On 7/8/21 8:55 AM, Jonathan Billings wrote:
On Thu, Jul 08, 2021 at 08:39:19AM -0500, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
Well, I fled servers from CentOS to FreeBSD almost a decade ago. And actually not From CentOS per se, but from Linux. One of the reasons was: every 45 days on average: glibc or kernel update —> reboot. One of my friends started using word “Lindoze”. Linux is perfect for number crunchers and workstations. FreeBSD is waaay better for servers. In my book that is.
Just straightening small nuance.
If you aren't rebooting your FreeBSD systems regularly, you're just as vulnerable.
https://www.freebsd.org/security/advisories/
I see one less than 45 days ago that requires a reboot because of a kernel security measure bypass.
Long uptimes are a thing of the past. Build redundancy into your infrastructure so you can handle reboots.
That original reason to flee for us (one of several as it turned out to be) is dated 10 years back. Not quite fair to apply today's counter-argument to it. Still a year or two ago when I checked last, and it was about 2 reboots a year required for FreeBSD, whereas <= 45 days is still was a fact for Linux.
But as you have said yourself, we live differently today, and several things (like one or few services per jail - the last having read-only base system to mention one) still make FreeBSD much simpler to maintain for servers. Not to mention, switching from Linux (10 years ago) to FreeBSD was quite smoother learning curve than adjusting to systemd and friends ;-) (I'm cheating a bit: I did run UNIXes in the past - waaay back).
Of course, tastes differ, but still, only those who tasted both things can have fairly say what is better to one's own taste. Saying not to Jonathan, of course, who I bet runs several UNIXes, FreeBSD included. (of course, not all of them can strictly be called UNIX, - re no loyalties to AT&T).
But even as part of our infrastructure fled to FreeBSD, workstations and number crunchers stayed with most adequate for them system: Linux. CentOS until recently, Debian once CentOS stopped being "binary replica" of RedHat Enterprise. Gionatan Danti mentioned another important reason...
Valeri