FYI - Abstract
This paper will look at some of the differences between the FreeBSD and OpenBSD operating systems.
It is not intended to be solely technical but will also show the different "visions" and design decisions that rule the way things are implemented. It is expected to be a subjective view from two BSD developers and does not pretend to represent these projects in any way.
We don't want it to be a troll talk but rather a casual and friendly exchange while nicely making fun of each other like we would do over a drink. Of course, we shall try and hit where it hurts when that makes sense. Obviously, we both have our personal subjective preferences and we will explain why. Showing some of the weaknesses may encourage people to contribute in some areas.
Most of the topics discussed here could warrant their own paper and talk and as such some may not get the deep analysis they deserve.
This is a totally biased talk from two different perspectives.
While you're here, have you donated[0][1] yet? :) You may or may not be aware, but FreeBSD runs your movies on Netflix, your games on PlayStation 4 and Nitendo Switch, your files on FreeNAS and ZFS, your friends on WhatsApp and OpenBSD runs everything else on OpenSSH. ;)
So, you may or may not know that, but you need FreeBSD and OpenBSD and they also need you! Every cent counts and so does every contributor, that helps the foundations keep their non-profit status.
This appears to be a written down version of the talk they gave at FOSDEM: https://fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/my_bsd_sucks_less/
When it comes to the BSDs, here is my impressions of them:
NetBSD wants to run everywhere.
OpenBSD wants to be secure.
DragonFly BSD wants to advanced.
FreeBSD wants to be Linux.
TrueOS wants to be Ubuntu.
Very interesting read!
As mentioned, the wireless and graphics areas are sorely lagging behind GNU/Linux os'. They only have support upto Haswell in the graphics department. Ouch. The priority of both BSDs is clearly not the regular desktop user where wireless and graphics support can be deal breakers. The FreeBSD based PC-BSD (now known as TrueOS) exists, but AFAIK it does not fix the wireless and graphics support situation.
Given that GPU based computing is becoming more prevalent with the advent of ML/DL, I wonder if there are efforts to improve support for graphics.
(It would have been interesting if a Linux guy also joined the conversation, along with a Windows guy and a MacOS guy.)
What could be done in order to help the BSDs to become mainstream or more visible as server-side alternative to Linux? I've operated a small FBSD mail server until 2004 (FBSD 4, vinum RAID, sendmail, cyrus IMAP) and was extremely pleased with the performance, robustness and overall coherency of it (though I wouldn't use that stack today).
While Linux certainly works well, I'm instinctively against monocultures of any kind or form. With Linux-only containers (Docker and co.) there's now the danger that we're loosing the BSDs terminally as a replacement for Linux. But is the isolation (or lack thereof) and interfacing to the host system provided by Docker/runC/whatever really worth it (compared to portable POSIX-based primitives eg. chroot jails, or modern capabilities-based generalizations of it such as FBSD's capsicum)?
It's also odd that a GPL-licensed OS, of all things, is making it to the top in containerland. But then the nominal "default" host OS for Docker (Alpine Linux) uses musl (MIT-licenses libc) rather than glibc. I'm not complaining, and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it legally, but the commercial Docker image ecosystem, to me, has the smell of a GPL-circumvention device of sorts in that many images routinely install the Debian/GNU userland tools on first load.
I don't understand how this is a paper. It's just two dudes in a chatroom and the 'authors' felt it was necessary to format it with LaTEX?
Also, the title has a spelling error in it.
Warning: this takes you directly to a PDF which may automatically download (such as on Chrome for Android).
— update: the title appears to now reflect that this is a PDF. It did not earlier.
This paper appears to be an IRC session formatted in LaTEX. It'd be easier to read as text.
Has anyone run both Linux and BSD on a server? What was your experience?
If I was on my rig right now I would definitely convert this PDF to text so everyone could access it.
Typo:
>but the ports tree is a rolling release not tight to a FreeBSD release
should be
>but the ports tree is a rolling release not tied to a FreeBSD release
One of the nice things about this is the last section (if you can bear to read that long). Both people comment on the strengths of the opponent's BSD: OpenBSD is complemented on "tackling very important project [sic] which would probably have never happened otherwise" (e.g., OpenSSH), particularly also the fact that OpenBSD cares to see their projects ported to !BSD (e.g., Linux). Meanwhile, FreeBSD is complemented on "its [sic] a real “enterprise” oper- ating system and I think it is slowly filling the spot left by Solaris."
At the end of the day, both OpenBSD and FreeBSD are niche systems. They don't have the popularity of Linux, and they probably never will. But that's not a problem. Both of them are major operating systems that do innovate, and hence they're worth paying attention to. That's where the compliment of FreeBSD as becoming Solaris's successor is really telling--Solaris was the operating system that brought us DTrace and ZFS, and it was FreeBSD who I believe had the first container system (jail).