux Vserver and OpenVZ came out in the 2005. Canonical is a big sponsor of system containers as well with their LXD container hypervisor (that now offers KVM VM support as well).
Thus ends your container public service announcement.
21 • Docker works for me (by Casual Docker User on 2020-09-15 01:32:52 GMT from United States)
I just recently got around to checking out docker containers for use on my VPS and love how easy it is to just download and deploy something that immediately works. Minimal configuration, the containers restart if I need to reboot the server, I don't have anything messing with the configuration of anything else and everything just seems to work. Super easy to upgrade too. Only real complaint I've had is that permissions can be touchy between the host and container so some programs have needed kind of labyrinthine commands to be passed when interacting with them. They seem to be well documented though. I don't know if it would be good or bad on an enterprise level but for someone like me who is running a media/irc server it's been nothing but a smooth transition.
22 • BSD issues, or not (by TheTKS on 2020-09-15 02:34:31 GMT from Canada)
I’ve had OpenBSD installed with Xfce on two different computers. I haven’t run into most of the issues others have reported here. Installed and booted fine on the computers I wanted to run it on.
I have also tried live and/or installed FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, GhostBSD and TrueOS on several computers. Some did not detect either the ethernet or wifi cards, some I didn’t manage to install, at least one failed to boot sometimes.
Success with BSDs seems to be hardware+software specific, maybe more so than Linux distros - maybe - but I got more than just OpenBSD to install, boot and display properly.
I went with OpenBSD because I prefer that BSD’s goal of (as I put it) clean, lean and mean code, and it has just worked on my hardware. Xfce has given me minor hassles on OpenBSD, but no more problems overall than I’ve run into on any Linux.
TKS
23 • using Docker (by Simon Wainscott-Plaistowe on 2020-09-15 08:21:39 GMT from New Zealand)
Although I don't currently use Docker, I plan to do so soon. I shall be trialing UrBackup on OpenMediaVault. Seems Docker is the way to do it. Has anyone else tried this & how well did it work for you?
24 • OpenBSD (by gplcoder on 2020-09-15 13:30:07 GMT from Canada)
@22 +1,
I build OpenBSD from the ISO also with Xfce but I have had lots of hardware where X will not run. Especially on laptops.
25 • OpenMediaVault (by gplcoder on 2020-09-15 13:36:31 GMT from Canada)
I don't use Docker, have not found a need for it but,
I have lots of experience with OpenMediaVault. I tried for days (both V5 and then V4) to get this to run without success. It was a nightmare for me. I found this app to be very sensitive to hardware differences. For example, it was OpenMediaValult that caused me to find out that Dell uses two different SATA protocols (3-6gb/s on the primary channel and 2-3gb/s on all the other channels).
26 • BSD in general (by Otis on 2020-09-15 14:49:07 GMT from United States)
Well.. feh.. googling and duckduckgoing around for various BSD reviews and blog write-ups I find an inordinate amount of angst, not at this or that BSD version every time, but just BSD in general as a "partially developed" or "immature" operating system.
"Immature?" This thing is ancient in the computing world; began in 1977. For some reason the development has lagged sorely behind Linux as to compatibility with the computing hardware world. I don't get it.. I confess.. I'm dumbfounded.
Please educate me; is this a dynamic of our dear Mr. Torvalds kernel upkeep being superior to what the Berkeley folks set into motion? Does it have to do with focus on Linux in general by more devs out there? I honestly don't know why BSD seems to lag in not just numbers of users (looking at DW's page hit rankings) but resolution of issues that most Linux distros seem to consider primitive (boot/reboot problems, etc).
27 • BSD (by Jyrki on 2020-09-15 18:06:41 GMT from Czechia)
Happy OpenBSD user. OpenBSD works for me fine on two laptops and HTPC. On some machines suspend and hibernate functions were not working but that's not a stopper. Especially hibernate is something I don't use at all.
I also run DragonflyBSD on some machines. And I experienced more issues - especially with wifi.
NetBSD - when I tried this one, I had no suspend / hibernate at all, sensors were not working - eg battery status on laptop.
FreeBSD - I had the worst experience of all BSDs.
28 • @26 BSD in general (by Robert on 2020-09-15 18:07:00 GMT from United States)
The way I usually hear it, back in the 90's there was a lot of fear of lawsuits from SCO against BSD's, being originally derived from Unix code unlike Linux.
By the time that got sorted out Linux had gotten off the ground and BSD never recovered. There are large users of bad (eg netflix) but Linux gets far more attention and resources.
Compound that with license issues - Linux is able to lift useful code from the BSD's with no issue. Going the other direction is more difficult (impossible?) Due to gpl license.
29 • Firejail (by hotdiggettydog on 2020-09-15 18:53:33 GMT from Canada)
@19
Thanks for mentioning Firejail. It doesn't get much publicity and it should.
It is actively developed and a superb tool. I know its in the ubuntu repository and kept current. Not sure about the others.
I use it mainly for locking down browsers. Can't be too careful nowadays.
30 • #28 (by Essexsun on 2020-09-15 19:15:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Please do your research. SCO were infamously trying to sue virtually anyone (including GNU/Linux) for violating their code. They were, rightly, decimated in the justice system. Especially by IBM. They are but a shadow of their former selves. The BSDs are doing fine, thank you very much. I have been using GNU/Linux applications on FreeBSD with no problems.
There is plenty of information on the SCO debacle online.
31 • #30 (by Robert on 2020-09-15 20:12:48 GMT from United States)
The case I was thinking of was USL vs BSDi, 1992. Settled out of court 1994 following a purge of at&t Unix code. I misremembered it as part of SCO's nonsense. My apologies.
While they were legally clear after that, perceptions linger.
I stand by the rest of my comment. I wasn't talking about applications you might find in ports, which if course may be gpl. I was talking about core operating system code, where the BSD's try to avoid gpl wherever possible.
32 • Docker is useful but not all-round (by Coco on 2020-09-16 04:40:24 GMT from United States)
The best thing about Docker is it runs on Linux/FreeBSD/Windows/macOS/etc.
Docker is dead simple if you run stateless applications in it. But becomes very ugly if you want to save states. It is a good thing, and forces me to separate user data and logic.
33 • Todays feature - GhostBSD (by barnabyh on 2020-09-16 13:14:54 GMT from Germany)
GhostBSD does a new, updated image almost monthly. The ones from early this year worked well, at least for me, so I wonder if installing an earlier image and updating from there would be an option for those really wanting to run it. May work better.
34 • BSD & Linux development (by M.Z. on 2020-09-16 23:25:21 GMT from United States)
From what I've been able to learn over the years BSDs generally have smaller & more close knit development teams who try to create a more consistent product that follows the standards & methodologies set forth by the BSD core team, though they move more slowly. Linux on the other had has large numbers of volunteers & huge numbers of paid corporate devs who are constantly trying huge numbers of completely different things & are constantly changing the kernel & other things related to the GNU/Linux OS. Large numbers of new things get implemented & continuously developed, though others are tried then disappear or move into support only status in a relatively short time. As a couple of examples you can look into the large number of init systems & desktop environments that were created as a part of various Linux projects, but which have become semi-abandoned.
On the whole Linux has more developers, including hardware makers, more speed & more momentum than the BSDs as far as support goes. I believe the @28, 30, & 31 comments related to a lawsuit over using 'it's Unix' as a part of a campaign to promote some new BSDi prior to the USL v. BSDi lawsuit. The fallout blunted the development speed of BSD as described & created the space for Linux to takeoff.
I'm not sure how much of the speed of Linux development has to do with the way Linus & other senior Linux devs do things, how much has to do with general preference for the GPL vs only being able to convert BSD licensed software to GPL & not the other way around, & how much has to to with the ever increasing number of devs & the sheer momentum behind Linux; however, Linux certainly evolves faster & has more users of Linux for many use cases where Linux & BSD compete. A lot of it is probably related to number of developers. Some may be because OSs like Apple/Mac OS-X can take from BSD without necessarily giving back because of how the BSD license works. Some of it also seems to be related to more iterative design in Linux, like SpaceX building so many Starship prototypes & blowing them up before building a better one, while BSDs move a bit more like the Boeing SLS, which has been engineered & re-engineered 10 times over before a finished near feature complete prototype ever gets built. That last one is a strong impression I have been give from the attitude of some BSD related web sites I've read, though SpaceX vs Boeing may be exaggerating things a bit. At any rate I'd argue there are a large number of factors contributing to the speed of Linux support & development compared to BSD.
35 • BSD development vs Linux (by Otis on 2020-09-17 00:01:18 GMT from United States)
@34 M.Z. I like getting educated and you educated me, as did Robert.
What keeps creeping into my thinking is that the development of BSD being pinched off by all of the factors and dynamics you outline are resulting in an inferior operating system? Or is the BSD schema described by you and Robert just not as inviting as Linux?
And (other half of the question) we see a good ride with more Linux distros to the point of people getting bored and wanting to distro hop and even collect several distros on one hard drive just to fool around with perfectly good running systems. Not so with BSD that I've ever seen alluded to in comments areas here or elsewhere, except perhaps in a BSD version forum
In other words, simply, is BSD just not as good as Linux, and is that what's showing in its lack of popularity?
36 • What is good? (by igor on 2020-09-17 09:17:58 GMT from Croatia)
@35 A decade or even more ago a FreeBSD server held the world uptime record with more than three years, a remarkable achievement considering that BSDs made about 5% of server OSs at the time. It is the consequence of the BSDs teams' development strategies as described by MZ. Once up and running, it is unbreakable, intrusion resilient, easily handling zillions of requests while requiring a fraction of resources compared even to Linuces. That makes the BSDs really good in a way, and they are getting better all the time.
On the other hand, a good recent desktop Linux distro can easily be installed by a totally CLI ignorant person, and it is going to serve this role mostly well, without major glitches. To put this into a big picture, no one actually installs Windows, and no one at all installs Android sweating to make the stuff work. People get it all done, because, after all, they paid for it.
I only recently met anything BSD desktop to compare with the desktop Linux ease of installation and use in Nomad BSD. Desktop systems have to meet a different set of demands and expectations. It is not only down to GUI versus CLI. The scope and versatility of demands are much higher in personal non-professional or semi-professional desktop computing. Take just this one example: typical server and typical smartphone are normally interfacing only a network, compared to a network, a screen, a keyboard, a mouse, a printer, a scanner, a camera... a home cinema...
In the personal desktop world you do not even want the OS that doesn't waver for years, as the hardware and the use turns by at least 30 degrees in three years time. If it were the other way, the venerable Slackware would have been the most popular distro.
Bear in mind that BSD was and is foremost university driven, from the very beginning. It is supposed to drive things like Her Majesty PostgreSQL. How many personal desktop users do actually need such a high shot, where the embedded SQLite does the job?
BSDs definitely lag behind in the DE implementation and consumers' hardware recognition. This translates into a steep learning curve, much work to get it going, and those are the formulas of the (un)popularity.
37 • @35: (by dragonmouth on 2020-09-17 12:44:39 GMT from United States)
BSD is not trying to join or replace Windows on the desktop. The attitude among the BSD crowd is "We are what we are. If you don't like it, go somewhere else." BSD does not try to cater to the refugees from Windows or OS/X. BSD today is what Linux was 20 years ago.
38 • BSD World (by Otis on 2020-09-17 19:44:56 GMT from United States)
Thanks dragonmouth @37 and Igor @36 as my education continues. That, "BSD today is what Linux was 20 years ago" seems to wrap things up rather well, it it's true, and I don't mean if you're right or wrong about that notion, but if that notion is alluding to what's making BSD so crappy in 2020 after being born decades ago.
But, sorry BSD freaks, I don't like it as it is and I'm going to say so and I'm also going to stick with installing and trying it, especially GhostBSD, for the foreseeable future. Nyah-nyah-nyah. ;o)
39 • BSDs (by M.Z. on 2020-09-17 22:29:11 GMT from United States)
From what I've heard, #36 is fairly on point regarding up time & robustness. As I recall there was some talk coming out of Netflix staff that the BSDs can perform beautifully under heavy loads which made comparable Linux Distros choke & start to freeze up. I also recall hearing about situations where some of the BSD security tools like the PF firewall end up saving a lot of time & effort if you know how to use them. The BSD makers do seem more driven by software engineering principles & the Linux makers more by the seat of their pants, but there is no inherent superiority like between SpaceX Dragon & Boeing Starliner. That being said Linux is a lot more successful at adapting to new situations & generally works a lot better on the desktop, while BSD keeps chugging along like the proverbial tortoise & doing some extremely heavy lifting for Netflix & some other folks who swear by it.
40 • BSD (by anonymous on 2020-09-18 17:21:56 GMT from United States)
@38
As a BSD user, I can most certainly assure you that we don't care what you like or don't like. We are secure enough within our choice of OS that we don't need to convince others to use it. The people that use a BSD are doing so because it is great for their particular use case. It may be crappy to you, but it works just fine for them, and it allows them to get their job done. That is the only thing that truly matters.
You must understand that the BSD's are not jealous of Apple or Microsoft, and they are not obsessed with popularity or market share. They are not trying to become the next Windows, and they are not trying to appeal to Windows users. They focus on their own main goals such as portability, servers, security, etc. and ignore whatever isn't a part of their goals. They are building and maintaining something that they like and derive effective use from, and that is all that they care about. Whether other people use it or not is of no concern to them, really.
If you like what they're doing and you decide to use a BSD, then that's awesome, but nobody really cares, and nobody is going to give you a high five or pat you on the back just for merely using an OS. If it is crappy to you and you choose something else, then nobody really cares about that, either. Outside of the workplace, no mature, well adjusted person is going to care about what you put on your personal computer. You should always use what works best for your individual use case, regardless of what it is named, and that is the general attitude that you would come across in the BSD world.
41 • BSD pop culture (by vern on 2020-09-18 23:01:53 GMT from United States)
@40 Well stated! I don't use BSD, I have in the past, but I understand it fills their needs just fine.
42 • GhostBSD is well... pretty good (by JJ on 2020-09-19 08:36:31 GMT from Japan)
Desktop BSDs are either easy or impossible and it almost always boils down to graphics card support or poor auto-detection and auto-configuration of graphics cards.
Otherwise they're rock solid.
For GhostBSD, I found most success with the XFCE version. Not sure why.
I have always struggled to get my Radeon cards setup right with any BSD to get X going.
Using Intel integrated was doable, but not well-configured by me.
You'll have a hard time truly out performing the stability of FreeBSD as a no-desktop system. Updates are smooth, unless you've configured some really custom stuff.
43 • BD (by Otis on 2020-09-19 23:56:27 GMT from United States)
@40 "..we don't care what you like or don't like.."
You care very much or you would never have posted that.
44 • I think therefore I am [easily impressed] (by realitybytes on 2020-09-20 07:28:19 GMT from United States)
@40 I believe you made some accurate remarks. Except they are accurate for any OS ever made.
The only people who do care about OS marketshare are those making walled gardens that try to lure you in and throw away the key. They care because their salaries depend on it.
But you seem to contradict yourself unintentionally.
"They focus on their own main goals such as portability, servers, security, etc. and ignore whatever isn't a part of their goals. They are building and maintaining something that they like and derive effective use from, and that is all that they care about. Whether other people use it or not is of no concern to them, really."
Those are very important goals. But if what you say about BSD developers is true, wouldn't that mean they are self-centered and see BSD as a product 'by and for themselves only.' There would be no reason to make BSD distros easy to access by outsiders. I would go so far as to say they would have no use for the BSD licensing model.
My hypothesis is that they are working on BSD because they like it, and they want people looking for an OS with the qualities you listed to find and use BSD. Some of those people may go on to contribute too, ensuring that BSD will outlive its current developers/users.
This has nothing to do with chasing Apple or Microsoft for marketshare. But at the same time, they want themselves and others to be able to use BSD distros, and not on some 20 year old Amiga that's been stripped of Mouse support. I am exaggerating slightly. Seriously though, just like supporting poorly conceived hardware would not suit their development goals, having good support for a reasonably recent and broad set of hardware would be beneficial for their own use cases and make the OS useful to others. Hardware upgrades become necessary sooner or later. Plus, there are plenty of people who want an OS with BSD's criteria but need to run it on hardware that is efficient such as newer, less energy demanding systems, or fast hardware that would truly amaze when coupled with an Operating System that is portable, efficient in busy server use cases, secure, etc.
I won't get into GUIs and such, except to say taking a glance at BSD distros I see enough of them think Desktop and Web management GUI interoperability are legitimate areas to delve into for some, and their efforts shouldn't be discounted any more than the work others put into other areas.
Personally, I like technology in general. I am a hands-on type of person. I may not have high level computer engineering skills, but I enjoyed putting together my LAN including setting up a pfSense box (my most recent foray into the BSD style). I've run Windows and Linux servers in the cloud. Now I help run a small business in a field where data security matters a lot, and I am thinking ahead to when I will need tackle some important data backup/recovery/security scenarios, and BSD (and Linux) solutions are very likely to be in the mix.
I'm not put off by shells and command lines. But I do wish BSD was closer to Linux by now. Especially when it comes to Desktop style usage and hardware support. Then I could look at BSDs not only as efficient server/appliance environments, but also as an option to push out of the network closet and into the front office. I believe people are working hard on these things, and it's only a matter of time. I want more people to find their BSD on-ramps. BSD has the potential to do many things very well, not by imitating, but by growing organically and maintaining its own strengths.
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