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Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

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185 points psxuaw | 10 comments | 31 Mar 25 12:59 UTC | HN request time: 1.056s | source | bottom
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nine_k ◴[31 Mar 25 16:28 UTC] No.43536856[source]▶
If systemd is the reason, there are several good distros without systemd (I run Void Linux in particular).

If "kubesomething" is the reason, there's no requirement to use it. I think most people don't run it on their home servers.

If containers are the reason, then again, they are not a requirement. But they are pretty similar to BSD's jails. I don't think they are particularly complex.

FreeBSD has a number of strong suits: ZFS, a different kernel and network stack, a cohesive system from a small(ish) team of authors, the handbook, etc. But the usual Linux hobgoblins listed above are a red herring here, to my mind.

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m463 ◴[31 Mar 25 23:23 UTC] No.43541101[source]▶
To me arch linux is the middle ground between a too-much-complexity "fat" distribution like ubuntu or debian and a-minimal-but-eclectic-freebsd.

the arch wiki is VERY comprehensive, linux has a huge community, and arch forced you to understand much just by stepping through the installation process.

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1. osn9363739 ◴[31 Mar 25 23:37 UTC] No.43541224[source]▶
arch (or any rolling release) on a home server doesn't sound like a good idea?
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2. packetlost ◴[01 Apr 25 00:37 UTC] No.43541615[source]▶
if you actually run updates regularly (which you should anyways) it's fine. I did it for years until I switched to NixOS.
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3. twelvedogs ◴[01 Apr 25 00:54 UTC] No.43541713[source]▶
yeah, this was my main annoyance with it, i don't log into my server for months at a time so i wanted something without constant updates but other than that it was fine.
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4. alexjplant ◴[01 Apr 25 03:38 UTC] No.43542599[source]▶
Pacman has always been kind to me. Portage, on the other hand, crippled my beloved X60 after a full system upgrade even though I was only a few weeks behind. I don't recall the precise issue but if memory serves it was some sort of circular version dependency that I was unable to resolve. I was a 19-year-old l00nix nublet so I'm sure it was my fault but I've never had so much trouble with a distro package manager as I did with Gentoo's.
5. ◴[01 Apr 25 04:08 UTC] No.43542748[source]▶
6. wltr ◴[01 Apr 25 11:18 UTC] No.43545421{3}[source]▶
I update one of my servers once a year or even longer, and it’s still doing fine with Arch.
7. packetlost ◴[01 Apr 25 15:32 UTC] No.43548016{3}[source]▶
I know at least one other person who runs Arch on all their servers, they do an update monthly unless there's some critical CVE that needs to be addressed ASAP. The sibling comment says 1 year, but I can't honestly suggest going that long for any distro. I've had Ubuntu LTS break very, very badly because of a missed patch in GRUB when updating over too long of a timescale (somewhere around a year, maybe a bit less)
8. turboponyy ◴[02 Apr 25 07:30 UTC] No.43554429[source]▶
Once you try a rolling-release distro you realize it's actually a very good idea
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9. Levitating ◴[02 Apr 25 11:27 UTC] No.43555588[source]▶
It's not though, few server usecases allow/require your environment to change every day.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is a lot more stable than ArchLinux for that kind of stuff though. It stages updates in tested snapshots. ArchLinux updates just error if you time them right.

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10. Orygin ◴[02 Apr 25 11:41 UTC] No.43555658{3}[source]▶
Anecdotal, but I never had an Arch install fail after updating (maybe the one time my EFI partition was full, but not specific to Arch). While I have a laptop running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed that failed to start after the third update I did on it.