FreeBSD: A Successful Failure - Linux: A Failing Success

[@user-ro1cc8tz6d]

>we need more people talking about freebsd >daily drives windows many such cases

[@circuitrewind]

I personally daily drive FreeBSD, Windows, Mac, and Linux. Oh, and also WebOS if we count other devices I interact with quite often that are not a traditional "computer" - there are things to learn from every ecosystem, and I try to use each to their fullest for what they're best at.

[@BBWahoo]

AHAHAHAH. ME!

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

That is funny I use windows only for gaming and its on a computer that runs FFXIV 24/7 and that is all that pc does. Other machines I run Arch Linunx, I also like to use macOS and prefer macOS on all computers, sadly though Apple doesn't want to do that. It is nice to see that Microsoft and Apple both funds and support Linux and FreeBSD projects and other bsd of course so to laugh at him using windows promoting freebsd is stupid cause honestly as a OS hobbyist we like to use them and use the right OS for the right tools.

[@jongeduard]

I agree on that the FreeBSD ports tree system really easy to use to build software, especially if you want to tweak build options. But the port maintainers still had to do that job for you to dive into the documentation of all those software sources to create the port for it. This is no different from what Linux distros do for you, at least in the binary version for all those cases where there is no need to build things yourself, or in the even as a source when you use Gentoo, which is a BSD style Linux distro. And when something isn't in the freebsd ports tree or in a Linux distro package repository, in both cases you still have do do that difficult job yourself if you still want to build something manually.

[@elgoog-the-third]

It is a lot easier to create a port than it is to create an .rpm or a .deb - especially because almost all Linux distributions have an abhorrently pathetic documentation, especially when it comes to packaging.

[@wyleong4326]

Documentarion is definitly more comprehensive than most GNU/Linux distros. Covers wide topics from its architecture, development and even on how to write manuals for contribution. The handbook itself is like 800+ pages. Slackware and Debian come close for sure.

[@PeakKissShot]

@@elgoog-the-thirdand even easier is writing an ebuild

[@snap_oversteer]

Bit unfair to compare FreeBSD ports with compiling from guide on developer's website etc., rather than comparing it to Gentoo for example, where the build process would be similar. Installing package from source that is not in the ports/repo will be tedious in the same way on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Debian, Gentoo... There are plenty of things that BSDs do better compared to many Linux distros that you should've mentioned rather - great documentation, sticking to Unix philosophy much more, native ZFS on FreeBSD, ecosystem that doesn't feel like it's glued from millions of projects etc. And Linux has better hardware support, more user friendly distros, larger community... in the end I think it's pointless to be a die hard fan of either BSD or Linux, I like and use them both for different purposes and I'm glad they both exist as is.

[@jakrapup3803]

Gentoo was my first thought too! Though last time I used gentoo, it used portage, which was based on freebsd ports anyway. Maybe gentoo still uses portage, been a while for me either way!

[@ChimeraLV]

That's exactly the thing, why compare FreeBSD to anything other Than Gentoo, when Gentoos portage was heavily inspired by the ports system. Very biased video towards FreeBSD.

[@gh0stcassette]

And tbh if I'm using my gentoo install and want to install something that's not in the main repos, I'm probably not gonna compile it from source outside of portage. I'll either add an overlay and get the package from there, install it with the nix package manager, or spin up a distrobox container with arch in it and get the package from the AUR (in order of preference)

[@weirddan455]

Exactly and just about every distro has a better way to compile packages they manage. Arch has the ABS which is just a collection of PKGBUILD scripts used to build the official packages. You can use those to easily tweak something in the source/build or apply a patch and re-compile with the makepkg command. Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu have source package files as well. Not too familiar with those but I believe you can just use the package manager and build them fairly easily.

[@donaldmickunas8552]

Why not compare it to Gentoo? Gentoo does not represent the average Linux user’s experience compiling software. Also, compiling software in Gentoo isn’t as easy as make, make install. So, from my perspective, he did include Gentoo tacitly. Ports in FreeBSD makes it so easy, a rank beginner with a little training can do it.

[@fuseteam]

I don't get it, you seem to build software with prior knowledge on freebsd and then hammer on linux for being able to compile without prior knowledge?

[@circuitrewind]

What prior knowledge exactly? Knowing how to switch directories, and running a single command? As mentioned in the video, some of what was shown was literally my first time trying it out without any prior research on those specific applications. The point is that the amount of knowledge needed is much smaller, because that knowledge is consistent and simple.

[@fuseteam]

@@circuitrewind you did not show where you got they source code for either test, or where you got your commands from, or why you put the source code where you put them, all questions you pose for linux. Saying the knowledge is more consistent is fair, but that point is to me almost lost in the video given 2/3 of the video is about documentation not being clear

[@myfavouritecolorisgreen]

@fuseteam ++

[@chamal75]

@@circuitrewind Prior knowledge? Yes. Task a complete newbie to install the operating system and install a program that exists in both platforms then let me know who's capable to succeed and do it faster. Linux has become easier for complete newbies to try the operating system without necessarily sacrificing the "old way" of doing things of the most experienced users, bringing far more people to the ecossystem, making it bigger and more diverse (no wokeism here). Are there things that can be improved in Linux? Of course. Are there some things that FreeBSD does better than Linux? Of course, the ports tree being one of them (for most of linux distros). However one cannot deny the success of Linux and it's importance to the freeware/opensource community. We probably wouldn't have (including FreeBSD) opportunity to "play" with the amount of software that currently exist in freeware/opensource if it wasn't for Linux. To conclude: Which one is better? The one that better suits YOUR needS. CHEERIOS

[@virkony]

Ehmmm... Comparing packaging solution (ports) from FreeBSD with LFS way of installing. It is as saying Linux is just a kernel. You'd better then compare this with Gentoo if you want fair one. I tried FreeBSD in past. I have nothing against it, but I feel unjustice with this comparing apples with bananas. P.S. Yep I succumbed to this provocative video.

[@Affax]

Don't worry, I did too hahaha But it's either of two things, a purposefully provocative video to jumpstart a channel, or either more sadly genuine delusion. BSD by no means is bad, this video just compares Oranges to Apples

[@circuitrewind]

I love the number of comments referencing Gentoo, considering their build system was directly modeled off of the FreeBSD build system: web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@Affax]

@@circuitrewind So Gentoo isn't allowed to be used as a good example of the same thing on Linux because they took inspiration from a good system (being BSD in this case)? Or if that's not your point, please explain it

[@virkony]

@@circuitrewind great! I suspected that, but never gave a thought. That might be a topic for a video. E.g. how ports influenced Gentoo/Exherbo/Sabayon/etc, Homebrew/Linuxbrew/Chocolatey, and others. And what other approaches exists to package software. Maybe about attempt to get binary package distribution in FreeBSD. It is also interesting to hear about difference. E.g. building kernel for FreeBSD and for Linux. I also think in FreeBSD there is tight linking between system utils and kernel, so they are re-built together. And I really missed what the deal with DragonFly BSD?..

[@johndo100]

Maybe Void Linux vs FreeBSD since they are quite similar. I moved some machines to FreeBSD because I found FreeBSD is easier to understand. Linux has better hardware / software support but I will sacrifice it for ZFS on FreeBSD.

[@vermaden]

Great video. I really liked it. You really showed where is the difference and when the FreeBSD power comes from. I am really looking forward to your next episodes ... and I am very happy to read in the comments that You already have some ideas for the next ones. This video just got a first place in my next Valuable News next episode :) Regards, vermaden

[@vermaden]

@@in-the-finno-ugric-taiga-liver Thanks mate :)

[@chrsm]

You've set the bar pretty high with Vermaden giving your first video a tick of approval. No pressure on you now 😅

[@MrMoto655]

I’ve seen you in the forums! Your website helped me a ton with open and freeBSD. Thanks for what you do.

[@vermaden]

@@MrMoto655 Thanks :)

[@SHuRiKeN1812]

So many things are falsely shown here.. Build scripts - Arch has PKGBUILDS which does the exact same thing, it will compile everything for you and you can manually edit the PKGBUILD.. and many custom PKGBUILDs are also available in the AUR. Nix has NixOS options that can lead to hours of time saved by simply using and enabling those options. You are only comparing freeBSD to 1 or 2 distros.. Linux is vast and many have solved all the things you said here.. and you can even use Nix on any distro, and AUR with stuff like distrobox, apx. This is like putting incomplete knowledge of something vs complete knowledge of something.

[@tranquility6358]

But why compile from source instead of relying on your system's package manager? I only compile from source as a last resort, especially in a server environment.

[@benign4823]

Compile from source by relying on your system's package manager that was made to compile from source.

[@tranquility6358]

@@benign4823 That's certainly a way to put it. But I like leaving packaging and distribution to actual distributions. All I have to do to keep the systemt running smoothly is check for updates from time to time.

[@circuitrewind]

In the enterprise space, I've needed to compile from source for two very specific reasons: firstly, to change compile configuration options. And secondly, most importantly, to diagnose and fix software issues upstream. Software isn't perfect, and I'd personally had to debug several F/OSS applications and submit code changes upstream. This isn't an "everybody" task, but it most certainly is my experience, and that's what I'm doing, sharing my personal experiences.

[@tranquility6358]

@@circuitrewind I've had to do all of that as well, but that's really the exception. We use Debian in production and the number of such issues I've had can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

[@vk3fbab]

It was the case that running PHP was better to compile your own to compile all the modules you required FreeBSD made that easy. Now the modules are seperate packages but in earlier days they were all compiled in. Plus with FreeBSD you can mix and match packages and ports. Building X and Firefox can take a while. I also enjoyed doing make world. FreeBSD makes these things easy.

[@Felix-ve9hs]

11:12 This. I had to suffer so many times when a Debian/Ubuntu server/desktop of mine failed to upgrade and was stuck in broken dependencies hell. Or the time I wanted to install Ubuntu root on ZFS, which took hours to figure out. Or trying to install the latest version of some software and having to figure out how to add the repository. Or having to search the Internet on how to restore the mdadm Ext4 mirror on my Linux NAS. I could keep going, but I think you know what I'm trying to say. With FreeBSD on the other hand, I can just create a ZFS boot environment and roll back the system if it fails (which it never did for me), or just live boot off a USB and extract the new kernel and userland over the old install. Or installing FreeBSD on ZFS? Just select ZFS and in the installer and it does it for you within seconds. Or installing the latest software, just use the "latest" instead of "quarterly" packages or compile from the ports collection. Or having issues with your FreeBSD NAS zfs mirror? Just reattach the drive you unknowingly unplugged and it rebuild automatically within seconds. Or trying to set up complex networking with FreeBSD? Just put a handfull of lines in /etc/rc.conf and you've set up VLANs, LAGGs, IP aliases and so on. These and many more things are the reason why I almost exclusively use FreeBSD for all my infrastructure, and only use Linux if I cant get the application I want to run working on FreeBSD. I really hope more people will use it going forward.

[@circuitrewind]

Ever heard of BTRFS RAID Parity still having issues?

[@geoffreyvanpelt6147]

The Linuxulator can take some tweaking to work right.

[@Felix-ve9hs]

​@@ChronosChaotic Are BTRFS snapshots bootable under Linux? The last time I looked at BTRFS was in 2019 and it was pretty buggy for me (and I was too scared to try RAID5/6) ...

[@alexandernaumochkin]

9:11 The “problem” is not the “old shell”. This is the feature of the csh (default root's shell in FreeBSD still). Instead of logout/login, use the built-in rehash command.

[@circuitrewind]

That isn't needed with modern csh though, that's why I called it a problem with being "old" :)

[@kborak]

Yeah Ill keep running arch.

[@vmisev]

Excellent video, thanks Vince! One thing Vince forgot to mention is that FreeBSD ports should be always built in the clean environment, e.g. poudriere jail. In some (rare) cases installing one port can prevent another to be built.

[@circuitrewind]

Personally, I didn't mention it, because its a tool I don't use. I've never used Poudriere, partly because of what I talk about in the video. It is confusing and complex to setup. I've not only built, but also helped update hundreds of ports, without issue simply doing the basic "make" method described in the video. Yes, there are conflicting ports, but usually there is a warning/error about that, and a description on how to fix it. Things like "openssl" vs "libressl" or "mysql" vs "mariadb" come to mind (or different versions thereof). Usually in the error messages, there is some hint on how to correct the error, just like there was the hint to manually download and place files in certain locations when things broke on FreeBSD 5.5!

[@vmisev]

@@circuitrewind I never had problem w ports, until ~12 days ago w x11/x3270 port just failing to build. There was no conflict, and no useful message. Error was only "undeclared indetifier" which was properly declared in the work/src. Turns out (thanks to FreeBSD Forum user Charlie_) that source ./configure was using wrong .h from /usr/local/include/proxy.h and not ${WRKSRC}/include/proxy.h. This proxy.h was from net/libproxy which was, obviously, already installed. SirDice informed me that this is not the only case in which work/src/configure gets wrong files, and that is the reason why all ports should be build in the clean environment.

[@circuitrewind]

This gets into the very interesting thing I was discussing in the video. Something breaks, reach out to the community and create engagement to figure out a one-time solution, and that's great. But the inverse is also true, where the port should be updated to explicitly define the include path it wants rather than implicitly including a file based on externally defined paths.

[@BackstreetDrawler]

This would rarely be the case for an end user. It's more likely to be an issue when mass-compiling binary packages for distribution.

[@vmisev]

@@BackstreetDrawler pls check my comment on x11/x3270 port

[@PilviKujanen-xr6pc]

The vi in FreeBSD is best. Back when I used my new computer for months in text only mode while waiting for GPU drivers to come out. I did some C with vi and used ttys as tabs with one tab for command line music player to drown out the horror that is outside world.

[@ryshask]

9:40 they aren't blocking downloads... The older bsd install most likely has deprecated ssl libraries and the server doesn't support the older ssl handshake.

[@circuitrewind]

Thanks for the clarification, you're most likely right on this one! I had forgotten about this in the moment that TLS versions and cyphers have changed significantly over the years, with older versions being deprecated and removed from servers.

[@ryshask]

@@circuitrewind shows how amazing freebsd is imho.

[@berndackenfutter2003]

`emerge -av nano; emerge -av mysql-server` Q.E.D.?

[@trannusaran6164]

Gentoo is great bc it's the most BSD-like Linux

[@MichaelCook-oo8lj]

This video is very interesting and got me for the first time interested in BSD in a way that I wasn't before. As Linux user for years, I know the struggle of wasting a huge amount of personal time to try and get something to work and then feeling gratified when it finally does. BSD seemed like another UNIX that is just less used, older, more antiquated, etc. Something to play around with once in a while for something different to tinker with. Now I'm thinking this is something I may need to look at more seriously. Because the gratification of getting work done or seeing a service work is far greater than the gratification of merely figuring out how to get something installed and functioning as expected.

[@SilasonLinux]

Alright. as a fellow small channel i think you did a very good job. Actually i have been wanting to look into BSD for a while. Does this apply to other BDSs as well or just FreeBSD?

[@circuitrewind]

I'm not well versed on the other BSDs as I don't use them daily, so I'll defer that one to the experts elsewhere.

[@chrsm]

Great first video. I've dipped my toe in FreeBSD a couple of times. Now after watching your video I am thinking the little bit of Linux knowledge I have was actually hindering how I approached it. For some reason I keep circling back around thinking about FreeBSD so I'll have to try it again with a different mindset. You're right, there aren't enough FreeBSD videos so I hope this is the first of many videos. Maybe you could do some FreeBSD homelab stuff? If people can see that you can do pretty much everything that Linux can do they might just switch.

[@circuitrewind]

Thanks! That's the plan. I have several FreeBSD (and Linux) related video ideas in the pipeline already. I'm always open to questions and suggestions too.

[@DavidMotherland]

Loved this, exactly why i switched to from linux to freebsd in the late 90s and never looked back

[@KarolKopiec]

I'd love to hear some comments on FreeBSD's WiFi performance! 😂

[@mhelmreich1]

Just a noob here with FreeBSD, but I am unsure why you need to compile software that is not bleeding edge. If you are after stability wouldn't using established compiles of a stabil distro/version do the job. Consistency comes also from using broadly deployed versions. Or am I missing something?

[@circuitrewind]

If something is compiled locally or remotely, it doesn't change the stability of the software inherently. It is the same action, just on a different machine to create the binary. Two reasons to custom compile that I've actively needed: to change configuration options, or to actually diagnose and fix bugs in upstream software. To validate assumptions in their code, I've needed to match patches, test those patches, and then deploy those patches before submitting pull requests.

[@boxerfencer]

Great vid and unique perspective. As someone who's done his fair share of linux howtos, I can vouch for the etherialness of upstream Linux documentation.

[@wildmanjeff42]

Thanks for the video ! I have been messing with freebsd and linux for 20 years off and on. Truenas and Pfsense on freebsd side, and Debian Linux as a Desktop for about 5 years now. Hardest thing about FreeBSD is that you had to get drivers , x window system, and the desktop all installed on FreeBSD. This is why I got better with Linux, but now that I understand a little more about what is going on, I am able to use the documentation on FreeBSD website and get things working now. I like the way FreeBSD is structured, and stable. Debian has been working good for me as a desktop for past few years, now getting into Steam gaming, and starting to use freebsd ports to install programs has started me going down the FreeBSD road lately.

[@leftymclefterson582]

Im dual-booting NomadBSD and Mint Linux I am really liking the simplicity and good documentation of FreeBSD :) That compile example is a perfect microcosm of everything wrong with many Linux distros Imagine if you had a starship with a slow/limited connection back to Earth I know which operating system I would rather use!

[@nitrogenez]

Good job. But you need to make the pauses inbetween the cuts shorter, and put your text nearby the camera, so you don't look down so long. Or just remember the text itself. Good luck.

[@Wiscotac]

Great info for keeping FreeBSD around!

[@andresconrado]

Great video. I would recommend you to always look at the camera, so it is not that obvious that yo are reading from a script. Maybe place the laptop/tablet/etc with your script at the same height near the camera.

[@circuitrewind]

This has already been addressed, thanks! :)

[@mememe84]

FreeBSD has a better philosophy but lets be honest here, people want something that works not theories and principles. Linux is running Windows games now meanwhile I hear FreeBSD still have issues with Wifi cards. I have feeling there is more to it that makes Linux better since all servers and big companies run Linux. People want something that "just works" not something that you have to fight with to work. I installed Linux Mint and was able to do thing in a simpler fashion than Windows.

[@netkv]

Wouldn't be windows game support similar in Freebsd since it also has Wine? iirc i've even seen someone getting Steam to work and yeah, i was quite suprised that Freebsd supports the wifi card of my laptop by default without any obvious isses since the documentation said its not that much tested and works only if limited under 4gb of ram (RTL8822BE)

[@gh0stcassette]

​@@netkvWINE is also available on MacOS, but they didn't even have apple silicon GPU acceleration until like a few weeks ago. FreeBSD just doesn't have the drivers for wine to hook into and do what it does on Linux

[@circuitrewind]

This is a very interesting take that I already have a planned video for. I do 4K/120Hz gaming, yes even Linux and Windows binaries, on FreeBSD, and have had this available for a couple years now. There is this persistent myth that FreeBSD isn't capable, because one person tells the next this, and then that next person repeats it for the person after that, all the while nobody bothered to stop, check, and validate those assumptions. So one of my key goals is to actually evaluate and challenge these types of assumptions going forward, rather than accepting them at face value.

[@mikechappell4156]

@@Lu-Die-MilchQ Support for BSD is actually pretty good in my experience. Keep in mind BSD wanted to reimplement Unix. Advocacy groups seem to suggest Linux should replace Windows.

[@thrumbo]

​@@mikechappell4156 in my experience tho.. not so much. I tried linux and bsd at the same time few years ago. I got prebuild pc and a laptop at the time, so i already expected i will have some trouble. Got few tings not working both on bsd and linux. On bsd I can't find(almost) any solution to it, wheres on linux I always got it on top of search result. Maybe I'm just dumb at the time or something. But thats what make me stay on linux till today.

[@lucasbelinato]

Este vídeo é muito bom. Uma referência simples e esclarecedora. This video is really good. A simple and enlightening reference 🎉

[@tao4124]

É, dá pra ter uma ideia de como é o sistema operacional e funcionamento, porém ele nao mostrou maneiras mais fáceis de compilar, tais como poudriere ou algo mais simples como portmaster. No final das contas, ficou parecendo que é bem mais difícil ou chato do que que realmente é.

[@lucasbelinato]

Sim, trata-se de uma demostracao geral de processos, por isso a impressao de complexidade, mas vendo como algo geral demostra a eficiencia do UNIX-BSD com relacao a outros sistemas.@@tao4124

[@stephencox4224]

There is one aspect where so many fail to realise a major feather in the cap for BSD with it's logical approach to software and stability has been noted recognised and utilised compared to linux is that one of the long term big players in Computer operating systems where stability is part of the experience is of course Apple as all Apple operating systems for such a long time can directly trace their history to being based on BSD not Linux and that alone should tell people something. So many people put Apple Operating systems on non Apple machines aka the Hackintosh Brigade that when looking at the dramas they often have to overcome to get it working it would be simpler to just start with BSD and compile the software they require with BSD having probably the best documentation of any operating system ever put in place and a plethora of software options available when you bother to look. Great Video and a unique take on both operating systems and more importantly allowing people to realise just how good BSD actually is for real world use after all most people actually just want to be able to use some software to achieve goals with it not just constantly try to figure out why it does not work and spens so much time and effort making it do what they want. BSD has the ability to give you your life back rather than turn you into a troubleshooter for some obscure software you hope to be able to use on Linux

[@damianateiro]

XDDDDDDDDDD

[@pauldufresne3650]

Not a good comparison, because you compare ready for FreeBSD recipe, with no recipe for Linux. A fair comparison would have been get the source of a Linux's package, install build dependencies with the package manager, then build the package.

[@circuitrewind]

You proved my point exactly. In the Linux ecosystem, there is much more work to accomplish the exact same task. As an end user, do I have to perform those tasks, or are they already done for me? In FreeBSD, the hard part is already done, and I can get exactly what I want with one simple command. Even with the package managers on Linux, it is more complex to get the same desired result.

[@virkony]

@@circuitrewind It would be nice to know what package managers you compare it to. They are very-very different nowadays. How do you measure complexity? Is it "just one command" to pull dependencies, fetch sources, apply known patches, build, package, merge into your system? There is also dark side in regard to how updates are handled. What happens to configuration files modified since installation? What about dealing with multiple versions of software? Or maybe complexity is from the fact that there are too many Linux distros with own commands that you need to learn?

[@brickviking667]

First off, thank you for this video. I've used Linux since 1.0.9 days, and tried out FreeBSD back in 4.7 days (yes, that was a really long time ago). While I mostly agree with your points about package/ports installing for FreeBSD, you've left out one thing - customizing the install. The package or port maintainers make a best effort to create a package install that "works" for the majority of people, but at least for me, I'd want to tweak the build options, for example if I was stripping out support for various things such as i18n, utf8, graphical support or perhaps even networking. I do grant that most people won't "need" to do this, but occasionally they may "want" to. I'm aware that the ports system does provide ways to customize the various packages; after all, this isn't the first time this topic has come up. I'd have liked to see a very quick explanation that this customizing is really easy, even if you consider the packages' requirements.

[@DmytroSichkarOnline]

Nice perspective on Freebsd vs Linux. 😊 OS diversification is our strength! Thanks for sharing 🙏

[@arturorochoa9359]

This is cool! I wanna try FreeBSD now

[@Quintarus1794]

The thing with FreeBSD is that I've tried it multiple times, but never once managed to get a graphical environment up and running, a feat I managed on my second try with a headless linux distro.

[@Algeriawindows69]

i did

[@circuitrewind]

Here is the quick-start guide to KDE. Its really mainly just 3 lines. Install a few packages, enable a couple services, then start X. This is how I bring up my main workstations now. community.kde.org/FreeBSD/Setup#Quick_start

[@Quintarus1794]

@@circuitrewind thanks. Maybe I'll give it another go when I have some spare time.

[@mathman0569]

What I've heard more of is that BSD was going through nasty law suits at the time with AT&T for using unix source code and linux just happened to be the one that was available at the time, and was complete enough to function correctly. And for modern uses that Linux just has a lot better hardware support. You used LFS as a comparison point? That's absurd. Use the AUR as a compare point. Watched a little further, still though, the AUR is a way better comparing point. Or even yay or gentoo, yay letting you install AUR packages automatically, or gentoo just being source code. I use arch as honestly I like getting technical with my system, and arch lets you do just that. Plus most software doesn't exist on FreeBSD. I honestly don't think it's due to linux being better that these issues do or don't exist, it's due to timing. FreeBSD would have similar problems today if it were to be the big dog. Espeshally with linux getting easier and easier to run, I don't see how you can say that FreeBSD is easier,

[@fulconandroadcone9488]

with flat pack and ui for package managers why would I ever compile my own source code? The only time it actually makes sense to argue how easy it is to compile is when you are making modifications to code. I very much like that I can click and have everything installed what I want.

[@mathman0569]

@@fulconandroadcone9488 Yeah

[@circuitrewind]

Gentoo certain is a great example, considering it was modeled directly after FreeBSD! web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@mathman0569]

@@circuitrewind I still don't get your point, gentoo, while interesting is overly complicated. And I'm an arch user, compiling from source sucks, I do it when necessary via the AUR, but I don't like doing it. It's slow and there aren't any real good reason for doing it. Though gentoo is great at what it's used for, compiling literally everything from source. It's a niche use case to compile everything from source, and I'm a developer, I don't find myself compiling any of linux from source, maybe an AUR app here or there, but not linux itself. And even then, gentoo is out there for people who want that. Plus good luck trying to find hardware, I may spin up FreeBSD in a VM some time, though with the current state of things, as a desktop linux user, I don't see the point of FreeBSD. I can somewhat understand using it as a server for security reasons, given how small and rarly used it is so is a rarer target, making it harder to get infected with viruses just bc of that, but for example, me, a person who uses linux on their laptop, compiling really sucks, and I have 10 cores, though they're big little.

[@caeliachapin5317]

Y'all whining about compiling *apps* from source? LOL. I used to have to compile a Linux *kernel* just to get sound working on my laptop.

[@profetik777]

Superb video. I think you might have made me want to try out BSD!

[@TuxWing]

Now I see why they say that Gentoo's ebuild system is so similar to FreeBSD ports...because it is, with the exception of the ncurses pop-ups for setting options (i.e. Gentoo use flags). Gentoo does however purge older packages over time.

[@Danielo515]

Thank you for taking the time to highlight this reality

[@classicrockonly]

Now what would be Really fun would be to try to take a FreeBSD 5.5 jail and compile ports for that jail to keep the old stuff running, if need be.

[@lepatenteux592]

I really don't understand what you are trying to demonstrate here.... I would not use ubuntu in a router, that is why I use freeBSD based OS, but I would certainly not use freeBSD as a desktop OS, it lacks way too much on that regards! Different tools, different purposes... (Last time I needed to compile something in Linux was, NEVER! - I am a daily user since 2011)

[@circuitrewind]

Use what works best for you! I personally use FreeBSD, Linux, Mac, Windows, and WebOS daily all for different purposes, and that's totally awesome. I totally agree that end-users probably should not be compiling packages. I'm not a typical end-user. I work in large scale enterprise systems, and at scale, things break. I help debug and diagnose issues in upstream packages and submit fixes, which requires compiling those software packages, and I'm here to share those experiences.

[@lepatenteux592]

​@@circuitrewind Thank you for your response. I however still disagree with your statement that Linux is an engineering failure. Both FreeBSD and Linux(es) projects are masterpieces in their own regards and serve different purposes IMHO. I also jump from system to system on a daily basis and deploy business software and infrastructures... Each system has its strengths and weaknesses... Even Window.. It's biggest strength is that it tests the limit of my patience and forces me back to Linux! 🤣

[@n-o-i-d]

12:15 fantastic argument, never looked at it that way, but it is definitely so true

[@agnelodearaujo7413]

Aren't the Linux package managers (dnf, apt, pacman, etc) similar to the ports collection or "pkg" on FreeBSD ?

[@circuitrewind]

Yes, they are. pkg provides pre-built binary packages just like those other systems. But in my case, I need to do custom compiling, plus also inspecting the source code for finding bugs, so pre-built binaries don't help much in this case.

[@mchi2214]

@@circuitrewind ehem we have gentoo?

[@circuitrewind]

@@mchi2214 Yes, and Gentoo was modeled after FreeBSD.

[@dingokidneys]

Nice video and an interesting perspective. I'll have to get back to running up another FreeBSD system to play with again.

[@circuitrewind]

It most certainly is really fun to play with! Speaking of "play" specifically, keep an eye out for future content here involving gaming on FreeBSD.

[@darksorcerer3236]

pfSense is based on FreeBSD and tweaking it is a piece of cake and it's awesome

[@fuseteam]

Linux's success isn't due to more people talking about it's problems, that's the reason for it's failure in the consumer market. The reason linux is more used (thus more known) than freebsd is due to the lawsuit thst surrounded freebsd around the 1990s, nobody wanted to touch while it was being sued, so they used the other one that just happened to be released. By the time the lawsuit was mitigated, companies has already build an ecosystem around linux

[@circuitrewind]

Saying that a lawsuit in the 1990's nearly three decades ago, is why FreeBSD isn't more popular, in my honest opinion, is an easy excuse without looking at the entire time in between. And in that same time frame, there was also the SCO lawsuits involving Linux vendors, an equally hairy situation for a long time. Why did the AT&T lawsuit dissuade people from FreeBSD, but the SCO lawsuit did nothing to hinder Linux? And why was "Linux" the choice, when that ecosystem was in its absolute infancy, yet there were countless other F/OSS operating systems at the time, ones that already had wide success in the market of its time?

[@fuseteam]

@@circuitrewind because at that point you already had am ecosystem of companies supporting and promoting linux, they weren't going to pivot just because bsd got out of a hairy situation while linix itself in one. It's the same reason windows still dominates the market, just because a majority of windows users don't like where they are taking doesn't mean they'll all switch over to another os, switching ecosystems is hard. Case in point; What companies __are__ promoting freebsd? Network companies, and indeed freebsd is the most popular in networking equipment. And that's _before_ considering that more companies working on linix means better and faster hardware support. If memory serves things in the linux world moves faster (and are thus more buggy) than in the bsd world I guess we could summarize it in one word: momentum

[@ruthlessadmin]

Interesting. I don't think I've had nearly as much trouble compiling software on Linux. Normally I get the source via 'git clone' and as long as I have whatever build tools installed for the distro (e.g. build-essential for Debian-based), everything goes pretty smooth, with everything I need to know in a README file (unless it's a very small, new, and/or obscure project). When building, it will always tell me if I'm missing any dependencies at some point. Granted, it can be a bit of a pain to figure out which specific package names correspond to the needed libs, but usually a few web searches light the way. Also, I have to agree with others who point out it may not be fair to compare *BSD to any binary Linux distros, where the goal is to avoid having the user compile software as much as possible. Gentoo would be a much closer analog.

[@circuitrewind]

And I've answered this one quite a bit already too. FreeBSD is ALSO a "binary" distribution based OS. But there are times when compiling is required, which is why I'm getting into this side of the discussion. And since Gentoo seems to be everybody's favorite Linux distro as a comparison, its always great to know that the creator designed their packaging system after what FreeBSD does: web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@ruthlessadmin]

@@circuitrewind I specifically said "where the goal is to avoid having the user compile software as much as possible" - I understand that FreeBSD is binary based but clearly has the additional design goal of user-friendly compiling, whereas most Linux distros do not share this goal, and therefore, one should not expect it to be a cakewalk, in the vanishingly rare cases where it is needed or desired.

[@XYZ-xm1ew]

im Debian for example three is such tool like mk-build-deps for example ,so what troubles with compiling software from source code ???

[@jezzamobile]

After years of happy Linuxing, you have me looking at giving FreeBSD a serious go! Thankyou 😁👍

[@makidoko]

I just don't understand what is this video.... Compiling simple apps available in packages, to demonstrate that it's easier than building it with your own hands and the dev's documentation ? No, I had to see the two last minutes to realize that the goal was only to bash Linux and glorify FreeBSD. No, the success of Linux is not due to its "complexity" making it visible on forums, and then popular. This is because it's popular that it's visible on forums. More users = more visibility. No, the "failure" of FreeBSD is not due to its incredible engineering, making it absent on forums. It's not adapted to desktop usage, so techies using Freebie read the FM before asking, unlike most Linuxies asking questions that has been answered hundred times before. Ports on Freebies, AUR (for instance) on Linuxies... No, Freebie is not exceptional in the tech world. Both are great OSes, Linux is just more open to the world, decentralized, allowing an easy diversity, making it, due to contributors, editors and packagers, more customizable, living and up to date. And nobody, knowing what he does, builds from source, when it's available in packages. The use case where you NEED to, is once in a lifetime. "We need more people talking about FreeBSD... and it's hard to do that because it's so stable". Oh my, what is this ; is this really all you have to tell about FreeBSD to promote it ? Then, just don't promote it, other people do it way way way better than you, with no need to bash other OSes.

[@circuitrewind]

You're doing just the same with your commenting. Is this really all you have to say about the video? Because other people do it way way way better than you, with no need to bash other's videos. :)

[@makidoko]

@@circuitrewind Okay, you had nothing to say, so you said it. Thank you, that gives me a better understanding.

[@coolzcold]

​@@makidokostraight to the point, great comment

[@jmdennis1967]

I never did install FreeBSD that way. I have done linux installs like Arch but not others. I had used DesktopBSD and PCBSD back in the day and loved them both. Of course by doing it the way you do it you can install whatever you want.

[@Andrath]

Don't compile from source, use packages. Also, there's the 'ee' editor, no need for nano, and if you know vi-motions, there's the classic BSD vi.

[@circuitrewind]

Cool, good to know, thanks! As an open-source software engineer maintaining these systems, I'll be sure to let others compile and test code for me and instead use packages, rather than fixing bugs and testing myself. :)

[@MpSniperM1911]

one reason i stick with arch, besides the massive amount of packages, is the ease of installing, just one command to install and if it is not there you just use a AUR helper and voilà, same result

[@northof-62]

Fair point. Many distributions don't come with a compiler. No need for most users. If I do want to compile things I use Slackware.

[@circuitrewind]

I'm also not "most users" ;) But that was only one of countless example. There are several more that I'll dive into in the future.

[@northof-62]

@@circuitrewind I'll follow you :D

[@Being_Joe]

I call this click bait. FreeBSD is everywhere, just look at every iPhone, mac OS, every Playstation, countless of commercial appliances.

[@andreyv116]

To be fair, bsd vs gpl licensing is a major factor for this

[@Being_Joe]

@@andreyv116 What does that have to do with anything? I still stand that the title is click bait, also who is do decide what is success vs a failure? I can say they are all successful or failure based on arbritary measurements.

[@damianateiro]

If it has to do with why most companies use and collaborate with Linux, Sony contributes more to Linux than to freebsd, the majority of people who use open source Unix use Linux and even 90% of freebsd programs are ports or directly Linux versions

[@XYZ-xm1ew]

Linux is more populas is such purpose.Beter hardware suport much more drivers, that's the things makes Linux much better.

[@MitchellJBridges]

The original freebsd is greatly underrated.

[@nalinux]

We made Linux, and we made FreeBSD. About 25 years ago. Many were still kids. FreeBSD was fun to use in 2000. A pain now, it's much slower than Linux. Even GhostBSd is not user friendly Using Linux daily since 1998. Years with FreeBSD, mostly circa 1999 / 2005. Still a multiboot Linux Win10 NetBSD FreeBSd. Haiku GhostBSD. And still Linux as a daily. Because it just works.

[@circuitrewind]

It may be hard to believe, but Linux is over 30 years old... and uuuhhh, FreeBSD started life, if you really wanna trace it all the way back, in the 1970s. Also, not sure about the "much slower" bit? FreeBSD beats Linux in some key areas, which is why companies like Netflix are using it to push 800gbps per node. There are also some Steam games benchmarking faster on FreeBSD than Linux, despite them being native Linux binaries.

[@MarkLKahnt]

I try FreeBSD periodically, while I have run Debian Linux for about a quarter of a century now. Ports, as interesting of a concept that it is as a way to implement third party software, ends up as a system not necessarily given to be as secure as the Linux packaging systems, where repositories can flag that updated software versions have been released and are packaged to install. To ignore this is disingenuous in comparison. For developers not open to letting people access the source code for their application, Ports excludes any opportunity to have their product available on FreeBSD - yes, for some people, sometimes closed source software is needed or even preferable.

[@circuitrewind]

There are both open and closed sourced softwares in the ports collection. For instance, Sublime Text is included, as it the Nvidia drivers. Neither are open source, but both are available via Ports/Pkg. The "make" process with Makefiles can be as simple as "download this tarball, and extract it", it doesn't need to be full on code compilation. This is also how the CentOS userland packages for FreeBSD works, they download the premade CentOS binaries, and simply extract them without any other process. And to be 100% entirely honest, the main reason I initially became interested in FreeBSD is because Debian's packages for MySQL, MariaDB, and PHP were way to far out of date, sometimes months to years out of date. This can be fixed with 3rd party repos, but then that gets into that whole "security" issue you describe and whom you trust. With FreeBSD, these packages, and other key packages I now rely upon are updated generally within a few days of upstream, instead of weeks, months, or even years.

[@TheEddie581]

FreeBSD rocks! I have been using it since 1998(before that : SunOS) and altough curious about Linux I never found it as professional, easy to use or dependable as FreeBSD. The ports systems vs the hodgepodge of various "distro" installers is of course very telling. Also, if you know the C language, compare the coding mess of the Linux Kernel source code vs the FreeBSD kernel code.

[@ChimeraLV]

What exactly is the point of this? If you want Source Packages, just install gentoo? Why are you showing LFS guides? or other Random guides on building packages from scratch. The common user will never benefit from compiling their packages on a toaster.

[@circuitrewind]

Its hilarious that you mention Gentoo, because the developer of that distro modeled their package management system off of FreeBSD after having given up on Linux for a while, switching over, and learning a new ecosystem. web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@isaacvicente]

I also don't get his point. Nowadays Linux is so damn easy that it can be boring. Want a Ubuntu system? Sure, burn a Ubuntu ISO into your pen drive, boot with the pen drive and just click "next" until it finishes. I don't know how could it be more easy. The thing about Linux is fredoom of choice. Want a rock solid distro? Debian. Want a rock solid distro but easy for new users? Mint. Want a DIY distro? Arch. Want to compile most of your packages? Gentoo. The list goes on...

[@NitroNilz]

Try installing OpenBSD - basically press enter repeatedly (except for the sets) and done! Secure by default! Super easy most of what you need in base. If not most likely in ports pre-compiled.

[@bluesquare23]

​@@NitroNilzPlus OpenBSD's package manager is written in Perl, which makes it super fast!

[@RandomGeometryDashStuff]

03:01 how to uninstall after `make install`?

[@circuitrewind]

You can use "pkg remove [name]" to uninstall any package. The "ports" system and "pkg" system are directly tied to one another.

[@roborobo8370]

I mean.. this is true, but I feel like Debian and some other Distros that have lasted a long time, have some predictability on how they work... The freebsd handbook gets updated whenever it needs to be updated...

[@BloodEyePact]

I think there's a serious flaw in your argument, and it comes down to a single common variable: C. If you look at pre-modern language like Java and Python, both have extensive tooling and ecosystems like maven, pip, and pypi to address the exact issues you're talking about, and both are so common as to be basically required for any serious development, and similar languages have equivalents. Modern languages like go and rust take the approach of using git as the mechanism of dependency management, and bake this into the language, as soon as you have a working compiler, you have a way of fetching any dependency you need. C does not have this luxury (and C programmers I speak to often seem to find this as a point of pride, bizarrely), so FreeBSD should be congratulated for designing a system that makes installing from source not an exercise in suicidal ideation, but make no mistake, that is FreeBSD solving a problem that has no right to exist anymore, and hasn't for at least a decade. Contrasted with installing programs made in modern languages, which are identical between the two OSes, and generally done with a single line, even if doing so from source.

[@circuitrewind]

If all of this were true, then Rust wouldn't be the bane of my existence! Swapping daily not only between OSes, but also CPU architectures (i386, AMD64, ARM, and Aarch64, soon to add RISC-V as well), Rust has been by far and away the least consistent language trying to get something to work on all of them. The Rust tool chain is routinely broken, something I've been quite vocal about for years, and plan to eventually make content about on its shortcoming here in hopes that the issues with the ecosystem can be solved. I personally have really high hopes for Rust, it seems like a very neat concept, but the frequency in which they break their own tooling is mindboggling. And in terms of things like pip and what not, those have to deal with installing software, not debugging upstream software, which is the primary task where I need to be able to compile code.

[@NitroNilz]

Thank you Obi-Wan Kenobi, you bring New Hope to this part of the galaxy ✨

[@NielsKob]

Why didn’t you compare it to a Linux-distribution with a ports-system like FreeBSD? Gentoo for example And in my experience you want to use ports on FreeBSD because the defaults of the binary-packages kind of suck. And Linux-binary packages (or OpenBSD-packages for that matter) have usually better compile-options set.

[@circuitrewind]

Gentoo's system was modeled after FreeBSD web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@MarkParkTech]

Yeah, the ports system has worked that way at least as far back as when I installed FreeBSD the first time, which was 4.2 -- I'm pretty sure it's been that way since the 386BSD days.

[@talideon]

No, not quite, as it dates from mid-to-late 1994, so just before FreeBSD 2 came out.

[@MarkParkTech]

@@talideon fair enough, I wasn't using it quite that long ago. But, given their consistency, it wouldn't have surprised me.

[@demitriuspandi9736]

Severely limited hardware compatibility. That's the main reason for BSD not catching on to the extent that Linux has. I've tried FreeBSD, GhostBSD, Hello Systems, MidnightBSD, etc... on MULTIPLE different Laptops, mainly thinkpads, & the biggest issue I've ran into is that they simply will not play ball with the wifi cards. Most linux dsitros, on the other hand, no issues. I mean, there's a lot that I like about freeBSD, don't get me wrong. However, due to the hardware compatibility limitations, I can only use it as a VM from my virtualization server. That's not ideal. I'd much rather run it as the host OS on some of the older laptops that I use to remotely access my virt server.

[@replikvltyoutube3727]

I think it's not very fair comparison, because LFS, if well from scratch. Freebsd also doesn't have ports tree if you assemble it from scratch your self. I think it would be more fair to compare it to Slackware and it's Slackbuild's Ultimately thought I think it's not a bad video, BSDs need a bit of light shed on them. Slackware, arguably the most unix-ish distribution also has the same issue.

[@juanmacias5922]

Dang, had no idea how convoluted building a file from source was on Linux lol probably the reason I've only used pamac lol

[@raddinox2707]

comparing the Ports tree with building the source from scratch isn't a FreeBSD vs Linux thing IMO. Because the FreeBSD developers have done a lot of works to make the ports tree work. this should be compared to Gentoo or using the deb-src feature to download and compile the source on a debian based system.

[@circuitrewind]

Gentoo is modeled after FreeBSD: web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@mchi2214]

@@circuitrewind it was modeled after freebsd but freebsd hardware incompatibilities are pain the arse where in gentoo works flawlessly. Up to this year poor support in bluetooth and printers. This is the reason why people will not use this as a daily driver. If stability ill choose Debian or OpenSuse any given day.

[@TheSulross]

it's very admirable that FreeBSD is much easier to build things from source, but it's very seldom that one has some reason to do so, so its far more the case that will just install packages to get binaries. And so most people don't see that clear advantage that FreeBSD has to be relevant to their manner of using the computer and its OS. It's an advantage that doesn't do much to promote FreeBSD user adoption.

[@circuitrewind]

"This one feature is a feature I don't use, so don't talk about it". - gotacha. ;) Its something I very frequently require, and am simply discussing my experiences. This is only one of many MANY experiences where FreeBSD is easier to administer than other OSes.

[@TheSulross]

@@circuitrewind just so you know, I do root for FreeBSD because don't want to see monolithic solutions in any market place situation. One of the practical problems for adoption is device drivers. This is in a way ironic. There was a time when Linux got the constant complaint of paucity of device driver support - stunting its adoption. That has improved to large extent to where people these days can use Linux as a daily driver desktop OS. It's still in a queue behind Windows and MacOS, but it's gotten better for sure. But FreeBSD or any flavor of BSD is trailing further. So is it technically conceivable that a BSD kernel could put enough of a compatibility layer in place to then use Linux loadable modules, i.e., it's population of device drivers?

[@circuitrewind]

@@TheSulross FreeBSD already has that. There is already Linux KPI support, which is exactly how DRM KMOD works. There are already several drivers that are cross-licensed GPL/BSD that have both native Linux and FreeBSD kernel interfaces. Honestly, other than WiFi, which is a serious body of work right now, the driver support is not too far apart from either. Intel and AMD GPUs use the Linux KPI interface, Nvidia has a unified driver architecture that works on Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD. Every NIC that I throw at FreeBSD works. I've been talking with others this week, and the one laptop touchpad that sucks ass on FreeBSD also apparently equally sucks ass on Linux, so its about the same! LOL. There are some things that get FreeBSD support first too, such as the new ARM security architecture currently in development, FreeBSD is the OS chosen for creating the hardware itself.

[@alexstone691]

It's an insteresting experiment but bit unfair as ports is builtin application in BSD ecosystem, linux is just a mess of systems that differ a little (or a lot) so if you did use builtin package manager like apt, dnf to download source code and then install it then it would work fine I see freebsd like gentoo, and ports is like portage so its supposed to work with its own app

[@circuitrewind]

Kinda the other way around. Gentoo's package manager is inspired on FreeBSD's ;) But even with other package managers to get things done, setting up compile environments is generally a pain still. With FreeBSD, there is nothing, it "just work" out of the box.

[@ArchLars]

Linux has all the features you talk about BSD only having, but it's actually supported. BSD will die on the desktop market.

[@ryanics2291]

I love linux and free bsd equally. Thats why linux is on my gaming desktop, and freebsd is supporting

[@rawbeartoe_AK]

I would use FreeBSD as a daily driver, like Robonuggie, but it does not support the hardware I need.

[@circuitrewind]

Yup, this is always a concern. I have multiple machines, several dual-boot. So nothing for me is truly a "daily driver", because I'll put down one machine, then pick up another. All of my content is stored on a central server where all the machines access the files over network shares. So its mostly just "what interface do I want right now" or "what tool do I need for this particular project" Hardware support is getting better though! FreeBSD 14 has significant advancements to WiFi, which is the most requested feature. Nvidia GPUs have great support, well enough to run Steam games. Audio sucks, but so does audio in Linux LMAO. All in all, FreeBSD runs really well at least on my HTPC and on my FrameWork Laptop.

[@fanshaw]

Success or failure is probably in the psychological impact of the licensing rather than technical base. People and companies are more willing to contribute to a project if they think other are contributing rather than just taking.

[@Enrythe8th]

Wow, this is....I'm not sure where to start. The Linux perspective is not building from source code (aside from Gentoo) but instead downloading a precompiled binary to completely sidestep the compiling and build process (congratulations, you no longer need to waste disk space on a build environment). You can certainly download the source packages and build it yourself with whatever changes you require but installing a binary package (and keeping it updated!) is a very simple and routine affair. I was kinda expecting more on the documentation side of things which FreeBSD is better at since it's one distro and one kernel whereas Linux is one kernel with a whole host of different distros, each of which have to have their own documentation. If you were going to make that argument, a comparison between FreeBSD and..say...Debian Linux would make a lot more sense and more apples to apples. Both are community driven and thus don't have the financial drives that Red Hat or Canonical have.

[@circuitrewind]

FreeBSD equally has pre-built binary packages. That wasn't the purpose of this video. I routinely need to compile upstream software to debug and fix issues on those applications. SOMEONE has to do that, and I'm one of the developers who does, so having the OS get out of the way, and allow me to get to work as quickly as possible is key. This is me sharing some of those experiences!

[@Enrythe8th]

@@circuitrewind your use case is VERY limited in scope. The Linux philosophy is generally to use the same software version for the life cycle of that distro release and backport only security updates, so a source package has the original tarball plus security patches plus build information. Building a package from source is incredibly easy but also incredibly rare for most users - I haven't had to build a package in years. I guess what I'm saying is I get the point you're making but it's a point that 99% of Linux users don't have to care about. Source developers do but that's why there's source packages.

[@FelipeMatarazzoPereiradaSilva]

And still no proper WiFi on FreeBSD, only a/b/g speeds. I was expecting improvements over FreeBSD 14.

[@mchi2214]

they were silent on this part and want us to transition to bsd. bluetooth?

[@echillykahlil]

How did you manage to get an os running in a web browser?

[@circuitrewind]

@@echillykahlil that's just an interface into VMware vSphere and vCenter. The software is running on a server elsewhere and just sending the video data back through the browser

[@Ray_of_Light62]

The Free Software community wants Linus Torwald as creator / maintainer of the Kernel, and as focal point for future software endeavors. As per the first part of your label "Failing Success" - the "Failing" status is caused by the fragmentation of the developers, without an organized timeline or resource allocation efforts. I believe this is not the definition of anything failing, but the lack of any organizational structure. But it is not chaos, it is simply an attitude at not being or not becoming an industrial organization. It it the way it was meant to be, and it is going fine. When the time comes for you to do your bit, do it well, do it on time, do it for the others who need it. Imagine a serverless network, a decentralized environment, based of the trust that each one will write the best code or design the best environments. It is an undivided success, which may looks like a failing endeavor only to who don't know better. Anthony

[@BackstreetDrawler]

Comparing FreeBSD's ports system to Linux From Scratch is apples to oranges. The only fair comparison would be comparing ports to something like Gentoo ebuilds or Arch's pkgbuilds or even Slackware's build system. Linux From Scratch is completely manual. There is no package manager or native build system at all. If you compiled everything from source on FreeBSD without the use of the ports system, it would be almost comparable. Your comparison is really disengenuous. And I say that as someone who runs a mix of OSes at home including Gentoo, FreeBSD 14-current on a desktop, and FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE on a home server. I donate monthly to the FreeBSD foundation. I'm just trying to drive home the point that I'm not knocking on FreeBSD at all. I use it enthusiastically. But it's only 5 minutes into the video, and I'm struggling to take you seriously after that.

[@thegamingbunch4184]

Exactly. Compare FreeBSD ports to Arch's AUR. You don't even have to run configure, make, etc... It is all automatic.

[@circuitrewind]

There was more than just LFS example in the video, and Gentoo's build system is modeled after FreeBSD. web.archive.org/web/20051126225230/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/making-the-distro-p3.xml

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

At some point, stability becomes staleness. I don't think you understand the new software distribution systems like flatpak are trying to do. Its not about marely getting the software to work.

[@edheil]

I came here ready to hear your arguments but didn't find it compelling to compare FreeBSD's ports to "I'm just gonna grab me some software off the internet" on Linux. A proper comparison would be to a distribution's package collection, or if you really want it to be from source, for example, the Debian equivalent to FreeBSD ports would be using "apt-get source" "debuild". I found the parts about stability and continuity more compelling - the fact that things keep on working the way they always worked. That's a really cool fact about the BSDs compared with Linux.

[@TheEddie581]

Linux has a problem in that it is only a kernel. You need a "distro" to do anything practical. Then you get into this very dynamic field of ever changing distros, coming and going in popularity. You cannot build upon that in the long run. In contrast, FreeBSD is complete (not just a kernel), extremely stable, fast and dependable, as it was in the mid 1990s, in 2005, in 2012, in 2018 and in 2024. Why did you think Apple picked FreeBSD as a core component for Mac OS X in 2000? Because they value these points for their business.

[@squirrelarmor]

Illegal int fireworks. Other than that thanks for using FreeBSD.

[@Rombizio]

What a nightmare. And people wonder why Linux desktop adoption has not changed in 30 years and Unix us pretty much just for servers.

[@chrissmith7669]

I used to use both. BSD ran my firewall box and Linux everything behind it.

[@circuitrewind]

That's honestly how I started. And then FreeNAS entered the scene for storage. Then later FreeBSD was used as a backup system for the Linux infrastructure. Later, it was found out that the FreeBSD backups were more reliable in the environment I was working in, plus "time to first byte" on the web application was cut in half by swapping from Linux to FreeBSD, so the decision was made to move further and further in the FreeBSD direction.

[@chrissmith7669]

@@circuitrewind I wasn’t able to be truly proficient in both and chose Linux. I keep saying I’ll load up FreeBSD on an unused box to tinker.

[@pomademahal]

FREEBSD is really a nice OS. It is well put and well thought. It is consistent, and maintenance is easier than linux. I don't know why people went for Linux instead of BSD other than hardware drivers issues

[@torb-no]

I really like this video on the account of demonstrating how easy it is to compile on FreeBSD, but your theory of that FreeBSD is not popular is because it's just too good seem rather silly. Ultimately I think it's pretty clear that a combination of factors, most of all: people being spooked by FreeBSD in the 90s because of the lawsuits scared a lot of people away. By the late 90s Linux had gathered such a big following that it just steamrolled the majority of the UNIX world, and it didn't need to be the best to do that (just look at how successful Win9x was). One additional point. Is it really fair to compare FreeBSD to Linux writ large? Linux isn't a operating system, the so called distros are operating system, it just happens that there's really just one really big operating system surrounding FreeBSD-kernel (because of the dev process, etc, which *is* cool, by all means!). So it would make more sense to compare FreeBSD to a specific Linux-based operating system, and some of them, like Gentoo, Arch or Nix have a lot of similarities to FreeBSD. But again, I genuinely didn't know it was that easy to compile with FreeBSD. But another question: what is the value proposition of that? Debian has a reputation for being easy to set up and configure and also quite reliable. Typically you won't compile stuff, you'd just apt-get it from repos, but assuming standard ways of setting up things, what exactly is FreeBSD getting me over Debian for example?

[@circuitrewind]

I see the "lawsuit" thing be brought up as an example a lot for FreeBSD's lack of popularity. Why didn't the SCO lawsuit stunt Linux's growth? Why didn't the anit-trust case stunt Microsoft's growth? Why didn't the Oracle lawsuit stunt Android's growth? Referencing a single item from 30 years ago only points a very small piece of the puzzle and has had nothing to do with the story in the time in between. The premise of this video wasn't to be the 100% all absolute cause and reason for everything, but to bring to light ANOTHER piece of that puzzle, of which there are countless pieces. And while I use "compiling" as an example in this video, that's again just one of many in terms of "what is a solved issue, therefor not talked about, thus no free word of mouth advertising" when it comes to FreeBSD. On that note, this is planned to be a series of videos, where I continue to dive into different points where this is happening over and over again between the two communities.

[@torb-no]

@@circuitrewind ​ @circuitrewind The reason I refer the early 90s is that by the late 90s everything about Linux could simply be explained by sheer extreme momentum in it's given space. The same is true for Windows (despite monopoly cases). The sheer extreme momentum made it unstoppable. Technical merits almost didn't matter. That's why I think it's reasonable to look at explanations from the early 90s. But we can leave that particular argument to the side. Regardless of all that, my big gripe with you argument is that Linux is popular basically because it's crappy and FreeBSD is not because it's so good that it's quiet is incredibly silly. If that argument held any water Debian would be the least popular Linux-based OS as its philosophy is to just be quietly working, but it's very popular and highly renowned. Like I said, maybe my explanation is not a good one (it's probably complicated and consists of many things), but I guarantee you it's *not* something that boils down to FreeBSD is so stable and good that it's uninteresting. Uninteresting, unsexy and just something that works is *exactly* what the enterprise world wants and if you ask them they'll tell you that's why they use Windows or Linux. We can quibble about the claim that said OS truly are non-fuss operating systems, but that's at least the value proposition to a lot of the users (and explains things like why Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 was popular for sooooo long). Sorry for being too argumentative here, I truly did like how you explains merits of FreeBSD in this video and I do look forward to future instalments in the series, but please drop the tinfoil hat theories. Making a video of FreeBSDs merits can stand well on its own legs in my opinion. (And it's not like FreeBSD isn't used, AFAIK both Netflix and Snapchat ended up with FreeBSD servers for performance reasons.)

[@Jordan4Ibanez]

My only comment at the beginning of the video is to move the teleprompter near the camera

[@circuitrewind]

Thanks! Too bad I don't own one tho! :D

[@o_-_o]

Nice video, but you need at least a DIY teleprompt

[@circuitrewind]

That's already been addressed, thanks!

[@Time4Technology]

I don't quite agree with the rationale of this video. On BSD based operating systems, you rely on the ports tree to find and install lots of applications. On GNU/Linux based operating systems, you find most of these applications available as distribution packages. I would definitely not recommend an average Linux user who does not know where to download a source archive to to install an application from source - besides the possible complexity of the build process, they will not be able to keep track of dependencies and updates. Such a user should (and usually will) use the packages built by and for their distribution.

[@circuitrewind]

FreeBSD equally has per-compiled binary packages. Typical end users wasn't the intended use case here. There are times when software needs to be compiled, such as changing compilation options, or when debugging the software itself. As a sysadmin, getting in and doing that job as effortlessly as possible is a key to success.

[@rjawiygvozd]

tbh following these build instructions for linux is a sure way to break your system in most cases, even if your distro is source based. Which gives linux even more visibility i guess

[@Luix]

Compile… I like the power of binaries

[@merakli2022]

FreeBSD may be good but who wants to compile all programs or applications from source? People want apps that just work. Almost all people are scared of command line and avoid typing a few simple commands, let alone compiling apps and they prefer using windows or macos for their system. Linux has barely 2% market share in desktop domain although it is slightly more complicated than windows or macos. Linux and freeBSD have to be more user friendly if they want a widespread adoption in the desktop market. Linux has already a strong dominance in server market and supercomputers, and mobile phones, which is a pleasure. BTW, I am a long time linux user.

[@jongeduard]

Wait, you already go wrong in your first sentence here, by making an assumption! You CAN install everything as a binary, using the pkg package manager. You just don't have to. You CAN install from source if you like, to get more options.

[@merakli2022]

@@jongeduard yes, true! But if you are ok with prebuilt binaries linux is ages ahead of freeBSD! And linux hardware driver support is better than freeBSD. I have to tell you that I am not against BSD, actually I had a limited experience with it in the past but I came across several problems and quit using it. I just wanted to emphasize that linux is not inferior to freeBSD if not superior.

[@jongeduard]

​@@merakli2022 Also for me it's the limited hardware support that made me eventually stop using it. So I agree with you on that one and that shoud really improve. It simply didn't even boot on half of the machines that I tried it on, and I didn't want to spent ages of time on trying to fix these problems. So most of my FreeBSD time went not soo much further than inside Virtual Box, but apart from that I really spent a lot of time with it to learn a lot about it. However I think that Linux has this success because a lot of people use it. In the beginning, when it was much less popular Linux had simular issues. These things get better when a system gets more popular and more people test it on more hardware.

[@NakamuraSatou]

Bro's describing Gentoo

[@circuitrewind]

Gentoo was literally modeled after FreeBSD. Bro's trying to re-write history it sounds like instead ;)

[@sponix2ipfw]

Now test them in a PCI Generation 3 system as an upgrade option

[@Wizzy-nl3mp]

So why you have to read from a script

[@tomv3999]

FreeBSD: the OS that God uses. However, God doesn't have a laptop, so have he let us have Arch and Gentoo. I'd like to run FreeBSD on my laptop, but the hardware support isn't there. However, for running a server, I'd much rather run *BSD.

[@circuitrewind]

The laptop situation most certainly is getting better. I'll have more content on this in the future, specifically focusing on my FrameWork laptop, which has been running FreeBSD for a couple years now, and the quick work we did with the FrameWork engineers to fix firmware bugs with their hardware!

[@tomv3999]

@@circuitrewind The up-coming FrameWork 16 looks intriguing, even if (if I'm correct) it's a 1080 display. It's all the other stuff that makes it interesting.

[@wernerviehhauser94]

I'll rather emerge or apt install my system and get stuff done afterwards. FreeBSD may be better in some sense, but it isn't in the ways most users want. If I needed an extra secure system, it might be an option, but for most other cases, it won't do the trick.

[@damianateiro]

the comparison is made with the legs, 99% of Linux distros use precompiled packages, the ones that do have to be compiled as such are those that are not in repositories or in the distros' package format, I can only think of it gentoo as the only one in which you have to compile everything up to 100% of the system; the bsds may have a "better philosophy" with emphasis on the quotes, but when it comes down to it, it is much more reliable to use Linux since there will always be a distro where your hardware will work, and for a normal user it is more easy you have Linux mint, Ubuntu, immutable fedora, manjaro, or solus that are distros that are installed and work; not to mention that the GPL license is much better than the bsd license, in short, the normal person who uses an OS as a tool will benefit from Linux because it is much easier for it to work. As an aside, 99% of the bsd's software is ported from Linux and the maintainers of the ports don't always update them (but look at what happened to cinnamon), to make it funny the freebsd developers don't even use it, they use Mac os or Windows XDDDD

[@cokesucker9520]

FreeBSD manages to keep up with Linux despite the much smaller community. Why is the Linux community so bad at implementing ew features and documenting them? Documentation might be an issue with your supposedly superior license, how is redhat going to make money if the features they add to gpl projects are easy to use without paying them for documentation that isn’t terrible? Linux is basically the windows of the Unix world, it caught momentum at an importa time, so now it’s ubiquitous, despite all the problems with it. I’ve been using Linux on my desktop for a while, so I know how annoying it is to deal with as a platform. By the way Mac uses a lot of BSD code, so BSD people using Mac isn’t an own you ignoramus, it’s a perk of their superior license.

[@locatemarbles]

Linux could indeed learn quite a bit from BSD, especially the non-corp distributions that don't have vested interests getting in the way of the end user. To me however the biggest complaint of BSD is its permissive license. I actually prefer Linux for the GPL.

[@wernerviehhauser94]

Like, ever taken a look at Gentoo?

[@manuell3505]

Permissive? It allows you to close it again. In contrary, Linuxes mostly demand open contributions. Commercially distributing a closed fork of the kernel is a legal problem.

[@DakotahMiskus]

As a former linux user who switched to FreeBSD I do fell it is unfair to pull up LFS and say that it’s so complicated look at LFS. Yeah that’s for developers not your average user. I think what you wanted to say and show is that BSD (I say BSD because it’s Free, Net and Open) their documentation is way better and the gold standard of documentation. Which no Linux user would argue with. But what you tried in the video is quite unfair