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bsd users
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bsd users

Do any of you know any pros of using bsd over linux in a server enviroment?
I keep hearing that it's a bit slower than the latest linux kernels and all, but at the same time I'm hearing that it uses less memory and that for whatever reason it's more "secure".

Thanked by 1Mark_R

Comments

  • dccdcc Member, Host Rep

    It is a preference thing (just like Debian vs Centos). I would not take into account any minor performance differences... considering how cheap hardware is these days.

    Thanked by 2Mark_R vRozenSch00n
  • dcc said: It is a preference thing (just like Debian vs Centos)

    but those two at least share the lunix kernel

    Thanked by 1Mark_R
  • IncrehostIncrehost Member
    edited February 2014

    OpenBSD is known as the most secure OS, but for virtualization you'll find an incredible slowness and it will only be possible through qemu emulation, kernel security can make
    your system slower if you compare it with linux, but the features and focus of the projects are completely different (despite the fact that linux is a kernel, while this is a complete OS).

    About FreeBSD, you have Jails, who is often called "chroot on steroids", there are providers that use them for VM's and services too, my feeling is that despite is a great OS, you have to tweak it a lot to extract the best of it, but both OpenBSD and FreeBSD are very stable and solid OS's for production tasks.

    About NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD, PC-BSD, etc don't quite know if somebody uses them for services, NetBSD I don't like it (just a personal option), DragonFly has the HAMMER filesystem which has great features (better than ZFS in some ways), but is not as mature as you would like it to be for a production server, PC-BSD is intended for PC and it's based on FreeBSD.

    But it's just my opinion :)

    Thanked by 2Mark_R vRozenSch00n
  • @duckeeyuck said:
    but those two at least share the lunix kernel

    Not necessarily: http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/

    Although, in principle, I agree that the Debian vs Centos is a terrible example in this case.

    BSD is a different flavor of *nix, just like Linux is a flavor of *nix. The differences arise in how they handle certain things and the philosophy of how they are structured.

    BSD is a monolithic architecture, whereas Linux is more of a hybrid mono/micro architecture. BSD is definitely monolithic philosophically while Linux is philosophically micro-architecture, even if the implementation isn't.

    BSD is also a true form of Unix, while Linux is Unix-Like. This is why Mac OSX gets to be called "Unix" while Linux is called "*nix" (Mac OSX is based on BSD).

    There is a lot of shitposting from both sides that ultimately comes down to how you view "freedom" in terms of code use.

    As far as security and what not, thats up for debate. Yes it can inhabit less ram than linux, but primarily because it was designed for older systems, but that doesn't mean that it will be faster or use that ram more efficiently.

  • BSD can offer a few nice things that Linux cannot offer (or with poorer performance). Such things include D-Trace and ZFS.

    BSD typically has a much better separation of the OS and the user tools/programs, which means you can update both independently of each other.

  • Hello, if you are using a webhosting company you should go with FreeBSD and DirectAdmin, you will get a pretty good webserver and secure, like normal linux distributions FreeBSD is not that easy to bypass root or bypass kernel rules and gain root uid, we are working with freeBSD from 2003 and we can say that we had no issues with freeBSD like we have with normal Linux os.

    Thanked by 1nz2ocasey
  • If you can manage it, go with any BSD. If you don't yet know or feel familiar with BSD-based stuff go at it! It's great fun to learn too.

  • I <3 BSD, but I'm getting my feet wet in Linux, since my company is moving to Linux based systems for some parts soon.... It's going to be fun making it talk with Active Directory... lol

  • BSD user since early 90's, I use linux too now though, for high availability and rock solid performance it has to be BSD, could of things that I have experienced are, high uptime, e.g. 5+ years and getting usable shell when the load was at 64.. I always compile from source rather than use binaries but thats just my age ;)

    But the right tool for the job every time.. each to their own

  • YKM said: But the right tool for the job every time.. each to their own

    ^This :)

    Thanked by 1YKM
  • duckeeyuckduckeeyuck Member
    edited February 2014

    yeah...

    on top of FreeBSD's kernel

  • Sorry to ask not directly related question, but is BSD good for Java? I am thinking to use FreeBSD to host a Java webapp.

  • BSD isn't specifically "good" for java. It's as good as debian or centOS is, when it comes to running java apps hardware and network speed are more important

    Thanked by 1jcaleb
  • nz2ocasey said: It's going to be fun making it talk with Active Directory

    Samba 4 is supposedly pretty good. Add in LDAP (if it's going to be a member) and you should be able to make it work okay. I've never done it before though.

  • @duckeeyuck said:
    Do any of you know any pros of using bsd over linux in a server enviroment?
    I keep hearing that it's a bit slower than the latest linux kernels and all, but at the same time I'm hearing that it uses less memory and that for whatever reason it's more "secure".

    I run OpenBSD by default on dedis and vps. Sometimes FreeBSD.
    OpenBSD default operating filesystem settings (how the filesystems are mounted as per /etc/fstab ) are slow, because the default settings are quite conservative.
    The advantage of any BSD is that the base OS system itself is very cleanly separated from applications, ie. what lives in /bin /sbin /usr/{bin, sbin} proper is the base system, what lives in /usr/local or /usr/pkg is the rest.
    Also OpenBSD ships with all common servers as part of the base system (mail servers, name server, web server, etc). It ships with a hugely patched old version of Apache (1.3.x) and nginx, set by default to run chrooted from /var/www.
    So one can install on different partitions: one or two for the base system, one for applications /usr/local, one for /var to host the servers content.
    A default installation of OpenBSD is fast, light and a ready to go dns and/or http server.
    On the base system partition default filesettings can be kept, and if it's set as a small partition it makes for faster filesystem checks and remounts in case of unexpected shutdown (not because the OS, it doesn't crash..). Other filesystems like /var/ can be mounted with softupdates, it speeds read/write disk access.
    On Linux these days, everything is stuffed into /usr/bin , even sometimes /bin...
    Also OpenBSD ports are very consistents and man pages clearly and tightly written.
    You can run any server-side stuff on OpenBSD, also java.
    FreeBSD is a bit more messy but still more consistent than linux dialects.
    If you compile your own stuff, need some software not provided in the port systems or tweak one port, OpenBSD can be tricky, because it's not glibc based like linux and it's less gnu-ified than FreeBSD, so you may need to modify source code accordingly and it may not be trivial. But it doesn't happen often.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @Magiobiwan said:
    Samba 4 is supposedly pretty good. Add in LDAP (if it's going to be a member) and you should be able to make it work okay. I've never done it before though.

    It's actually incredible. Until it breaks. Then it's usually easy to fix though. Until it breaks again.

    If I sound bitter I might be just a bit. ;)

  • @jarland and @Magiobiwan, I have a sandbox machine in the closet, so I'll probably play with that locally a bit then. I've not touched Samba 4, due to my own paranoia.

    What usually breaks with it?

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @nz2ocasey said:
    jarland and Magiobiwan, I have a sandbox machine in the closet, so I'll probably play with that locally a bit then. I've not touched Samba 4, due to my own paranoia.

    What usually breaks with it?

    Truthfully, I never figured out what kept breaking on my samba4 server that I used as a replacement for basic active directory functionality. I do know that I became very friendly with a bottle of Tylenol, and ended up reinstalling the packages a few times only to apply the same configurations and watch it magically work again.

  • sycoticsycotic Member
    edited February 2014

    @duckeeyuck said:

    on top of FreeBSD's kernel

    What is your point? It is Debian/GNU/BSD not Debian/GNU/Linux. Or do you not understand the difference between a distribution, standard libraries and a kernel?

    @nz2ocasey said:
    jarland and Magiobiwan, I have a sandbox machine in the closet, so I'll probably play with that locally a bit then.

    You should learn how to virtualize operating systems....

    Edit: The lack of actual understanding of the difference between BSD and Linux in this thread is depressing.

  • sycotic said: What is your point? It is Debian/GNU/BSD not Debian/GNU/Linux. Or do you not understand the difference between a distribution, standard libraries and a kernel?

    I said "but those two at least share the lunix kernel".

    You said "not neccesarily", and I pointed out that they don't, they don't share the same kernel.

    I can't simplifiy it enough.

  • @duckeeyuck said:
    they don't share the same kernel.

    That is exactly what I said in my first post then you said I was wrong... Is English your second language?

  • sycotic said: That is exactly what I said in my first post then you said I was wrong... Is English your second language?

    Your first line said "not necessarily" while quoting me pointing out the kernel difference.

    i didnt read anything past that

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