GoKawiilWhen I first laid eyes on the FreeBSD Handbook, back in 2002, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Six years of Linux, a relationship I've written about elsewhere, across various distributions, had trained me to hunt for documentation in fragments: often incomplete, often outdated, sometimes already stale after barely a year. Here was an operating system that came with a complete, accurate, up-to-date (as much as possible), detailed manual. I was already a convinced believer in Open Source, but I found myself reasoning in very practical terms: if the team behind this OS puts this much care into its documentation, imagine how solid the system itself must be. And so I decided to give it a try. I had a Sony Vaio with no room for a dual boot. I synced everything to a desktop machine with more space, took a breath, and made a decision: I'd install FreeBSD on that laptop and reinstall Linux when the experiment was over.
Spoiler: FreeBSD never left that machine.
At the time I had no idea that this experiment would shape the way I design and run systems for the next twenty years.
I realized almost immediately that GNU/Linux and FreeBSD were so similar they were completely different.
The Unix inspiration was the same, but everything worked differently - and the impression was that FreeBSD was distinctly more mature, less chaotic, more focused. A magnificent cathedral - a form then widely criticized in the circles I moved in - but one that had certain undeniable virtues. Back then I compiled the entire system from source, and I noticed right away that performance was better on that hardware than Linux had ever been. Not only that: Linux would overheat and produce unpredictable results - errors, sudden shutdowns, fans screaming even after compilation finished. My Linux friends continued to insist it was a “hardware problem”, but FreeBSD handled the load far more gracefully. I could read my email in mutt while compiling, something that was practically impossible on Linux, which would slow to a crawl. The fans would settle within seconds of the load ending, and the system felt genuinely more responsive. I never experienced a crash. I was running KDE on all my systems at the time, and the experience on FreeBSD was noticeably superior - more consistent and steady performance, none of the micro-freezes I'd come to accept on Linux, greater overall stability. The one drawback: I compiled everything, including KDE. I was a university student and couldn't leave my laptop in another room - the risk of an "incident" involving one of my flatmates was too real - so I kept it within arm's reach, night after night, fans spinning as KDE and all its applications compiled. At some point I figured out exactly how long the KDE build took, and started using it as a clock: fans running meant it was before four in the morning. Fans silent meant I'd made it past.
The Handbook taught me an enormous amount - more than many of my university courses - including things that had nothing to do with FreeBSD specifically. It taught me the right approach: understand first, act second. The more I read, the more I wanted a printed copy to keep at my desk. So I convinced my parents that I needed a laser printer “for university work”. And the first thing I printed, of course, was the Handbook. That Handbook still contains relevant information today. There have been significant changes over the past twenty-four years, but the foundations are still the same. Many tools still work exactly as they did. Features have been added, but the originals still operate on the same principles. Evolution, not revolution. And when you're building something meant to last, that is - in my view - exactly the right philosophy. Change is good. Innovation is good. On my own machines I've broken and rebuilt things thousands of times. But production environments must be stable and predictable. That, still today, is one of the qualities I value most in every BSD.
Over the years, FreeBSD has served me well. At a certain point it stepped down as my primary desktop - partly because I switched to Mac, partly because of unsupported hardware - but it never stopped being one of my first choices for servers and any serious workload. As I often say: I only have one workstation, and I use it to access hundreds of servers. It's far easier to replace a workstation - I can reconfigure everything in a couple of hours - than to deal with a production server gone sideways, with anxious clients waiting or operations ground to a halt.
FreeBSD has never chased innovation for its own sake. It has never chased hype at the expense of its core purpose. Its motto is "The Power to Serve" - and to do that effectively, efficiently, securely. That is what FreeBSD has been for me.
I love FreeBSD because it has served me for decades without surprises. I love FreeBSD because it innovates while making sure my 2009 servers keep running correctly, requiring only small adjustments at each major update rather than a complete overhaul.
I love FreeBSD because it doesn't rename my network interfaces after a reboot or an upgrade.
... continue reading