From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:

And that's one of the big draws to FreeBSD: it is as rock-solid as
they come.

Sure, I talk a lot about how reliable Debian is, but even Debian
can't touch the stability of FreeBSD.

Only ...

Unfortunately, PackageKit continually crashed, which meant KDE
Discover was useless, so installation of all apps would have to be
done via the command line.

... and ...

On a whim, I decided to install GNOME, but the GDM login manager
wouldn't start, so I decided to stick with KDE Plasma.

So much for “rock-solid as they come”, eh? Irony, this writer has
heard of it.

Also:

Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.

No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
is what you want.

That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any more.
All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
networking stack, service management, security modules and privilege
isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now, while the BSD
folks try to figure out how to port some small part of it to their
aging platform.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:

And that's one of the big draws to FreeBSD: it is as rock-solid as
they come.

Sure, I talk a lot about how reliable Debian is, but even Debian
can't touch the stability of FreeBSD.

Only ...

Unfortunately, PackageKit continually crashed, which meant KDE
Discover was useless, so installation of all apps would have to be
done via the command line.

... and ...

On a whim, I decided to install GNOME, but the GDM login manager
wouldn't start, so I decided to stick with KDE Plasma.

So much for “rock-solid as they come”, eh? Irony, this writer has
heard of it.

"As you might assume, the second manufacturer's cars most likely work and perform better than the first because it knows every piece that comes
together to create the car, and can make all sorts of adjustments to improve every aspect of it. The first manufacturer, on the other hand, doesn't have nearly the control over how those components are built.

FreeBSD is the manufacturer that builds everything in-house.

Once you get FreeBSD up and running, you can absolutely rely on it."


The thing is, that's talking about the base system. All the stuff with
display managers and packages and so on aren't the base system. That's more like the random stuff you bought on Amazon to bolt on to your car - the manufacturer does not have any say in their engineering or making them work well together.

If you can stay within the base system (or a few limited services on top of
it) you'll be ok. If you stray off-piste into too much third party stuff
it's only as good as the third party makes it - and often that third party
is not interested in FreeBSD.

Also:

Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.

No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix. There's no longer
any AT&T code in it. Linux is a clean sheet reimplementation. Arguably
both have diverged from AT&T's source code, but BSD was a piecemeal
replacement so kept the original structure and feel while Linux started from scratch.

To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
is what you want.

That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any more.
All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
networking stack, service management, security modules and privilege isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now, while the BSD
folks try to figure out how to port some small part of it to their
aging platform.

If your stack is Kubenetes + Docker + systemd, agreed. If your stack is
plain nginx + DB then FreeBSD is still an contender. Albeit an increasingly niche one as everyone moves towards the former.

It sounds like the writer took some memes and ran with them, without
actually knowing too much about what people do for real nowadays.

Theo
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
is what you want.

That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any more.
All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
networking stack, service management, security modules and privilege isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now, while the BSD
folks try to figure out how to port some small part of it to their
aging platform.

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

When it was time to replace my ageing Open Solaris file/media server,
I chose FreeBSD over Linux for that reason. (But all my other systems
run Linux.)
--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:32:25 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

ZFS is a memory hog, though, isn’t it (it is to filesystems like Java
is for programming languages). Best confined to a dedicated storage
appliance, not something you want to run on a general-purpose machine.

Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro, but
it will give you btrfs instead.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 19 Dec 2025 11:03:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:

The thing is, that's talking about the base system. All the stuff
with display managers and packages and so on aren't the base system.

Interesting. All these pieces work fine on Linux. But as you say,
they’re not included in the monolithic blob of code that is the base
*BSD system.

Linux development has traditionally been much more modular, with
distros made up of a much wider variety of pieces. So there has been
plenty of time to knock off most of the rough edges, such that those
pieces fit much more seamlessly together.

Also:

Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.

No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix. There's no
longer any AT&T code in it.

So it is in fact no longer “derived from” AT&T Unix -- the lawsuit saw
to that. Which means my point stands: BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux
is.

Linux is a clean sheet reimplementation. Arguably both have diverged
from AT&T's source code, but BSD was a piecemeal replacement so kept
the original structure and feel while Linux started from scratch.

Why is it, then that it is so hard to move between BSD variants, if
they all in fact keep “the original structure and feel”?
Distro-hopping is a real, commonplace thing in the Linux world, but it
isn’t so easy to do in the BSD world.

To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
is what you want.

That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any
more. All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
networking stack, service management, security modules and
privilege isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now,
while the BSD folks try to figure out how to port some small part
of it to their aging platform.

If your stack is Kubenetes + Docker + systemd, agreed. If your stack
is plain nginx + DB then FreeBSD is still an contender. Albeit an increasingly niche one as everyone moves towards the former.

There’s a lot more to Linux deployments than the above pieces. There
is in fact a greater variety of pieces that you can use on Linux, than
on BSD.

Consider how the BSD world has been trying to come up with its own
equivalents to things like Docker, systemd, and also Wayland.

It sounds like the writer took some memes and ran with them, without
actually knowing too much about what people do for real nowadays.

But that article is a first-hand account of trying to set up a FreeBSD
system.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On 19 Dec 2025 11:03:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:

The thing is, that's talking about the base system. All the stuff
with display managers and packages and so on aren't the base system.

Interesting. All these pieces work fine on Linux. But as you say,
they’re not included in the monolithic blob of code that is the base
*BSD system.

The base system is not a 'monolithic blob of code', it's a collection of programs just like any other system. It just so happens to all be managed together in one repository.

Linux development has traditionally been much more modular, with
distros made up of a much wider variety of pieces. So there has been
plenty of time to knock off most of the rough edges, such that those
pieces fit much more seamlessly together.

The similarity is more with someone like Debian, who picks upstream projects and makes them work together, sometimes diverging them substantially to fit 'the Debian way'. This is a lot of additional work, on top of the work of
the original software developers. In the BSDs the upstream and the distro
are one and the same, although with BSD the 'distro' is just the base system and not the packages too, which are more like third party repositories on Linux.

Just because Linux is bigger things tend to work better together. Anyone
who has tried to run command line tools on a Mac will have experienced the
same issues - either things work or they don't, in which case somebody needs
to go in and dig out the Mac-specific problem and submit a patch. Any time
you try to follow some build instructions on a Mac written by somebody on
Linux there will usually be points of pain (eg bashisms in shell scripts when your /bin/sh isn't bash), assuming a GNU userland when you are running a BSD userland, etc (BSD make v GNU make, BSD sed v GNU sed, or whatever).

Also:

Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix.

No it isn’t. BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix. There's no
longer any AT&T code in it.

So it is in fact no longer “derived from” AT&T Unix -- the lawsuit saw
to that. Which means my point stands: BSD is no more “Unix” than Linux is.

'Unix' is a concept from 1990s. We are now 30 years on. How we got here is interesting but is mostly irrelevant now. You can still get Unix
certification if for some reason you want that (Mac OS is Unix certified).
Two Linux distros (Inspur's K-UX and Huawei's EulerOS) previously were certified but that has lapsed. I'm not sure why they went to the trouble.

Linux is a clean sheet reimplementation. Arguably both have diverged
from AT&T's source code, but BSD was a piecemeal replacement so kept
the original structure and feel while Linux started from scratch.

Why is it, then that it is so hard to move between BSD variants, if
they all in fact keep “the original structure and feel”?
Distro-hopping is a real, commonplace thing in the Linux world, but it isn’t so easy to do in the BSD world.

The point of divergence was 30-35 years ago. That's a lot of time for divergent evolution. Meanwhile Linux distros are generally rely on the same underlying projects (eg GNU tools) which haven't diverged because they're
still a single project.

In the analogy, if Tesla and VW make everything in house, their parts design would be customised to their vehicles such that you can't swap parts between brands. But if Ford and GM share a parts supplier then it's more likely the part can be swapped from a Ford vehicle to a GM vehicle because the supplier uses the same attachment or connector for both.

To that end, FreeBSD (and most of the BSDs) make for amazing
server operating systems. If you were to ask any long-in-the-tooth
geeks about server operating systems, they'd likely say that BSD
is what you want.

That may have been true 20 or more years ago, but it isn’t any
more. All the essential server-oriented functionality (e.g. modern
networking stack, service management, security modules and
privilege isolation) is primarily being developed for Linux now,
while the BSD folks try to figure out how to port some small part
of it to their aging platform.

If your stack is Kubenetes + Docker + systemd, agreed. If your stack
is plain nginx + DB then FreeBSD is still an contender. Albeit an increasingly niche one as everyone moves towards the former.

There’s a lot more to Linux deployments than the above pieces. There
is in fact a greater variety of pieces that you can use on Linux, than
on BSD.

Consider how the BSD world has been trying to come up with its own equivalents to things like Docker, systemd, and also Wayland.

Those are mostly because some feature gets added to the Linux kernel, then
the systemd folks use it, and Docker on top of that. They are not
interested in compatibility with non-Linux systems. To keep up, BSD has to implement the same feature the same way, even if they already have a better solution.

BSDs have had jails for decades, but suddenly Docker is the new hotness. Because jails aren't piece-for-piece identical to Docker (they were invented first, so that's impossible), you can't just drop in a jail into a Docker pipeline. That means the BSD has to implement its own Docker clone, ie is always playing catchup.

If you were starting from scratch using BSD you'd start with the jail as
your building block rather than a Docker container. You'd end up with something similar but the tooling would be different. But because there is
not the ecosystem around jails that there has latterly developed around
Docker, you'd end up doing more work yourself.

In a pragmatic world where you just want to get the job done, the Linux ecosystem is clearly better. On a technical level there is not so much difference.

It sounds like the writer took some memes and ran with them, without actually knowing too much about what people do for real nowadays.

But that article is a first-hand account of trying to set up a FreeBSD system.

The author repeats an internet meme: 'FreeBSD is rock solid' and then
proceeds to use it not in the way that people mean by that, while still repeating the meme: "However, any time I have a situation where stability is absolutely key, you can bet FreeBSD will be my first choice.".

In their account the meme is self-evidently not true (things crashed or
didn't work) yet they repeat it as a mantra. And despite that they show no evidence of ever getting to the point of a system that "you can absolutely
rely on", which means they are just repeating what they've been told rather than any experience they have validated the statement for themselves.

Theo
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

The thing is, that's talking about the base system. All the stuff with >display managers and packages and so on aren't the base system. That's more >like the random stuff you bought on Amazon to bolt on to your car - the >manufacturer does not have any say in their engineering or making them work >well together.

Indeed.

And gnome is pretty precarious under Linux in spite of a huge amount of
effort being expended on it. It's fine if you want everything completely default, but if you want any changes then things start going wrong. And if they didn't go wrong today, they will tomorrow when you install the mandatory update because the way you make that change is different now.

If you can stay within the base system (or a few limited services on top of >it) you'll be ok. If you stray off-piste into too much third party stuff >it's only as good as the third party makes it - and often that third party
is not interested in FreeBSD.

BSD pretty much follows the Unix philosophy of making everything as
modular as possible, and using human-readable text files for everything.
Linux on the other hand has become very bloated and very non-modular in
recent years. A lot of Linux distributions seem to expect that people
will use the gui for everything, and BSD treats the gui as kind of an afterthought, which I think is a good thing.

FreeBSD derives from BSD which derived from AT&T Unix. There's no longer
any AT&T code in it. Linux is a clean sheet reimplementation. Arguably
both have diverged from AT&T's source code, but BSD was a piecemeal >replacement so kept the original structure and feel while Linux started from >scratch.

This is true, and the argument can be made that Linux has devolved very
far from the Unix philosophy, while the BSD variants have mostly kept to
the Unix philosophy.

As a long-time proponent of the Unix philosophy ever since I was forced to leave RSX-11 for v7, this makes me much more of a BSD fan than a Linux fan.

Most often I pick the OS for the applications... and when the applications
I want to use are the Software Tools kit as they most often are, I will
prefer BSD. This is not always the case, though.

If your stack is Kubenetes + Docker + systemd, agreed. If your stack is >plain nginx + DB then FreeBSD is still an contender. Albeit an increasingly >niche one as everyone moves towards the former.

There is nothing more horrible and hellish that I could imagine than being wrapped up inside Kubernetes + Docker + systemd. I agree that everyone is moving in that direction and as someone who cares about computers actually being reliable I find this terrifying.

It sounds like the writer took some memes and ran with them, without
actually knowing too much about what people do for real nowadays.

What people do for real is mostly wait for updates. And then waste time
fixing things that the updates broke. Actually get work done with computers? That's not in the requirements definition anymore.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:20:04 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:

And gnome is pretty precarious under Linux in spite of a huge amount
of effort being expended on it. It's fine if you want everything
completely default, but if you want any changes then things start
going wrong. And if they didn't go wrong today, they will tomorrow
when you install the mandatory update because the way you make that
change is different now.

GNOME is not designed to be very customizable: you are supposed to use
it as designed.

If you want a customizable UI, there are other more versatile options,
like KDE Plasma.

BSD pretty much follows the Unix philosophy of making everything as
modular as possible ...

It’s the opposite, really. Linux distros are made out of lots of
modular pieces, while BSDs are constructed out of large, monolithic
blobs of code.

... the argument can be made that Linux has devolved very far from
the Unix philosophy, while the BSD variants have mostly kept to the
Unix philosophy.

If you are thinking of the hoary old cliché of “do one thing and do it well”, note that the modular Linux kernel is a much closer adherent of
the “Unix philosophy” than any BSD can manage.

There is nothing more horrible and hellish that I could imagine than
being wrapped up inside Kubernetes + Docker + systemd. I agree that
everyone is moving in that direction and as someone who cares about
computers actually being reliable I find this terrifying.

Even the BSDs, it seems, want to move in that direction.

Thankfully, on Linux itself, because of its modularity, you have many
other options besides that particular stack.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 20 Dec 2025 17:40:31 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On 19 Dec 2025 11:03:34 +0000 (GMT), Theo wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Kind of amusing to read this comparison of FreeBSD with Linux
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-will-challenge-your-skills-and-make-you-learn-along-the-way/>:

The thing is, that's talking about the base system. All the stuff
with display managers and packages and so on aren't the base
system.

Interesting. All these pieces work fine on Linux. But as you say,
they’re not included in the monolithic blob of code that is the
base *BSD system.

The base system is not a 'monolithic blob of code', it's a
collection of programs just like any other system. It just so
happens to all be managed together in one repository.

That’s not the way to do modular development. This is why Linux
distros can achieve greater modularity than the BSDs can manage.

The similarity is more with someone like Debian, who picks upstream
projects and makes them work together, sometimes diverging them
substantially to fit 'the Debian way'. This is a lot of additional
work, on top of the work of the original software developers.

Can you give some examples of this? From what I see of Debian
packaging, they are careful to separate their own patches, where they
need them, from upstream. Besides which, Debian must be doing
something right, given it is probably the single most popular base
distro from which others create their own offshoots.

In the BSDs the upstream and the distro are one and the same,
although with BSD the 'distro' is just the base system and not the
packages too, which are more like third party repositories on Linux.

Unfortunately there seems to be no discipline about divergence between different BSD variants. This is what leads to fragmentation among
those variants, whereas there are something like 50-100 times as many
Linux distros offering much smoother interchangeability.

Just because Linux is bigger things tend to work better together.
Anyone who has tried to run command line tools on a Mac will have
experienced the same issues - either things work or they don't, in
which case somebody needs to go in and dig out the Mac-specific
problem and submit a patch.

The problem is Apple itself is the one diverging from the “Unix philosophy”. It has legally licensed the trademark, but when even
someone like “Mr Unix” himself, Ken Thompson of Bell Labs, has decided
he doesn’t want to use what Apple tries to pass for “Unix” any more,
and prefers Linux nowadays, that should be telling you something.

'Unix' is a concept from 1990s.

What does that mean for the “Unix philosophy” that you mentioned
above?

Why is it, then that it is so hard to move between BSD variants, if
they all in fact keep “the original structure and feel”?
Distro-hopping is a real, commonplace thing in the Linux world, but
it isn’t so easy to do in the BSD world.

The point of divergence was 30-35 years ago. That's a lot of time
for divergent evolution. Meanwhile Linux distros are generally rely
on the same underlying projects (eg GNU tools) which haven't
diverged because they're still a single project.

But the Linux kernel is from that time, too. And the GNU project is
even older than that, more like 40 years old. By your argument, based
purely on timing, this “divergence” into incompatibility should have afflicted the Linux world just as much as it has the BSD world. But it hasn’t.

In the analogy, if Tesla and VW make everything in house, their
parts design would be customised to their vehicles such that you
can't swap parts between brands. But if Ford and GM share a parts
supplier then it's more likely the part can be swapped from a Ford
vehicle to a GM vehicle because the supplier uses the same
attachment or connector for both.

So the BSDs suffer from “Not Invented Here” Syndrome, is that it?

Consider how the BSD world has been trying to come up with its own
equivalents to things like Docker, systemd, and also Wayland.

Those are mostly because some feature gets added to the Linux
kernel, then the systemd folks use it, and Docker on top of that.
They are not interested in compatibility with non-Linux systems. To
keep up, BSD has to implement the same feature the same way, even if
they already have a better solution.

If they have a better solution, why wouldn’t their own users (like
you) stick to that?

BSDs have had jails for decades, but suddenly Docker is the new
hotness.

Docker is just one implementation of containers on Linux. Remember
that “Docker” and “containers” are not primitives offered up by the Linux per se: they are all built out of lower-level pieces, like
namespaces and cgroups.

If you were starting from scratch using BSD you'd start with the
jail as your building block rather than a Docker container.

Why doesn’t somebody do that, then?

In a pragmatic world where you just want to get the job done, the
Linux ecosystem is clearly better.

How did it get that way? What were the BSDs doing in the meantime?
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:32:25 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

ZFS is a memory hog, though, isn’t it

Not really when compared to e.g. modern web browsers. IIRC the rule
of thumb with ZFS is to have at least 1GB of RAM for each TB of
storage. My old file/media server had 4.5TB of storage and 4GB of RAM
and worked fine. The new one has 6TB of storage and 16GB of RAM.
(Thankfully purchased months ago before RAM prices skyrocketed.)

Best confined to a dedicated storage
appliance, not something you want to run on a general-purpose machine.

My file/media server is effectively a dedicated "appliance" although
I built it myself instead of buying something off-the-shelf. However,
I believe plenty of people use FreeBSD with ZFS as a general purpose desktop/laptop system.

Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro, but
it will give you btrfs instead.

No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has to
be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.
--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:38:24 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro,
but it will give you btrfs instead.

No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has
to be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.

Guess who controls the licensing of ZFS?
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:38:24 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro,
but it will give you btrfs instead.

No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has
to be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.

Guess who controls the licensing of ZFS?

Indeed, although the situation is more complicated than that simple
phrasing implies.

When Sun open-sourced Solaris (including the original ZFS) they created
their own licence for it, and the reason ZFS can't be included in the
Linux kernel is that Sun's licence is incompatible with the GPLv2
licence used for Linux.

When Oracle bought Sun they took Solaris back to being closed source
and the community forked the OpenSolaris code as Illumos and the ZFS
code as OpenZFS. Since ownership of the original code transferred
to Oracle, only they could change it to a different licence (e.g. one compatible with GPLv2), which I suppose could be considered a form of
control over the OpenZFS licensing, but equally they can't prevent
OpenZFS (or Illumos) from being developed and distributed under the
original Sun licence.

At least, that's how I understand the current situation (IANAL).
--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:38:44 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:38:24 +0000, Geoff Clare wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

Fun fact: even Oracle will not offer ZFS on its own Linux distro,
but it will give you btrfs instead.

No doubt because of the licensing issue that is the reason ZFS has
to be installed via dkms on Linux instead of being native.

Guess who controls the licensing of ZFS?

Indeed, although the situation is more complicated than that simple
phrasing implies.

Oracle control the copyright on (original) ZFS. They own it. They can
license it under any terms they wish. They can offer it with their own
Linux distro if they wish. But they can’t, or won’t. But they will
include btrfs.

The only Oracle product that includes ZFS, that I know of, is Solaris.
Which has been in “legacy maintenance” state for some decades now.

Vote of confidence in the quality of your own product? They have heard
of it!
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

The only Oracle product that includes ZFS, that I know of, is Solaris.
Which has been in “legacy maintenance” state for some decades now.

Only seven years actually. They made significant updates to Solaris
between 11.3 and 11.4 in order to get 11.4 certified to UNIX V7 in
2018 (and they were the first vendor to certify - AIX was two years
later).
--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Jack Wallen is at it again <https://www.zdnet.com/article/freebsd-vs-slackware/>, still trying to
claim that

... FreeBSD is incredibly stable. I would go so far as to say that
it's the most stable operating system available.

This in spite of the problems he had with the install before!

He also repeats the old myth

Because FreeBSD is a descendant of the original AT&T UNIX code,
you can bet it inherited the stability of its predecessor.

None of the BSDs have *any* AT&T Unix code in them. AT&T filed an
actual lawsuit to see to that.

Interesting how he sees an inflexible, monolithic development model
as an advantage:

With Linux, the kernel is developed by one team, userland
utilities are developed by other teams, libraries are developed by
yet another, and documentation is created and maintained by
another. FreeBSD, on the other hand, does all of that via the same
team. What this does is create a highly stable, unified design
that is rock-solid and reliable in ways most other operating
systems can't touch.

If you want to argue age:

The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993, which means it
has had a long time to mature.

then it’s worth noting that the first version of Linux was released
two years prior to that, so it has had an even longer time to mature.

Features that he somehow tries to suggest are FreeBSD-specific:

• Native support for an advanced, fault-tolerant ZFS file system
with pooled storage, snapshots, and data integrity.
• Lightweight containerization for running isolated services to
improve security and resource management beyond the traditional
chroot found in Linux.
• A built-in, efficient type-2 hypervisor for virtualization.
• Highly optimized TCP/IP stack, robust tools, and support for
modern protocols, perfect for network-intensive applications.
• ACLs, MAC frameworks (TrustedBSD), auditing, and encryption (GELI).

All of these have Linux equivalents that are as good or better.
Remember that Linux invented containerization. And I would say its
networking stack has long left the BSDs in the dust.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

He also repeats the old myth

Because FreeBSD is a descendant of the original AT&T UNIX code,
you can bet it inherited the stability of its predecessor.

None of the BSDs have *any* AT&T Unix code in them. AT&T filed an
actual lawsuit to see to that.

Counterexample: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/contrib/one-true-awk/awk.h

The copyright notice says 'Lucent' but that's an AT&T spinoff,
presumably the one that ended up owning that version of awk when they
did the split.

It’s not a recent addition, either. The version in 4.4BSDLite2, https://github.com/sergev/4.4BSD-Lite2/blob/master/usr/src/contrib/awk.research/awk.h,
has an explicit AT&T copyright.

Compare
with https://github.com/calmsacibis995/svr4-src/blob/main/cmd/awk/awk.h,
the same file in SVR4, and the relationship is obvious.
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <wwveco3axh8.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

He also repeats the old myth

Because FreeBSD is a descendant of the original AT&T UNIX code,
you can bet it inherited the stability of its predecessor.

None of the BSDs have *any* AT&T Unix code in them. AT&T filed an
actual lawsuit to see to that.

Counterexample: >https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/contrib/one-true-awk/awk.h

The copyright notice says 'Lucent' but that's an AT&T spinoff,
presumably the one that ended up owning that version of awk when they
did the split.

It’s not a recent addition, either. The version in 4.4BSDLite2, >https://github.com/sergev/4.4BSD-Lite2/blob/master/usr/src/contrib/awk.research/awk.h,
has an explicit AT&T copyright.

Compare
with https://github.com/calmsacibis995/svr4-src/blob/main/cmd/awk/awk.h,
the same file in SVR4, and the relationship is obvious.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

The one true awk has its own license. Yes, it was from Unix awk, but
there's no AT&T kernel code in FreeBSD.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) writes:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

He also repeats the old myth

Because FreeBSD is a descendant of the original AT&T UNIX code,
you can bet it inherited the stability of its predecessor.

None of the BSDs have *any* AT&T Unix code in them. AT&T filed an
actual lawsuit to see to that.

Counterexample: >>https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/contrib/one-true-awk/awk.h >>
The copyright notice says 'Lucent' but that's an AT&T spinoff,
presumably the one that ended up owning that version of awk when they
did the split.

It’s not a recent addition, either. The version in 4.4BSDLite2, >>https://github.com/sergev/4.4BSD-Lite2/blob/master/usr/src/contrib/awk.research/awk.h,
has an explicit AT&T copyright.

Compare
with https://github.com/calmsacibis995/svr4-src/blob/main/cmd/awk/awk.h, >>the same file in SVR4, and the relationship is obvious.

The one true awk has its own license. Yes, it was from Unix awk, but
there's no AT&T kernel code in FreeBSD.

How about https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/sys/contrib/openzfs/module/os/freebsd/spl/spl_uio.c#L27
then?
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

I asserted:

The one true awk has its own license. Yes, it was from Unix awk, but
there's no AT&T kernel code in FreeBSD.

How about >https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/sys/contrib/openzfs/module/os/freebsd/spl/spl_uio.c#L27
then?

Harumph. I should not have been so glib. "There shouldn't be AT&T code
in FreeBSD" would have been better.

That code came from Sun, who paid <someone> to be able to release
Solaris as open source. So that's what you're seeing. It's part
of ZFS, which Sun developed originally.

I suspect that the AT&T copyright notices are simply copy/paste from
whatever file the Sun engineers copied before turning the file into
part of ZFS.

In any case, I doubt that there's anything illegal there. Any further questions should be taken up with the FreeBSD people.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

How is ZFS fragile and messy in Linux, please? I only run it on my two
file servers, but no issues in the last decade or so. Haven't bothered
with it as root FS though.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Anssi Saari wrote:

Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

How is ZFS fragile and messy in Linux, please? I only run it on my two
file servers, but no issues in the last decade or so. Haven't bothered
with it as root FS though.

Every time you upgrade the kernel there is a chance that the ZFS dkms
install will fail.

I have ZFS on an external SSD that I use to back up the Linux system on
my work laptop. (Being a work machine, I don't back it up to my
personal file server.) I got so fed up with dkms install failures that
I actually resorted to ZFS-fuse and took the performance hit (since it
didn't matter too much if the backup took longer).

Reports of ZFS dkms problems on Linux are easy to find...

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=280416

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1539311/downgrade-kernel-to-install-zfs-dkms

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=402097

https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/cannot-install-zfs/62770

That last one includes an answer that says, "In general, when using zfs
you are better off using the LTS kernel"

That's all well and good if your hardware is supported by an LTS
kernel, but if you need a newer kernel then you run a significant risk
of dkms install failures (while you wait for a new enough LTS kernel).
--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:

A major exception to that is ZFS: native and very dependable in
FreeBSD (and works great as the root filesystem), but a horribly
fragile dkms mess in Linux.

How is ZFS fragile and messy in Linux, please? I only run it on my two
file servers, but no issues in the last decade or so. Haven't bothered
with it as root FS though.

It is an "out of kernel" blob of code. So any kernel change /could/
break it (and the kernel developers won't help fix the breakage because
it is "out of kernel" code.

So fragile -- yes, any kernel upgrade could cause ZFS to not compile so
you'd have no ZFS until you download the updated ZFS compatible with
the new kernel.

Mess -- maybe a bit of over statement there. It's no more a mess than
any other "out of kernel" driver that has to be patched to keep up with internal kernel changes.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

It is an "out of kernel" blob of code. So any kernel change /could/
break it (and the kernel developers won't help fix the breakage because
it is "out of kernel" code.

So fragile -- yes, any kernel upgrade could cause ZFS to not compile so you'd have no ZFS until you download the updated ZFS compatible with
the new kernel.

If one uses a little caution and checks ZFS compatibility before
updating the kernel then this is avoided.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <sm0tswfp2ok.fsf@lakka.kapsi.fi>,
Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

It is an "out of kernel" blob of code. So any kernel change /could/
break it (and the kernel developers won't help fix the breakage because
it is "out of kernel" code.

So fragile -- yes, any kernel upgrade could cause ZFS to not compile so
you'd have no ZFS until you download the updated ZFS compatible with
the new kernel.

If one uses a little caution and checks ZFS compatibility before
updating the kernel then this is avoided.

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

- Dan C.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <10ktbbd$ge1$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

I don't use ZFS, so maybe your question is what's so special
about the combination of ZFS and Linux?

But if you're really asking the general question, I can tell you:

1. The user land is usually based on the GNU tools: No arbitrary limits applies. I have no idea if there are still fixed limits in
the BSD user land.

2. These days, just about *everything* just works, without fuss or muss.

- Install on even fairly new hardware goes smoothly
- Installers are usually graphical
- One's choice of GUI environments (I use Ubuntu Mate)
- Software updates (at least on Ubuntu) work super smoothly
- Installing additional software is trivial

3. Linux performs quite well, and certainly better than Windows
(yeah, not the comparison).

I don't remember which BSD I recently tried to bring up in a VM
(maybe FreeBSD) but installation was like jumping back 40 years
in time to the ASCII-art spinning wheel. It didn't even come up
with a GUI, or else it was X with TWM and no menus, or something
ridiculous like that.

I'll agree. A lot of it is familiarity, but also the fact that I see no compelling reason to switch. Why climb a brand new learning curve
just to get to the same point I'm already at?

I have real work to get done, I don't need to spend weeks learning
how BSD does the same thing I already know how to do.

4. The elephant in the room: Everybody else is on Linux, which
means if I want something commercial that only runs on Linux, I
can get it. Not so on *BSD.

I've been using Linux as my daily driver since mid-1997. It's done
real well for me. Why switch to something that I don't see is
better?
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 22 Jan 2026 18:51:02 GMT, Aharon Robbins wrote:

I have real work to get done, I don't need to spend weeks learning
how BSD does the same thing I already know how to do.

Here’s another point: different BSDs do things differently --
different as in right down to the kernel level.

Compare: 300-over Linux distros on the one hand, versus less than half
a dozen BSD variants on the other. One offers a breathtaking, even
bewildering, level of variety of choice, with minimal interoperability
issues -- i.e. minimal fragmentation. The other offers much less
variety of choice, at the cost of much more fragmentation.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2026-01-22, Aharon Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

In article <10ktbbd$ge1$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

I don't use ZFS, so maybe your question is what's so special
about the combination of ZFS and Linux?

But if you're really asking the general question, I can tell you:

1. The user land is usually based on the GNU tools: No arbitrary limits applies. I have no idea if there are still fixed limits in
the BSD user land.

2. These days, just about *everything* just works, without fuss or muss.

- Install on even fairly new hardware goes smoothly
- Installers are usually graphical
- One's choice of GUI environments (I use Ubuntu Mate)
- Software updates (at least on Ubuntu) work super smoothly
- Installing additional software is trivial

3. Linux performs quite well, and certainly better than Windows
(yeah, not the comparison).

I don't remember which BSD I recently tried to bring up in a VM
(maybe FreeBSD) but installation was like jumping back 40 years
in time to the ASCII-art spinning wheel. It didn't even come up
with a GUI, or else it was X with TWM and no menus, or something
ridiculous like that.

I'll agree. A lot of it is familiarity, but also the fact that I see no compelling reason to switch. Why climb a brand new learning curve
just to get to the same point I'm already at?

I have real work to get done, I don't need to spend weeks learning
how BSD does the same thing I already know how to do.

4. The elephant in the room: Everybody else is on Linux, which
means if I want something commercial that only runs on Linux, I
can get it. Not so on *BSD.

I've been using Linux as my daily driver since mid-1997. It's done
real well for me. Why switch to something that I don't see is
better?

Yes, Linux is becoming the new Windows - if you want something to
"just work", rather than become a project in itself.

Unfortunately there are still at least two major factions in the
Linux world, the debian/Ubuntu-like and the RedHat/Fedora-like,
and if your chosen tool was developed by fans of one camp you're
on a hiding to nothing trying to use it on the rival distribution.

Yes, some things really are truly portable, but not everything,
and the higher up the functionality-stack you go the less portable
it seems to be - understandably.

Fortunately I have a nice big virtualisation host, so deploying
a VM of the appropriate flavour for a tool isn't such a big deal
(CentOS, Alpine, Ubuntu, Windows, whatever).
--
Ian

"Tamahome!!!" - "Miaka!!!"
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <69727196$0$666$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>,
Aharon Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

In article <10ktbbd$ge1$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

I don't use ZFS, so maybe your question is what's so special
about the combination of ZFS and Linux?

Yes, it was specifically about Linux and ZFS.

I do have a few follow-ups about some of your comments; inline.

But if you're really asking the general question, I can tell you:

1. The user land is usually based on the GNU tools: No arbitrary limits >applies. I have no idea if there are still fixed limits in
the BSD user land.

My sense is that, at this point, pretty much all of these have
been removed. Having seen the source for many of the GNU tools,
I'd put the BSD tools somewhat above them in terms of quality
and polish. I would counter that most have useful man pages,
while some GNU tools seem to still rely on `info` for their
primary documentation.

2. These days, just about *everything* just works, without fuss or muss.

- Install on even fairly new hardware goes smoothly
- Installers are usually graphical
- One's choice of GUI environments (I use Ubuntu Mate)
- Software updates (at least on Ubuntu) work super smoothly
- Installing additional software is trivial

I don't have many problems installing things on FreeBSD, it does
support multiple desktop environments, and installation of third
party software is trivial. In the next release, the base system
will be changed to use the package management system, so updates
to the base system will use the same mechanism as third party
software.

The graphical installer thing is kind of an odd one to me; I've
heard this several times before. I get that the TUI may not be
to everyone's taste, but surely you don't install the OS all the
time?

On the other hand, look at the installation process for (say)
Arch. Not only is it non-graphical, it's extremely manual. And
I'm often surprised at how many things are missing from from
either the Pacman or AUR repos: the `oo2c` compiler came up in comp.lang.oberong the other day; it wasn't on my Arch system,
but worked just fine on FreeBSD.

3. Linux performs quite well, and certainly better than Windows
(yeah, not the comparison).

I think performance of BSD relative to Linux is quite good,
though it likely depends heavily on what one is doing. Netflix
pushes hundreds of gigabits through the FreeBSD networking stack
on a single system; but UFS always "felt" slower than ext2
because of the way they handled metadata updates; on the flip
side it didn't tend to lose my data. :-)

I don't remember which BSD I recently tried to bring up in a VM
(maybe FreeBSD) but installation was like jumping back 40 years
in time to the ASCII-art spinning wheel. It didn't even come up
with a GUI, or else it was X with TWM and no menus, or something
ridiculous like that.

I'll agree. A lot of it is familiarity, but also the fact that I see no >compelling reason to switch. Why climb a brand new learning curve
just to get to the same point I'm already at?

Well, in this specific case, it was because ZFS is maintained
out of tree, and a kernel update could break the filesystem. If
the system in question is, say, an NFS server or something, it
seems unecessarily risky to use ZFS on Linux just to run Linux.

I have real work to get done, I don't need to spend weeks learning
how BSD does the same thing I already know how to do.

Would it really be weeks, though?

4. The elephant in the room: Everybody else is on Linux, which
means if I want something commercial that only runs on Linux, I
can get it. Not so on *BSD.

That's why I'm sitting in front of a Mac. :-D Note this is
also the strongest argument for Windows.

This is admittedly a weak area in the BSD ecosystem, but I would
counter that it's also somewhat niche.

The BSDs often have Linux compat layers for these use cases,
though I confess I've never used them and don't know how well
they would fare for complex use cases.

It bears point out, however, that ironically we're talking about
this because of software that's native and integrated into
FreeBSD, but requires out-of-tree shenanigans that are fragile
on Linux. This is, perhaps, a rare case of something that runs
natively on FreeBSD, but requires hacks to run on Linux, rather
than software native to Linux that requires hacks on FreeBSD.

I've been using Linux as my daily driver since mid-1997. It's done
real well for me. Why switch to something that I don't see is
better?

To be clear, I'm not necessarily saying that you should.

But if you wanted to do something esoteric (like run ZFS on
Linux, which I consider mildly esoteric) that works better on
BSD, one must ask, why try to force that square peg into a
round hole? Linux has perfectly adequate in-tree filesystems
that perform well and are robust; on the other hand, as pointed
out, a kernel update could break your system pretty
spectacularly; workarounds exist, sure, but why open yourself up
to that possibility if you don't have to? I mean, if it's just
as a learn exercise, then ok...but for production systems? I'm
not sure that's a great idea.

There's also the matter that the rate of change on Linux is high
and distros change things in seemingly gratuitous ways. systemd
vs system V-style init vs /etc/rc and inittab, and so on are the
obvious examples, but I would point to things like the `ip`
command replacing `ifconfig` and `ss` replacing `netstat` as
more subtle examples.

I think the first time I installed Linux was in 1993 (or perhaps
early 1994), and at the time it reminded me of SunOS; not when I
look at it, it's nothing like that at all. I think we should
agree that the Linux you ran in 1997 just isn't the same Linux
as today, and we are all constantly changing the way we do
things as Linux evolves. This isn't bad per se, but it does
weaken the argument about having to relearn things, though
granted it happens in a much more incremental, ship of Thesius
kind of way. Nevermind that plethora of distributions that all
do things slightly differently (though in fairness there seem to
be only a few family strains...).

There's also the matter of Linux being a near monoculture. Just
as with biological systems, these are susceptible to all sorts
of external dangers, so it is with software. Diversity in terms
of the systems we run produces, I think, more robust and higher
quality software. My own experience is that when I write
software that make sure runs across a variety of different
systems (Linux, *BSD, macOS, illumos...) the result tends to be
higher-quality than if I only run it on any one of those.

I suppose it's a matter of balancing the benefits from the
network effects one takes advnatage of when one uses Linux with
the possibility of instability when one also chooses to use ZFS
or something like it. Which is more important is, of course, an
individual (or organization) question and there's no universal
answer. But I suspect, things like the installer aside, and of
course systemd, BSD and Linux are a lot closer than most people
expect.

- Dan C.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:13:35 -0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:

Yes, Linux is becoming the new Windows - if you want something to
"just work", rather than become a project in itself.

The difference is, that was never true of Windows: it’s just that
people had long experience with an ever-growing collection of voodoo/black-magic tricks (e.g. registry edits) to get things working.

Unfortunately there are still at least two major factions in the
Linux world, the debian/Ubuntu-like and the RedHat/Fedora-like, and
if your chosen tool was developed by fans of one camp you're on a
hiding to nothing trying to use it on the rival distribution.

Most command-line/scripting tools are very much in common. The package
managers may be different, but that’s not a major stumbling block.

Yes, some things really are truly portable, but not everything, and
the higher up the functionality-stack you go the less portable it
seems to be - understandably.

Can you give examples of such interoperability issues, other than
perhaps GUI-based ones?
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2026-01-23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:13:35 -0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:

Yes, Linux is becoming the new Windows - if you want something to
"just work", rather than become a project in itself.

The difference is, that was never true of Windows: it’s just that
people had long experience with an ever-growing collection of voodoo/black-magic tricks (e.g. registry edits) to get things working.

For the large part, it was (and mostly still is). And where hacks were
needed they were already known.

Unfortunately there are still at least two major factions in the
Linux world, the debian/Ubuntu-like and the RedHat/Fedora-like, and
if your chosen tool was developed by fans of one camp you're on a
hiding to nothing trying to use it on the rival distribution.

Most command-line/scripting tools are very much in common. The package managers may be different, but that’s not a major stumbling block.

Yes, some things really are truly portable, but not everything, and
the higher up the functionality-stack you go the less portable it
seems to be - understandably.

Can you give examples of such interoperability issues, other than
perhaps GUI-based ones?

I'm talking about high-end applications, e.g. 3D modelling software,
video editing, media servers. At this level I just want to launch
the installer, click "yes" "yes" "yes", then get on learning / using
the tool, not spending a day tracking down some obscure dependency,
or hacking the config files because the binaries are in /usr/bin
instead of /opt/thing/bin or whatever.
--
Ian

"Tamahome!!!" - "Miaka!!!"
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

Third party commercial applications will run on it. Matlab will not
run on BSD unfortunately.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 08:49:01 -0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:

On 2026-01-23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Can you give examples of such interoperability issues, other than
perhaps GUI-based ones?

I'm talking about high-end applications, e.g. 3D modelling software,
video editing, media servers. At this level I just want to launch
the installer, click "yes" "yes" "yes", then get on learning / using
the tool ...

Such things are usually available in the package repos: no need to hunt
down installers from third-party sites, just select from the package
manager, click “Install” and go.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2026-01-24, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 08:49:01 -0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:

On 2026-01-23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Can you give examples of such interoperability issues, other than
perhaps GUI-based ones?

I'm talking about high-end applications, e.g. 3D modelling software,
video editing, media servers. At this level I just want to launch
the installer, click "yes" "yes" "yes", then get on learning / using
the tool ...

Such things are usually available in the package repos: no need to hunt
down installers from third-party sites, just select from the package
manager, click “Install” and go.

"Usually". Experience says otherwise.
--
Ian

"Tamahome!!!" - "Miaka!!!"
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 22.01.2026 18:51 Uhr Aharon Robbins wrote:

I don't remember which BSD I recently tried to bring up in a VM
(maybe FreeBSD) but installation was like jumping back 40 years
in time to the ASCII-art spinning wheel. It didn't even come up
with a GUI, or else it was X with TWM and no menus, or something
ridiculous like that.

The FreeBSD setup is indeed tui-only. After setup, you can install X11
and desktops like KDE if you like.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1769104262muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 11:02:52 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

The FreeBSD setup is indeed tui-only. After setup, you can install
X11 and desktops like KDE if you like.

KDE is moving to drop support for X11, as I understand it.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 08:50:21 -0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:

On 2026-01-24, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 08:49:01 -0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:

On 2026-01-23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Can you give examples of such interoperability issues, other than
perhaps GUI-based ones?

I'm talking about high-end applications, e.g. 3D modelling
software, video editing, media servers. At this level I just want
to launch the installer, click "yes" "yes" "yes", then get on
learning / using the tool ...

Such things are usually available in the package repos: no need to
hunt down installers from third-party sites, just select from the
package manager, click “Install” and go.

"Usually". Experience says otherwise.

All the ones you mentioned certainly are.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <10l2pga$i97$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel
_compelled_ to run it?

Third party commercial applications will run on it. Matlab will not
run on BSD unfortunately.

Yeah, I get that. I do wonder whether it would work with the
Linux compat stuff, but really have no idea about that. I
suppose then I would ask, given the requirement to run an
application like Matlab, which implies Linux, why bother with
ZFS?

- Dan C.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <10l8sa1$ft6$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

In article <10l2pga$i97$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel >>>_compelled_ to run it?

Third party commercial applications will run on it. Matlab will not
run on BSD unfortunately.

Yeah, I get that. I do wonder whether it would work with the
Linux compat stuff, but really have no idea about that. I
suppose then I would ask, given the requirement to run an
application like Matlab, which implies Linux, why bother with
ZFS?

I don't need ZFS. There are plenty of other reasons to like BSD.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <10lbjo4$r2n$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

In article <10l8sa1$ft6$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

In article <10l2pga$i97$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why
bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel >>>>_compelled_ to run it?

Third party commercial applications will run on it. Matlab will not
run on BSD unfortunately.

Yeah, I get that. I do wonder whether it would work with the
Linux compat stuff, but really have no idea about that. I
suppose then I would ask, given the requirement to run an
application like Matlab, which implies Linux, why bother with
ZFS?

I don't need ZFS. There are plenty of other reasons to like BSD.

That's fine. This discussion in particular was about ZFS on
Linux, though.

- Dan C.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In article <10ld2k2$5ce$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

In article <10lbjo4$r2n$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

In article <10l8sa1$ft6$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

In article <10l2pga$i97$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

...or you could just run FreeBSD and avoid the whole issue. Why >>>>>bother with Linux? What's so special about it that people feel >>>>>_compelled_ to run it?

Third party commercial applications will run on it. Matlab will not >>>>run on BSD unfortunately.

Yeah, I get that. I do wonder whether it would work with the
Linux compat stuff, but really have no idea about that. I
suppose then I would ask, given the requirement to run an
application like Matlab, which implies Linux, why bother with
ZFS?

I don't need ZFS. There are plenty of other reasons to like BSD.

That's fine. This discussion in particular was about ZFS on
Linux, though.

It did indeed start out that way, yes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 25.01.2026 18:56 Uhr Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 11:02:52 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

The FreeBSD setup is indeed tui-only. After setup, you can install
X11 and desktops like KDE if you like.

KDE is moving to drop support for X11, as I understand it.

IIRC Wayland is also supported on FreeBSD, but I haven't tested it.
--
kind regards
Marco
Send spam to 1769363760muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2