[Info-vax] OS implementation languages

[chrisq]

On 8/29/23 19:54, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/29/2023 8:13 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-08-28, chrisq <devzero at nospam.com> wrote:
>>> Very much FreeBSD here for some years, after decades first with dec,
>>> then Sun. Forms the basic of at least some proprietary offerings, as
>>> well as millions of embedded devices. Linux is still a unix,
>>> and runs the majority of web sites of the world, so if anything,
>>> unix has won the os wars...
>>
>> Yes, very much so. (And I can't believe Arne thinks the *BSDs have no
>> serious users... :-) ).
> 
> It definitely has some but not as many as it once had.
> 
> 20 years ago FreeBSD was sort of the free "high end" OS
> and used by places where Windows and Linux was not considered
> good enough.
> 
> The world has changed since then.
> 
> Linux has also squeezed FreeBSD market share.
> 
> Primarily for non-technical reasons:
> - Linux got backing from IBM, Oracle etc.
> - Easier to hire Linux expertise
> - Many companies standardize on a Linux only strategy for applications
>    (exception for the stuff supporting PC's)
> - Cloud vendors has pushed Linux
> - Many companies are moving applications to Kubernetes on Linux (*)
> 
> *) I believe that FreeBSD got jails before Linux got containers and
>     jails should be just as good, but FreeBSD jails does not have
>     the eco-system that Linux containers has (Kubernetes, OpenShift etc.)
> 
> Arne
> 
> 

What FreeBSD has managed to do is to maintain the elegance and
simplicity of trad unix, while including advanced system
options like ZFS in the out of the box distribution. Fully
preemptive / real time without a compiler rebuild. Makes it a
worthy successor to Solaris, which was noted for its robustness.
Run a public ntp server, hundreds of hits a minute at times. It
has a current uptime of over two years. On a ups of course. but
seriously reliable. At least partly due to a very  conservative
design process and a software engineering attitude. Thousands of
packages, including most Linux packages, with those that are not,
built from source. All the usual desktop choices, with xfce4
being the best compromise between lightweightness and features.
Just gets the job done with minimum of fuss.

Compare that with Linux, earlier versions still in use here, but
becomes ever more complex and opaque. Had to give up on it after
the systemd trainwreck. A valid windows substitute, nice decor,
but not for serious work here. The most professional distros at
present are arguably Suse and Debian, imho...

Chris