
FreeBSD project turns 26 years old - vermaden
http://freebsdfoundation.org/national-freebsd-day
======
_jal
The first time I installed FreeBSD was in 1995, setting up a basic internet
presence (mail, ftp, http) for the consulting firm I worked for. There was a
small ISP on the floor above us, and we ran PPP over a serial cable strung out
the window.

Aside from a little exposure to NextStep at school, it was my first unix. I
had the impression that FreeBSD was this capital-I Institution - Core has
always been so professional and competent that from the outside, it never
looked like a newish project. I have no idea how they had such comprehensive
documentation and still found the time to write code.

I'm still incredibly impressed with them, love FreeBSD, and have been running
it with only minor interruptions ever since. I've not been terribly involved
(and not at all now), but it has been a privilege to have lived basically my
entire career with such an incredibly competent and helpful group of awesome
people building what is IMO the world's best server OS.

Looking forward to another 26!

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ashton314
FreeBSD was my first operating system ever. My dad had a FreeBSD machine in a
little closet in his office. He taught me how to navigate with the command
line, edit files with emacs, and send email with mutt. Good times. Here’s to
26 years, and many more to come!

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jlg23
Congratulations.

A HD-failure in 1998 gave me the opportunity to try out FreeBSD before re-
installing my GNU/Linux work environment on the new HD. After a week it was
clear I'm not switching back and ever since I am a FreeBSD user.

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wil421
I’m sourcing parts for a FreeNAS build which runs on FreeBSD. I’ve never
touched FreeBSD but I’m looking forward to learning another *Nix. The
supported hardware for FreeBSD/FreeNAS isn’t as great as Linux or Windows and
the new C246 server grade parts are proving hard to find.

>In fact, there’s a good chance you’re already using at least some code
derived from FreeBSD in your everyday life. For example, ... or play the
latest PlayStation 4 game sensation, you’re already using FreeBSD.

Looks like I have indirectly touched FreeBSD with the PS4.

~~~
phicoh
I'm curious, what are the parts you want to use that are not supported by
FreeBSD?

~~~
wil421
Used server raid controllers that need to be flashed into IT mode (FreeNAS
requirement) and compatible with FreeBSD. People on the FreeNAS forums had
issues with a dell H700 controller that’s common in used hardware, R720 in my
case. Some used mobos too.

Not all of the new C246 motherboards by Supermicro have FreeBSD listed as
supported. Even boards that only have a small change are not identical, one
board adds 4 gigabit ports but isn’t listed under FreeBSD, it will likely work
but if any weird issues happen I doubt I’ll get official support.

~~~
magicalhippo
Guess it won't help you much, but in case others might be interested I've had
nothing but smooth sailing with two different LSI SAS boards with FreeNAS.

One is a 9207-8i the other is a 9201-16e. Picked the latter up cheap from
eBay, and flashed new firmware on it.

Both come up without doing anything special.

    
    
        mps0: <Avago Technologies (LSI) SAS2308> 
        mps0: Firmware: 20.00.02.00, Driver: 21.02.00.00-fbsd
        mps1: <Avago Technologies (LSI) SAS2116> 
        mps1: Firmware: 20.00.07.00, Driver: 21.02.00.00-fbsd

~~~
wil421
Thanks, the FreeNAS community told me to sell the dell card on eBay and put in
an LSI. I’ll save your recommendations.

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fsiefken
Using it right now as well as MacOS/Darwin, Linux, Android, Win10.. there is
no true and perfect OS, the world consists of multiple interoperable systems
made for different use cases. Win10 for SteamVR, Android for mobile and
GearVR/Oculus Go/Quest, BSD for networking, MacOS for the polished feeling
good programs.. GNU/Linux for an OS desktop

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cntlzw
Congratulations!

FreeBSD and OpenBSD were my first non-windows OS I tried out. I think the time
was 1999 or 1998. Good memories even though I had not much clue of what I was
doing at that time. Still learned a lot, basic unix system administration and
such. The FreeBSD documentation is great!

Even learned C because I thought maybe I could contribute code. Unfortunately
I never made it to contribute. I regret that very much.

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abhiyerra
Lot of time spent in my teens on FreeBSD. Though I primarily use MacOS now all
those non-GNU command line switches stuck.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I can't tell if you were trying to say this or not, but the default unix utils
on macOS and FreeBSD generally share the same (non-GNU) switches/options as
macOS's were derived from the BSDs.

~~~
mbreese
I’ll answer for them.

Yes, they were saying that knowing all those BSD/non-GNU options front their
BSD days stuck in their mind and are quite useful when working on a Mac today.

It’s better than having to mentally switch between Linux/macOS arguments in
your head like many of us have to (like me)!

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mastrsushi
As others have pointed, there are very little technical reasons to use
FreeBSD. Especially since Linux and Docker ate into the virtualization market.
If you have a spare machine and are really that curious than by all means.
Ports was a fun experience, and FreeBSD overall felt like a steady drop into
real unix. Gentoo and Arch follow the same spirit, but were way too hands free
for my interest.

I will warn, unless you do have technical reasons, you will unlikely gain
anything professionally in a world of Linux servers. Maybe to make use of the
most widely used OS under the BSD license. Apple, Nintendo, Sony, and others
have proved this.

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jcadam
I'm running a FreeBSD box as my personal file server (have a ZFS pool of WD
Red drives).

As a server OS, I've always preferred the BSDs. Unfortunately, due to Docker,
BSD is becoming much less relevant for a lot of use cases.

~~~
magicalhippo
> Unfortunately, due to Docker, BSD is becoming much less relevant for a lot
> of use cases.

Same boat. I've recently been testing out running Docker inside a bhyve VM,
using plain Debian and NFS for mounting the ZFS datasets in the containers.

Not ideal, quite a lot of overhead, but seems to work for my limited workload
for now.

So, kinda torn about where to go from here. I quite like having a NAS that
just does its thing and is easy to administrate, but I also really want to be
able to run various Docker images...

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bArray
I personally use a Linux OS and have never used FreeBSD, what's the most
convincing reason(s) for making the switch?

~~~
twblalock
It is an interesting change of pace, and a somewhat different culture around
operating system structure and package management, although definitely part of
the same Unixy family.

Sadly these days the business case for using FreeBSD is weaker than ever
because Linux has first-class support for Docker and Kubernetes and BSD
doesn't. (No, Jails are not a good substitute because Docker is the industry
standard and has a lot of third-party support and everyone wants to use it.)
However, BSD is an interesting experience for hobbyists.

