Comment by SoSoRoCoCo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SoSoRoCoCo | Hacker News Reader

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Very light on specifics.

I think the one thing he said that resonated is: "Doing forensics is almost impossible." Holy hell, yes. I use a lot of weird USB hardware, and debugging USB serial-port issues is impossible (even with a Beagle USB debugger, it only gets you half way, system logs on macos are not particularly helpful).

Why FreeBSD over Linux?

This is the most perplexing decision in the article. Why would OP do this? I have FreeBSD running on an old laptop, along side an Ubuntu laptop. There's more software ported for Ubuntu than FreeBSD and I don't want to rebuild everything for BSD, I have too much work to do. Nobody targets BSD but BSD devs.

I'd like to know though, OP aside, besides the BSD networking speed and extensions, why FreeBSD over Linux when the latter is more widely supported for GP dev?

I feel the author's frustration, though. macOS is really diverging[1] from BSD and become even more obfuscated, and as a power user who spent over two decades working in Linux, it is very hard for me to treat macOS and Win10 seriously as development platforms (to my hireability's detriment, I suppose) for anything other than Node/Electron and playing around for my own projects.

> I use Windows 10 on a PC I built and it's fine.

Because you probably don't use Win10 the way other people use it. If you've spent any time developing in Linux, Windows is a pathetic development system once you step outside Visual Studio. The Unix command line is one of the most insanely flexible tools every built, which is why the philosophy has changed so little in 40+ years. (Plus I don't like ads popping up in the toolbar or start menu when I'm trying to work.)

[1] Case in point: I tried setting up iPerf on a new MBP today. port/brew both failed to install correctly with lib dependencies broken. `iperf`? Seriously? /smh/

EDIT: I meant despite OP's decision in Q above.

> Why FreeBSD over Linux?

From the post:

> Linux has systemd, not my favorite thing out there, Windows is privacy nightmare. That left me with 2 major options: Linuxes without systemd (Gentoo, in my case) or BSDs.

> Since I run FreeBSD servers anyway, I just migrated to FreeBSD.

Basically because the author hates systemd (not an invalid point, but that ship has sailed) and has familiarity with FreeBSD. This isn’t really an article that’s trying to convince people to run FreeBSD. It’s trying to explain why they left macOS. Where they ended up is less consequential, IMO.

Yes, I read that. I should have rephrased because I was posing a more general question, as it seems like OP is headed directly for another problem which is the BSD v. Linux package support deficit, which IMO is far more painful than macOS+VNC vs BSD.

I don’t disagree with you. But I don’t think that the author was all that interested in getting into Linux vs BSD. Instead, they were more interested in pointing out the problems they had with macOS and how it is moving more away from its UNIX roots. This is a fair point.

The larger question of “if not macOS, then what” is almost a throw away in this post. Which, I don’t blame the author for at all... it’s a prickly issue and includes a lot of background context that dilutes their primary point of macOS issues.

There are many linux distros without systemd too. Artix (arch without systemd), Devuan (debian without systemd), and Void are the big ones off the top of my head.

I don't like systemd (or redhat) either, it's also one of the reasons why I moved to FreeBSD. And on servers I use Alpine. I don't hate systemd as such but I definitely don't like it. I think OpenRC on Alpine is much simpler.

The ship has only sailed for the mainstream Linux OSes. With Ubuntu for example other things bother me too, like snap, I don't want all this overhead. But I see more and more people moving away from those things.

"Giving in and going with the flow" is not necessary with open OSes. It's exactly why I'm moving off macOS too, because I'll no longer be locked into some company that decides what's best for them (and not me)

There is also devuan for systemd haters.

It means the author is trying to avoid systems whose developers interfere with your workflow on the grounds that they know what is good for you.

> I'd like to know though, besides the BSD networking speed and extensions, why FreeBSD over Linux when the latter is more widely supported for GP dev?

Considering MacOS and Windows have much more software and driver support than Linux, it's only natural to choose to give up a little more for better docs, userland, and all the other benefits of FreeBSD.

It's the exact same argument the "works for me" Linux folks use, taken to its full conclusion.

I mean, Windows has better driver support, but MacOS doesn't really, unless we're strictly talking about external peripherals. In terms of internal components Linux absolutely slaughters MacOS for raw number of supported drivers, by design, since MacOS is only intended to run on Apple-approved hardware.

Sorry, I know it's nit-picking, I just had to say something.

> Very light on specifics.

Yeah, especially the "over Linux" part.

> This is the most perplexing decision in the article. Why would OP do this? I have FreeBSD running on an old laptop, along side an Ubuntu laptop. There's more software ported for Ubuntu than FreeBSD and I don't want to rebuild everything for BSD, I have too much work to do. Nobody targets BSD but BSD devs.

For instance, I use Arch+KDE for years in the same laptop and I never had problems with updates thanks to the Arch's rolling release approach. That's why, for example I don't get why FreeBSD over Linux in that particular regard.

>That's why, for example I don't get why FreeBSD over Linux in that particular regard.

He wrote bout it tho. OP dislikes systemd's approach to things

> Universal Serial Bus Serial issues

(No beef, just thought it was funny)

Like "Windows New Technology Technology (Windows NT Technology)" Or "The The Tar Tar Pits" (The La Brea Tar Pits). :)

I should be more specific, I meant serial-port: lots of USB devices communicate through a USB serial-port driver, but not every USB device appears as a serial-port (e.g., all USB devices expose endpoints for bulk or serial transfers, but whether that maps to a COM: or /dev/tty* depends on the driver).

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