Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD ?

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 3:08 AM, Adam Strohl
<adams-freebsd at ateamsystems.com>wrote:

> On 6/3/2012 10:09, Mark Linimon wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 01:43:43AM +0200, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
>>
>>> So there could be lots of overlap and just looking at the two numbers
>>> you posted doesn't really tell the whole story.
>>>
>> No, I agree that it doesn't.  I was just trying to add an aside, and
>> point out that the task would not be trivial.
>>
>> Since I'm heavily invested in FreeBSD ports I think I need to step back
>> and let other folks comment in this thread.
>>
>
> I manage and support a little over 50 FreeBSD servers (VMWare, Xen and
> native) and feel that the port system, on the whole, is excellent.  Its
> easily one of the best features about FreeBSD.   Portaudit reports issues
> and I can plan and upgrade them as needed.  Portupgrade works great 99% of
> the time and when it doesn't it has the good sense to roll back what its
> done.  If there is any question as to what it should do it errors and tells
> me, which is exactly what I want it to do.
>
> I've been a FreeBSD user for about 18 years and supported it
> professionally for about 10.  In this thread I've read a few posts that
> contain blanket statements like "ports are broken" and "never work", I'm at
> a loss as to how to respond to this as it is completely counter to my
> experience.   I wish I could see what they were talking about and figure
> out what happened so I could understand what caused them to make such a
> statement.  It's like they're talking about a different OS than the one I
> know.
>
> I've written a simple script to run portaudit and pop up a dialog with
> check boxes that then kicks off portupgrade for the selected ports which
> have issues.   99% of the time its that simple.  This is what I want in a
> server environment.  I do not want things auto-updating (a.k.a. auto
> breaking) or making decisions about supporting libraries behind my back.
> PHP is a good and common example why: an upgrade can and does break web
> sites that ran fine before.   Updates need to be managed in a process which
> is outside the scope of the OS (because its a server not a desktop).
>  FreeBSD has all these great tools for managing the mechanical action of
> updating and imposes minimal process which is perfect because I have my own
> process.  And if things get mucked up (which mostly isn't the ports system
> fault when it does happen), its easy to back out and re-do if needed.
>
> After reading this thread I am wondering if I should clean the update
> dialog script up and submit to the ports tree.  It seems like people think
> the port update process is harder than it is because it lacks a Windows
> Update like dialog which is essentially what this is akin to (and there
> might be a port which does this already, too .. anyone?).  All the hard
> stuff has been done by the FreeBSD team, all I did was put a bash/dialog
> script on it.
>
> I very rarely run into ports that don't build on supported versions of
> FreeBSD (ie; ones that haven't reached EoL).  I have a number of customers
> with a few 6.2 boxes [which I can't wait to upgrade] and still almost
> everything builds without tinkering.
>
> All of this is in the scope of servers though (web, DB, application, etc)
> and not on the desktop.  I haven't used a FreeBSD desktop since probably
> 4.x, and while I don't begrudge the work people are doing for the desktop
> experience it just doesn't apply to me nor is it why I love FreeBSD.   I
> won't say something like "you're running a server OS on your desktop and
> expecting it to be like a Mac".  What will say is: I'm getting from this
> thread that a lot of the complaints people have seem to be based around the
> desktop.  My guess is that this is a super minority of actual use (by
> server count).
>
> BUT: I feel like people are judging how fit an FreeBSD is for server work
> by how easy/Mac/Windows/whatever like (as many Linux distros try to
> emulate) it is to update.  Not good ... but it makes sense from a
> social/human perspective, and is probably another thing we should consider
> in terms of advocacy.
>
> I'm interested in what people think about this, and yeah this should
> probably be in the advocacy list but its not so thhblt :P
>
>


Always I am stressing that to manage FreeBSD,  a fair amount of expertise
is required which I think this level may be reduced by improving the
FreeBSD management by transferring knowledge to its managing parts ( for
example : package management , repair of broken parts , installation steps
to reach a state like in very easily usable Linux distributions such as
Fedora , Mageia , Mandriva , and many others , etc. )

You know what to do by your expertise gained over use , which such an
expertise is completely missing in a new comer , and even sometimes in very
highly experienced computer professionals because a different operating
system reduces them to a little experienced new starter .

As an example :

I have installed FreeBSD 9.0 amd64 Release . In root use , it is
successfully mounting USB sticks and  USB NTFS hard disks in KDE4 and GNOME
.

In user mode , it could NOT be possible either to automount USB sticks or
NTFS USB hard disks .


Obviously , everything is set how they are written in Handbook , but NOT
working for ME .


Dolphin is given a message pointing to HAL Policy Kit . When PolicyKit is
searched , it is generating a very long file list which many of them are
with the same name in different directories . One of them is responsible
from the error message generation . Which one ?  Look at the sources : To
where ?
Look at their web site : Nothing is there .


They are working in GhostBSD . Which files are modified by GhostBSD which
they are different ones
in FreeBSD ?  When number of related number of files are considered , it is
very difficult to find the differences .

After struggling with many fruitless steps , there remains ONLY another
step :

SWITCH to ANOTHER  operating system .

It should be remembered that struggling is a TIME EXPENSE and IT IS COSTED .

Compare the cost of a Linux or Windows and personal time , and make a
decision which one to choose .

Another point frequently mentioned is that FreeBSD is leaned toward servers
.
Only I want to say that , "Please , install a CentOS , Debian , or Windows
Server trial , and see how a server may be ..."




Thank you very much .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk