Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD ?

On 06/10/12 13:16, Jakub Lach wrote:
>>> Sometimes it would be enough just to 
>>> test if the port compiles before committing it (I'm talking about 
>>> libreoffice here which is broken)
> 
> Yeah right... Like updating libreoffice without testing 
> would be actually possible at all... 
> 
> Are you familiar with http://redports.org/ ? 
> 
> Just a example what is used for WIP.
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Re-Why-Are-You-NOT-Using-FreeBSD-tp5714183p5717150.html
> Sent from the freebsd-current mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Well,
this thread has been run out of the subject and is now being hijacked by
port's problems ;-)

One point to add for the NOT using is definitely the mess in the ports
(sometimes).
I have the feeling that, for my now almost 16 years experience and usage
of FreeBSD, many statements PRO FreeBSD and the ports are repeated from
times, when FreeBSD's port system was superior over many other
approaches. Time changes, others keep pace. Just to comment on that.

FreeBSD is supposed to have its strength in server environment. But I
see lack of those strength when it comes to user management,
specifically OpenLDAP. For users it is not very convenient changing
their password via a cryptic "ldappasswd" statement.
On most Linux boxes I have access to, (Suse, Ubuntu), one can simply use
the system's "passwd" command - everything else is then done via PAM. I
had in 2007 and 2008 some issues with that and simply by that fact,
FreeBSD was banned from the desktop side and after it has been banned by
the company I worked for from their desktops, they didn't see reasons
why they should put more effords into administering server based on
FreeBSD AND desktops based on Linux. The decission then was made to use
Linux Ubuntu server and desktop. One more pebble erodet to dust ... That
was an example of a data mining business company.

Years ago the physics department at my former university had their
networking infrastructure based on FreeBSD - that was in the time of
FreeBSD 4. Strong network stack, stable, easy to manage. With Linux
kernel 2.6 most of the PROs for FreeBSD where obsoleted, and as shown
here, FreeBSD does have some disadavntages in throughput compared to Linux.

After those benchmarks  have been publsihed things may changed, but the
"negative" information against FreeBSD is sticky. Or, in the opposite
way, remnant informations of the past "PRO" FreeBSD are sticky (a good
luck then for FreeBSD).

Talking about NOT using FreeBSD, for me there is a bunch of reasons to
change and these reasons have a gravity to my profession and work.
FreeBSD unluckily lacks in optimized mathematical libraries and
compilers. While I'm happy to live with LLVM/CLANG and GCC 4.6 or GCC
4.7 and it's Fortran derivatives (I don't use Fortran, but need to
compile some  model software written in F95), others don't.

A complete No-Go is the lack of CUDA and more important OpenCL
capabilities and therefore GPGPU usage. As nVidia made clear in San
Jose, CUDA, and therefore GPGPU, is a tremendous fast growing market. On
all of our number crunchers we use now Linux - for exactly this GPGPU
reason. And once seddled, I guess it is hard to convince people to move
towards another OS.

I have no clue how to change this. It is a political issue beyond my
capabilities. I'd like to see more advertising FreeBSD or any *BSD in
the scientific development, but it seems everything is stuck to Linux -
because it is the better and faster OS (also something that is often
brought up without evidence, but it is stick in the heads).

Who ever has ordered hardware from Dell and tried to manage their JAVA
based blade accessing modules via native FreeBSD applications, knows
that it is a pain in the ass. For just checking the HPC servers from
time to time I need to use Windows or Linux (most run in a VBox with a
crappy screen).

If the advantages of your favorite OS does not give you a tremendous
massage of your feelings, I guess those issues will make you turn
towards what is more convenient much faster.