Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

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.

> But the usual Linux hobgoblins listed above are a red herring here, to my mind.

Absolutely

> 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.

The only point I agree with the author is that many things are shipped to be used with docker when they don't need to be, which creates a needless dependency.

I have "reversed engineered" dockerfiles in order to avoid containers. Any software should be installable without docker, it just takes more knowledge and time. Also sometimes it doesn't, there is a binary (like with go and rust and .net) or other times the long route is pip or apt and some conf fiddling. Databases are the worse part maybe but once you get it is more control for you and what you want to do with your setup. Moving database server to other dir o server? no prob. Sometimes dockerfile deploys postgresql when you can configure it for home a simple sqlite. If you end up modifying the dockerfile you understand what are the application requirements are and you can install raw.