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
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
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