Omg... Freebsd is still using shell scripts for startup and shutdown...
@miekg Also nobody is still using BSD. Well very few anyways.

@purpleidea @miekg I remember FreeBSD used to be used for routers and other networking solutions due to more efficient optimizations.

But is there use cases when FreeBSD is still better than Linux?

* FreeBSD, OpenBSD, any bsd kernel-based.

#bsd #freebsd #linux #openbsd

@safigo @miekg Personally I don't know any. Those days are past.

@safigo @purpleidea @miekg Still very much the case.

OPNsense is FreeBSD-based. So is Juniper’s JunOS.

AIUI there are some exceptions for unusual/proprietary network silicon, but the BSD network stack is still where you go for high performance and stability.

@curtosis @safigo @miekg The commercial vendors that are using BSD aren't doing it for performance they're doing it because they want the avoid the GPL and keep things proprietary.
@purpleidea @safigo @miekg That’s one benefit for proprietary systems vendors, but that doesn’t mean it’s not *also* more performant.
@curtosis @safigo @miekg The performance comes from the ASIC. We'd have better networking in those respects if Broadcom would release docs and let people program chips like the Tridents... Linux is making headway anyways with switchdev. Check it out. Society could be solving more interesting problems than secret silicon hiding.
@safigo
Netflix uses FreeBSD on all its edge systems. FreeBSD -CURRENT, even.
@purpleidea @miekg
@wouter @safigo @miekg yup! They do this because of the risk of those physical devices which go in colos and ix everywhere being seen as distribution under GPL.
@purpleidea @wouter @miekg given all the answers, the only reason to use FreeBSD is the BSD license
@safigo @purpleidea @wouter @miekg FreeBSD has a much better network stack than Linux. It also has Jails which have a lot less overhead than Docker containers. It really depends on your use case. Use the best tool for the job.
@purpleidea
They've given talks on how using FreeBSD gives them technological advantages over and above what Linux could give them.

Could the license be considered an advantage by their business people? Maybe. But I don't believe it's their only reason, or even their main reason.
@safigo @miekg

@wouter @safigo @purpleidea are those talks available somewhere?

I don't see freebsd could be any better than linux or vice versa.

When I used it in the early 2000s I didn't like it too much, spoiler by the gnu userspace if you can believe that.

Is debian still doing a distro with the freebsd kernel?

@miekg
Don't think they're available, no.

The best I know of is https://freebsdfoundation.org/end-user-stories/netflix-case-study/

No, Debian's kFreeBSD port is dead dead dead.
@safigo @purpleidea
Maintaining the World’s Fastest Content Delivery Network at Netflix on FreeBSD​ | FreeBSD Foundation

Netflix needed a high-performance, low-maintenance, and reliable operating system to stream content to their 260+ million subscribers efficiently.

FreeBSD Foundation | A non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and building the FreeBSD Project
@miekg
In fact, that article states that 'contributing upstream' is part of what Netflix considers core to its success in using FreeBSD, which basically negates any so called benefit you might have in not being bound by the GPL...
@purpleidea @safigo
@miekg
FreeBSD still outperforms anything Linux can throw at it at the high end though.

And https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf talks about 800Gb/s servers, where performance matters.
@safigo @purpleidea
@wouter @safigo @purpleidea I've heard those claims for years now. I remain highly skeptical
@miekg
There are benchmarks, e.g., https://openbenchmarking.org/result/2406146-NE-2406131NE13&hni=1&sgm=1&sor#r-542e6001bf05f1eaa298d6ffc8001da894c3a653, in 'geometric mean of all benchmarks' at the bottom shows FreeBSD on top. The difference is small enough to not matter to most people, but large enough that if you run gazillions of machines it might matter.
@safigo @purpleidea
FreeBSD 14.1 Vs. Linux Vs. BSD Benchmarks Performance - OpenBenchmarking.org

Performance benchmarks of FreeBSD 14.1 vs. Linux vs. BSD Benchmarks.

@miekg
One advantage which FreeBSD has over Linux is that due to its smaller community, they can focus more on certain things. Linux has people pulling it in all kinds of, sometimes conflicting, ways. This is not as much of a problem for FreeBSD.
@safigo @purpleidea

@safigo @purpleidea @miekg

OpenBSD is great if you want a simple, coherent system with "batteries included" and said batteries being provided by the same project.

E.g. OpenBSD comes with a web server (httpd), firewall (pf), mail server (openSMTPD), etc. etc.

It's also slower moving, which can be preferable. Stuff you learned years ago still applies. There's not a new fancy way to to stuff every 2-3 years.

It works really well on laptops/desktops as well, unless you have an NVIDIA gpu or need bluetooth.