Ben Munat wrote:
I'm curious if anyone on the list also runs or has run FreeBSD?
I run FreeBSD on my servers (web, file/print, database).
> If so, what were your impressions?
My impressions are that FreeBSD is very different from Linux and very similar. I prefer to use FreeBSD for servers. I like the fact that the core OS is developed as one piece.
> What pitfalls are there?
Pitfalls I encountered were figuring out how to update the OS and 3rd party software. OS source code must be patched (via cvsup) and then recompiled.
> What are the big differences?
This may help:
"Linux has never had any sort of separation between what is the "base system" and what is "addon utilities". The entire system is "addon utilities"."
"By contrast, BSD has always had a centralized development model. There's always been an entity that's "in charge" of the system. BSD doesn't use GNU ls or GNU libc, it uses BSD's ls and BSD's libc, which are direct descendents of the ls and libc that where in the CSRG-distributed BSD releases. They've never been developed or packaged independently. The system as a whole is one piece, not a bunch of little pieces."
Tools like FreeBSD-update, Portsnap, Portaudit and Portupgrade make keeping the system up-to-date easy.
I choose FreeBSD for my servers and Gentoo for my desktop systems.
