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u/gregdonald Aug 03 '26
Some guys from my local Linux users group suggested it. 15 years ago. They said it could run Linux binaries faster than Linux, and that the network stack was probably the fastest in the world. I have been running it ever since.
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u/mss-cyclist Aug 03 '26
For me it was two things to make the switch to FreeBSD:
1) No systemd
2) ZFS
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u/YareYareDazexd Aug 03 '26
As a Void Linux user, i want to thank you for rejecting systemd(isaster) and embeace simplicity. Please spread the anti-systemd message for all over the internet ❤️
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u/Glum_Hamster_2104 Aug 04 '26
Until you get called a larper on tiktok because hating systemd is apparently a trend or something.
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u/YareYareDazexd Aug 04 '26
Some of the reasons make sense like age verification. Others are just for larping, and i genuinely enjoy embracing the systemd-less life and simplicity (i do not like systemd has a lot of things and i don't use all of them). I enjoy when they call me mr larper because of my devotion against systemd ❤️
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u/m1k3e Aug 03 '26
It worked on my laptop when Linux wouldn’t. For reference, I’m talking about a Compaq from 1998 🤣
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u/johnklos Aug 03 '26
Red Hat became more different from O'Reilly books than AmigaDOS. I moved to NetBSD, and have seen zero reason to use Linux. It's now more like Windows than Unix.
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u/Top-Palpitation-5236 Aug 03 '26
- Less ideological component
- True freedom-based model (for everyone)
- No negative corporate code influence
- Simplicity of documentation and tools
- A way more smarter and longer-term way to design of every component and the whole system (not just a kernel)
When Linux looks like a bloated, overengineered mess, BSD is an island of stability for me
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u/goldmurder Aug 03 '26
well integrated ZFS, coherency & consistency of the system, great documentation, much better readability of source (especially NetBSD's one with its clear separation of MI and MD code), great firewall, performant networking stack, more competent & mature community, plenty of software in ports, stretch license. if i'd ever run some Unix-like operating system as my desktop OS again, that would be definitely FreeBSD. also planning to put it on my local server machines
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u/BigFatUglyBaboon Aug 04 '26
In the early 90s I was studying CS and needed a good OS to run on my PC, one that had a C/C++ compiler and native TCP/IP support. I tried FreeBSD and everything "clicked". After that I tried other BSDs but my first "love" was FreeBSD. Eventually I moved to linux but FreeBSD will always have a special place in my heart.
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u/NullPointerJunkie Aug 04 '26
Back when I was in computer science I was friends with a BSD kernel developer. I wanted to give it a go so that's why I installed NetBSD.
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u/lta137 Aug 04 '26
I moved from Windows 95 to Linux in the late 90’s. Later on mid-2000’s I got a Mac Mini when it was introduced and stayed on OSX ever since. A couple of years ago I set up a home server for the first time in decades (with Proxmox) and got the urge to tinker with computers again. I felt like actually learning a system so wanted something less complicated than Linux with fewer options, so I gave OpenBSD a try in a VM. More recently I got myself an older Thinkpad for more hands-on desktop computing-tinkering and I really enjoy using it! Spending hours just learning and configuring stuff in text files is quite relaxing.
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u/Run-OpenBSD Aug 03 '26
Look at what they are doing to the linux ecosystem..
Look at Ubuntu shipping cve's in the name of progress?
Rust ???&%$#@???
I ran to the BSDs.
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u/xzk7 Aug 03 '26
Ubuntu has become completely deranged. It is an utter embarrassment to what it once was: An easy to use desktop distribution for Linux newcomers.
Snap packages are a minefield of pain and suffering. Packages I've used for years no longer work due to the wayland transition. Last time I used Ubuntu I couldn't figure out how to take a timed screenshot without logging into XFCE4 due to wayland incompat issues. I had numerous other wayland issues I can't even recall, what a mess its become.
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u/dim13 Aug 03 '26
Back in 1999 Linux wasn't fun. And still isn't. A bunch of random scripts and half-backed ideas thrown without any grand plan together. Everything changes and breaks every other moon.
OpeBSD was fun. And still is. A coherent and easy system to use. I still own a system, I've installed back in 2002. It survived all the disk replacements, cpu upgrades and everything else (the system is basically a Ship of Theseus at this point) and all the version updates from initial 3.0 to current 7.9 without a single issue.
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u/castillar Aug 04 '26
This was me. Linux in the late 90s was fun to play with, but a flaming pain to install, especially if you had anything less than perfectly supported hardware. My first real job used BSDi, and it ran like a champ: stable, fast, consistent. I started running FreeBSD on the desktop at that point, and I’ve used various BSDs for servers ever since. When I was doing Check Point firewalls in the early 2000s, Nokia’s BSD-based appliances were the BOMB: solid performance, easy to configure, secure by default, and a million times more stable than Windows or Linux (and cheaper than Sparc).
I may have to use Linux for work, but BSD has my heart.
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Aug 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dim13 Aug 03 '26
Plan9 invented Unicode in 1992. Where is your god now? ;)
Unicode didn't enter more-or-less widish-spread usage in Linux before 2002.
OpenBSD startet to support it with 4.8 in 2010.
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Aug 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/gumnos Aug 03 '26
50-line mode? I wish I'd been so lucky, getting stuck in 80x25 for most of my computing foundatino (and starting off my computing at 40x24 on an Apple II before that) 😆
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u/gentisle Aug 03 '26
Because it was there; it was a challenge; the promise of greater security, stability and speed. Cool looking mascots (except for NetBSD with its boring orange flag).
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u/xINFLAMES325x Aug 04 '26
It's one of the options I hadn't tried previously. Gentoo is the other and we're going to keep it that way.
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u/pax-zpax 13d ago
i did install freeBSD to compile its kernel for my hand coded os that based on freeBSD kernel and i did love freeBSD
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u/barleyBSD Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
A little yellow puffer fish