Re: http://www.freebsd.org/marketing/os-comparison.html

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 5:07 AM, Martin Sugioarto <martin_at_sugioarto.com> wrote:
> Am Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:34:54 -0400
> schrieb Chris Brennan <xaero_at_xaerolimit.net>:

...

> You should compare what you can *DO* better with FreeBSD. And one thing
> that comes instantly into my mind is the FreeBSD port collection (for
> my part). I've tried various Linux distributions for years and there is
> no such thing as FreeBSD ports in Linux world (portage comes close, but
> it lacks integrity sometimes).

Sadly, recent versions of portage actually have exceeded ports in
terms of ease of use and non-breakage. I would have agreed with you
3-4 years ago, but the status quo has changed.

That being said, even though upgrades work 99% of the time without
fault in Gentoo portage, it's still way too complicated of a system
for most users to work with on a day to day basis.

> And that's why after using other OSes, I
> always arrived back on FreeBSD. The effort which is going into ports is
> amazing and (for me) the most important part of the OS. FreeBSD is one
> of few systems where you can have configurable up-to-date applications
> and this is what I need. And this is mostly the reason why I use
> FreeBSD.

Most people wouldn't necessarily agree because apart from the breadth
of packages in ports, the infrastructure needs a serious overhaul to
be used by less seasoned Unix folks.

> I suggest that you look at the applications of FreeBSD in the world.
> How people use it and why the decided to use it. I heard many people
> prefer FreeBSD on web servers (yeah, Netcraft also says so). But why?
>
> You tell me that FreeBSD has the best IPv6 implementation? So what?!
> Please tell me what you do with it, when it's "so great".
>
> Jails are nice, yes! There are surely scenarios where jails are needed
> above every other concept. Instead of telling people about "lightweight
> virtualisation"... tell them what others do with it.
>
> Many people are too dumb to understand technical or abstract concepts.

I don't think it's that users are dumb -- just uneducated. Many people
lack the time or interest to try out new OSes that don't just work
(tm) out of the box.

> They need examples to understand the features.

Agreed.

Thanks!
-Garrett