Hacker News Reader

Comment by slizard | Hacker News Reader

A large fraction of users seem to disagree! Ubuntu is the most popular server distro in the cloud, by far.

http://fossbytes.com/ubuntu-linux-is-the-most-popular-operat... https://duh6oa3w9hopv.cloudfront.net/uploads/pdfs/RightScale... etc.

The must be doing something right, but of course as quickly as they rose, they could loose the market equally quickly. I do see interesting directions, though: Ubuntu seems to be the default choice on OpenPOWER servers (at least for now) and it will likely be a strong contender; see e.g. https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47791.wss

One group that has certainly contributed and needs to be given credit is Debian!

View on HN

I believe that's because devs want to use what they use for their workstation (that is, what they know the best) on their servers. That's understandable, and most cloud services give you boxes that are already usable but because you don't have sth. like the FreeBSD handbook, and because the whole thing is not that thightly integrated, complex stuff requires hacks and dirty workarounds or at least a lot of experience. I have not done any system-admin work, but I can say this: in one week I've managed to make my FreeBSD system completely reproducible after using it for the first time. I haven't been able to do that with any Gnu/Linux, and I've used it for more than ten years till last february I guess.

I take your point about FreeBSD's benefits, but we need to be realistic.

People want working devices/peripherals (admittedly, I'm not very familiar with the state of the drivers on FreeBSD today, but I know it has been an issue) and many prefer to be productive too rather than hack away at their OS. These OSes have moved out of the garage and are running a large part of this damn Internet :)

FreeBSD is certainly perfect for some niche uses but, I believe, it isn't realistic for many if not most GNU/Linux server uses today.

And that's where I'd come back to your initial point on Ubuntu's lacking server benefits: you may not see them, but many do, and for better or worse they vote with their choice. Even if many don't like it, let's be honest, many do benefit from it indirectly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com