The Move from Linux to FreeBSD

http://nileshgr.com/2013/06/07/the-move-from-linux-to-freebsd

by pmoriarty • 12 years ago

118 95 12 years ago

nileshgr.com

erkose• 12 years ago

Many people are moving from linux to *bsd in protest of systemd.

pmoriarty2• 12 years ago

And for a mature, stable ZFS implementation.

Rovanion• 12 years ago

Which ZFS on Linux is not? I guess it depends on your definition of stable due to the upgrade from libzfs1-2 but the richness of the Debian packaging system is just too good to pass up for me.

johnny22• 12 years ago

kinda funny though.. as you end up with a system that is developed more like systemd is.

pmoriarty2• 12 years ago

Could you elaborate on that?

chronid• 12 years ago

No. This is _bullshit_, and people should really stop saying this.

A lot of components (OpenSSL? GCC? LLVM?) are in that repository merely for convenience but ARE NOT developed on internally (except for patches to make them work, eventually).

This IS NOT the same of "everything developed internally here, from syslog to dhcpcd" mentality of systemd.

lowglow• 12 years ago

That's weird. I haven't kept up with the latest *nix gossip, but isn't the very principle of the system is that it is open and fully configurable/modular/extensible? What does it really matter in the end what system you use if you can make whatever system your own? (serious question)

hobofan• 12 years ago

It matters because if it "invades" your distribution of choice. Imagine you've been useing a distro for years and grown to love it and now systemd is being forced upon you of you make the next major upgrade.

Right now it isn't really that bleak, because some distros still give you a choice, but people are worried that the choice will be sacrificed in favor of easier maintanability in the future.

musername• 12 years ago

yeah, like anyone has the time and knowledge to do it. A simple apt-get won't cut it, I guess.

gaius• 12 years ago

Those of us who remember SMF from a decade or more ago, weep at how systemd is a poor shadow of it, dressed up as "progress".

SFjulie1• 12 years ago

no. And I hope not. I moved to FBSD for positive reeasons: ipfilters and stuff vs packetfilter and ezjails. It makes you feel linux still cool, but you want that simplicity and power back (jails vs VM).

I must admit shellshock and last security flaws also made me aware of my love for bloatwares. I find it sane to question my former choices.

byuu• 12 years ago

Many people are leaving Linux because of systemd (among other issues); but are choosing FreeBSD because of ZFS, pf, geli, jails, dtrace, bhyve, etc. (I haven't used the latter two myself yet, but the rest are fantastic.)

In the end I've gained more than I lost, it's just that a catalyst was needed to get past the inertia of changing operating systems again.

riquito• 12 years ago

Many people are leaving Linux because of systemd

Do you have any number to justify this statement?

I also note that all the tools you mentioned are of interest mostly in a server context (of course if you manage servers you will happily use them on your desktop too).

keithpeter3• 12 years ago

Quote from OA;

"In layman's terms, the hardware interface is called Linux, while the rest of the part: the shell, core tools, etc are GNU.It's a piece from there, another from somewhere else and merging the whole thing into one collectively known as GNU/Linux. [...] In FreeBSD, the whole thing is a complete unit."

I think the OA will be quite happy with a mature systemd based GNU/Linux OS. Seems to like complete units.

PS: 'Many' is a hard concept when the OS is freely downloadable and not particularly monitored. One hopes the refugees actually make donations/buy DVDs.

fulafel3• 12 years ago

The TLDR:

The biggest difference was memory usage: "FreeBSD is just too good at managing memory. My server earlier used to consume over 1 GB of memory for running PHP, MySQL and Nginx. Now, it doesn’t even touch 500 MB! It’s always less than 500 MB. Everything is just same, configuration, etc. Only OS changed"

Later in the article, a recount of desktop memory shortage issues under Linux and much improvement under FreeBSD. He even reports single applications like Chromium performing better and with no swapping.

naner• 12 years ago

I'm sure FreeBSD is probably better at memory management than Linux (considering his Desktop issues) but wouldn't it make sense for the OS to nearly max out memory usage as long as applications can make use of it?

LeonidasXIV2• 12 years ago

wouldn't it make sense for the OS to nearly max out memory usage as long as applications can make use of it?

Yes, Linux uses spare memory extensively as caches which can be dumped immediately as applications need the memory for usage.

Unfortunaltely, he didn't mention how he measured memory usage on both OSes.

gerow• 12 years ago

One has to be careful when looking at memory usage to judge these kinds of things, though. Linux has a tendency to use memory unused by applications for its own purposes, because it's not being used anyway and it might as well do something useful with it.

Oftentimes this ends up being something like aggressively caching file data so that it doesn't have to write to disk very often. While this does get labeled as "used" memory, it can very quickly be freed up by the operating system by evicting this cached data back to disk if that memory is needed elsewhere.

This can make Linux appear more memory-hungry, but in actuality a better description might be that Linux is more effectively using the resources at its disposal. I'm not saying that this is what's happening in this case, but it's a possibility.

stevekemp• 12 years ago

Agreed. Compare that with http://www.linuxatemyram.com/

Flow3• 12 years ago

You think Linux is alone in acting like that?

dach90• 12 years ago

The main thing that matters is when I execute a command it runs fast. and OS is fast... As far as I am concerned os could be sending all my free memory to /dev/null. As long as performance and stability stay up; it can do whatever it wants...

xorcist2• 12 years ago

The TL;DR is really: No idea what I'm doing here, so I might as well blog about it.

An application doesn't magically allocate less memory when running under a different kernel. The underlying idea must be that LLVM wins over gcc in a real world scenario, which certainly would be interesting, but there is really nothing to suggest it here.

AlisdairO• 12 years ago

An application doesn't magically allocate less memory when running under a different kernel.

Different default allocator can make a difference, though - FreeBSD defaults to jemalloc iirc.

fulafel3• 12 years ago

It's definitely not a deep technical analysis as it's not written by a kernel engineer, but it's also plausible. VM management and swapping can and do have implementation quality differences on this scale.

The kernel VM is all about heuristics. In a memory pressure situation, it's constantly discarding cached pages that it thinks are better used for other data, making decisions about whether to swap out some data to make room for more cache, etc.

If you remember/look at the history of Linux VM and swap behaviour tuning and algorithms, there have been large improvements and regressions in this area historically.

leeview• 12 years ago

While I respect other people's option for FreeBSD (I tried it several times), in my ~3 years experience using Ubuntu Unity (from 11.04-14.10) I never had low memory or unreasonable swapping (swap is zero 99% of the time I check). My laptop has 3GB of RAM and I was always impressed with how little memory my usual session (1-5 apps + Firefox/Chrome with 5-10 open tabs max) consumed compared to windows: the average memory load was around 33% of the 2.7GB available = ~1GB. For some time I was using virtualbox with 1.5GB RAM allocated to it and I still didn't use all the RAM available and the swapping was minimal if not 0. My conclusion: I'm highly sceptical that Linux memory management is bad enough to justify giving up the ease of installation and the minimal configuration & tweaking Ubuntu needs after install.

srean• 12 years ago

To give a counterpoint, I frequently get into trouble with Linux 3.12.6. If I open more than a few tabs (70 say, with FF I can do an order of magnitude more) in Chrome it maxes out on memory to the point of the system becoming useless. Funnily enough it actually maxes out on swap space even though there is RAM available and then starts thrashing like crazy. Setting swappiness alleviates this somewhat but not entirely. Its a box with 1 GB ram + 1 GB swap. Not big by current standards, but has more than plenty RAM in my opinion if it werent for the tendency to write bloatware these days.

Yeah I could get some more RAM, but this box is a good testbed for software with a leaner streak, bloat does not excite me as much, sorry. Funnily enough this seems to offend a whole lot of people, as if I owe it to them to have more RAM on my m/c. It is probably worth it just for that amusement.

Definitely interested in giving *BSD a shot. The thing that has stopped me so far is the difficulty in sharing data between them.

EDIT @DanBC

70 tabs is not normal and 700 is just, well, weird.

So I have been told :)

Firefox manages it well enough though, I would assume Dillo would too. Dont want to hijack the thread with why I abuse tabs so, but I still contend that 1 GB is enough if the code is tight. 1 GB is a huge freaking load of memory if you think about it.

nly• 12 years ago

Probably the userland allocator, doesn't FreeBSD use jemalloc by default?

LeonidasXIV2• 12 years ago

It's odd, because he says that GNU can't run without Linux (it can, see Debian kFreeBSD, which has a FreeBSD kernel and GNU userland, also see the numerous GNU ports to Win32, starting with Cygwin and MinGW). He also says that Linux requires GNU which is AFAIK not true either (Android uses Linux but replaces the userland with its own Apache-licensed tools).

justincormack6• 12 years ago

Not surprised people dont know that - Debian kFreeBSD is pretty obscure, and he had heard of HURD. And Android is still slightly a Linux fork, even if it is gradually converging, while the other non Gnu userspaces are not mostly entirely non GNU yet.

agumonkey2• 12 years ago

Also, few monthes ago kFreeBSD was discussed if it may be supported or not in the future.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2014/09/msg00...

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2hvikt/kfreebsd_port_...

_delirium• 12 years ago

It's also not that uncommon to run a largely GNU userland on non-Linux-based distributions. Some of the Illumos distributions default to the GNU rather than the Solaris-heritage userland, for example (I believe SmartOS is one). And you can install most (all?) of the GNU userland on FreeBSD too, if you prefer it.

peatmoss• 12 years ago

I took that to mean that, in the GNU/Linux context, the two were interdependent.

tux• 12 years ago

Here we go again, some one telling us one os is better then the other ^_^ Never listen to anyone saying that. Simply use the OS that works best for YOU period. Few replies here where correct, linux uses more memory because it works like a cache, to not use HDD so much and if you have enought memory like 8GB+ you don't have to use swap at all.

obviouslygreen• 12 years ago

Never listen to anyone saying that.

Better suggestion: Be careful when listening to anyone making absolute judgments based on generalizations.

Some operating systems, just like some applications, are better for certain purposes (often because they were designed and built specifically to be suitable for those purposes). "You can do anything with anything" is a very idealistic oversimplification that's implied by the idea that no OS is ever better than any other.

microtonal5• 12 years ago

First of all: what makes you think that FreeBSD does not do disk caching?

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handb...

enought memory like 8GB+ you don't have to use swap at all.

...depending on usage. We have 64GB+ machines at work that regularly go swapping. It depends on various factors: how quick do you want the OOM killer to kick in, how slow do you want the system to get as a result of swapping, and how much budget is there available to buy machines that can take more memory.

execat• 12 years ago

FreeBSD gave my computer a new life, otherwise I was nearly going to get a new desktop because of shitty performance. In other words, it saved me ₹35000+

No, it didn't save you any money. Delaying a purchase is NOT saving money.

daurnimator• 12 years ago

sure it is. if you buy new hardware on a regular schedule (e.g. every 3 years), extending that cycle out (e.g. to every 5 years) saves you money.

keithpeter3• 12 years ago

And you can do things like refresh (say) the one third of the desktop computers that need a higher spec (Cad, Video &c) every two years and then 'hand down' the older boxes to the other two thirds in stages. Worked quite well in one College I worked in a few years ago.

wojt_eu• 12 years ago

It is saving, delaying a purchase that would be financed out of debt until you accumulate cash allows you to save on debt interest. Alternatively, if you already have the money you can invest them for a while and earn interest.

agumonkey2• 12 years ago

Come on, the computer industry existence rely partially on cyclic purchases for that exact reason. My neighbor got a brand new SONY laptop so she could do .. everything I already do on my 2007 ThinkPad. And she can't so she pays me to fix her system from time to time. It's not far fetched to say that different OSes can and will save you money.

maurycy• 12 years ago

It is, hint: time value of money.

grigio• 12 years ago

Google for "Freebsd vs Linux 2014 performance and features" to see other considerations about the current status.

chx• 12 years ago

like how to tweak fontconfig to get clean & beautiful fonts, etc.

That's quite something to drop just like that. Any links?

XorNot• 12 years ago

I just discovered the infinality patches. They are amazing and so easy on the eyes.

ausjke• 12 years ago

I applaud for this move, but I do embedded linux, need checkout NetBSD which is typically the embedded BSD, the concern is about all those drivers' support.

justincormack6• 12 years ago

It doesnt have as many drivers as Linux, but it is pretty easy to add them - does Linux always have the ones you want? It rather depends on platform.

stefantalpalaru• 12 years ago

GNU is the userland

Although important, GNU projects are a very small percent of the 2376 packages that make up my desktop's userland right now.

sneak• 12 years ago

He claims it saved him $3500, but I just read a story about a guy squandering a few grand in billable time screwing around swapping one POSIX OS for another.

AlexeyBrin• 12 years ago

₹35000 (rupees) and not $ 3500 (US dollars)!

vinay_ys• 12 years ago

It saved him from buying a new laptop (he could have also only upgraded the ram)

microtonal5• 12 years ago

You know, life gets pretty hollow when everything is 'billable time'. It's also fun to just hack and tinker.

Also, if maximizing billable time is the goal, maybe the guy learnt a lot playing with another UNIX and increases his worth :p.

ac2u• 12 years ago

You've put it better than I ever could. It's frustrating to see someone share an experience along the lines of "I earned X this weekend by exploiting a niche I completely ignored before and learned loads!", only for a commenter to inevitably come along and say "well, thats all well and good, but if you value your time at Y per hour you've actually lost money, not to mention the wasted opportunity cost of not using that time to become a rocket scientist and earning even more!"

moron4hire• 12 years ago

This guy's issues aside, if you're interested in trying FreeBSD, but would like for a more turnkey experience, there is the PC-BSD distro that has the modern conveniences like a graphical installer and preinstalled window manager.

olgeni• 12 years ago

The only things I miss are: Dropbox and Android SDK

I am actually using devel/android-tools-adb with the SDK under Linux emulation and it works quite well.

dorfsmay2• 12 years ago

I suspect the high memory usage OP saw on Linux was a combination of:

- swappiness: they said they switched swappiness to zero but my guess is that by that time their mind was made up. Also, from the mention of swapping and the mention of apps being slow to come back to life, I really think this was the main reason for their memory issues. For reference, high swappiness will make the kernel will push memory for apps into swap to the benefit of caches. Default is 40, I have not seen one single case where that is a good thing in 12 ro 15 years. Do yourself a favour, make your first CM rule to switch swappiness to zero!

- the myriad of small apps in a lot of modern Linux distro (pieces of systemd, pieces of gnome (even on servers!), dbus, etc...). They are minimalistic distors out there which use a very small footprint

- the way memory is reported: If you look at free, the first line shows free memory as what's not in use by apps, cache nor buffers. If anything, free memory on the first line is memory that the OS is wasting (not using). If you want to know what is available for use by apps, you have to look at the second line (-/+ buffers/cache)

Touche3• 12 years ago

I really love FreeBSD and use it for servers, but I wouldn't use it for desktop. It lags behind Linux quite a bit (which itself lags behind proprietary OSes) in things like driver support. I've found it very hard to use with modern hardware.

jestinjoy1• 12 years ago

I tried switching to BSD (PC-BSD) from Debian and then went back because I couldn't find out any better performance from BSD as compared to Debian.

zobzu• 12 years ago

Linux memory management is actually quite good. In particular the unified fs cache. I would think this guy had weird settings/tweaks and or more things enabled since he ran gentoo but misconfigured swapiness.

The apps code is very close and linux doesnt magically needs to allocate more memory. What changes is just libc.

Freebsd is one of my favorite OSes regardless.

The Move from Linux to FreeBSD

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