Technological advantages over Linux

[Victor Sudakov]

David Demelier wrote:
> > Not to start a flame war. A purely technical question: what
> > technological advantages does the modern FreeBSD have over modern Linux?
> 
> In short:
> 
> - Jails ;

Linux has several implementations of what we call Jails (OpenVZ, Linux
Containers, whatever). It also has Docker which beats jails.

> - ZFS ;

Linux has too (but see later).

> - Simplicity (not always the case though). Type mount on a fresh FreeBSD and
> a fresh Linux and admire that. Also applies to initial processes ;

That's true (aesthetically too) but these are the admin's personal
problems. The admin is a subordinate person and must support whatever
system is deemed better for production, performance, features etc.


> - Documentation (not the best though, OpenBSD has the best doc out there)
> but all BSD have the most well documented stuff ;

RedHat's documentation was pretty good AFAIR (when I worked with RedHat
6). But this is a valid point, thank you. FreeBSD's handbook and other
docs are very good (if dated in some places).

> - pf ;

I cannot compare pf with iptables for the lack of experience in the
latter, but as a stateful firewall, pf kind of sucks because it a)
cannot keep state above the transport layer and b) its very notion of
state is kind of perverse.

> - poudriere ;

poudriere is part of the binary software packaging system. For the
present I think Linux's binary packaging system (apt or yum) is still
more advanced than ours.

However, the separation of the "base system" and "packages" as seen in
FreeBSD seems to me a great, unique advantage. Another point in
FreeBSD's favour.

> - src.conf, make.conf and easy world rebuild ;

Very few need this nowadays at the time of cattle servers (as opposed to
pet servers).

> - LLVM instead of GCC.

If it gives measurable advantages in productivity, performance or
security, I'd be happy to learn more about that.

[dd]
> 
> > Several yeas ago I would say ZFS was a killer feature, but now Linux has
> > ZFS too, and AFAIK FreeBSD is going to migrate to Linux's ZFS
> > implementation.
> 
> Linux has unofficial ZFS support, it's not in the kernel and it's a real
> mess.

If this is really so, why is FreeBSD planning to migrate to Linux's ZFS
implementation?

-- 
Victor Sudakov,  VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN
2:5005/49 at fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/
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