FreeBSD
docs.freebsd.orgIt's apparently "post a link to an OS with no further comment or discussion" day, first we get SmartOS and then Linux From Scratch and now this. Nice way to farm karma, I guess. Flagging them all.
Also illumos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708807 - Jan 2026 (15 comments)
People often post follow-ups but they're usually the opposite of what we want, since the idea is to have 30 buckets of the frontpage hashed out evenly over the topic space.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Disclaimer: No disrespect meant towards FreeBSD or the maintainers.
I currently work on FreeBSD servers pretty much exclusively for my job and I have a really hard time grokking why I would want to use them over some flavor of Linux. I also work (and have worked in my career) with Linux servers (Ubuntu and Debian primarily, and things like alpine in docker) and there isn't anything I do that I think "I wish I was on FreeBSD", the opposite is not true, I semi-regularly pine for X tool or Y program that doesn't run on FreeBSD (or is harder to run).
It's very possible that I am just not using/experiencing the full power of FreeBSD (as in: I'm too dumb to know how great it is) but if I had pro/con columns for FreeBSD I can think of a number of cons and very few pros that Linux doesn't share. Again, there is a very good chance that I'm "holding it wrong", but I've heard "oh, but not on FreeBSD" or "Hmm, they don't support FreeBSD" about too many things that might have solved issues we've run into at my job.
Maybe I'm boring or maybe I'm just lazy but I feel like Linux is the past of least resistance, it has the most info online available, the most guides, blog posts, LLM training, etc.
I'd be interested to hear what people on HN like best about FreeBSD so I can see if it applies to my usage or not and to see if I can't learn new tips/tricks.
BSD can be a better choice for a variety of reasons. Firstly business reasons BSD has more permissive licences than Linux's GNU licence which compels you to share any modifications you make to the software. BSD uses the MIT licenses which state that you are allowed to modify the source code and not release it, which is why most embedded devices like routers/firewalls use BSD over Linux. That and BSD is faster at networking.
It also has better storage (ZFS), although this is now implemented in Linux, it is not as stable as BSD which developed it specifically for their OS.
I run most of my personal network infra (routers, DNS servers, etc.) on FreeBSD because I have been running it on FreeBSD since the late 90's, and have never had any reason to change it.
In all that time, I've never felt like I suffered from lack of information on how to get things done: the documentation is generally good, and I've always been able to fill in any missing details by reading shell scripts and, very very rarely, source code.
While the "better" security than Linux argument is weak, the FreeBSD/OpenBSD OS network packet handling is extremely good (common OS for routers etc.) =3
I ended up switching from FreeBSD to Linux twice (TrueNAS CORE -> TrueNAS SCALE, opnSense -> OpenWrt) due to poor network performance on FreeBSD. Could just never get 10 Gbps throughput on FreeBSD, whereas Linux on the same hardware was fine. Across Intel and Mellanox NICs, so not a specific driver issue.
Usually Linux can enable a vendors direct packet handling driver as a closed source firmware that bypasses the kernel almost completely once the user connection is setup. That was the most economical way to handle several SFP-DD Transceivers at saturation in a normal host. ymmv
There are probably better solutions around these days. =3
For me it’s the amazing ports and pkg system.
I use Arch for superior hardware support on the laptop and FreeBSD on the server for superior software management.
The typical touted benefit is the native first-party ZFS support.
Mine: It's not Linux. Linux feels like a heavy weight. Compiling a kernel is tideous. If a service fails, systemd breaks which a PITA in to fix. "Waiting for X/Y to quit", NetworkManager is archaic.
I've found that on RedHat based distro's you have to at least enable different repo's (epel, rpmfusion, el) just to get the packages required. Debian you're already out of date but that's for security, so fair enough. It's under corporate control, Ubuntu (Canonical) is corporate, anything RedHat (IBM) are corporate. You try to look online for a reason why SSSD is failing and the actual answers are hidden behind a paywall on redhat.com
We have aggressive HP machines designed for Windows with 4000RTX's which get used for rendering. They get thrashed and for the studio to obtain further TPN status I am moving from Windows to Linux. The struggles on a good day to operate with them is insanity. I'm now drinking 2x double shot lattes a day from just a single, double shot. Next it will be whisky, some days I have snuck in a shot of Mezcal before work in hope the Mezcal gods save the day.
FreeBSD handles them like a champ. TPN doesn't recognize FreeBSD so it has to be Rocky Linux.
I needed a PXE server, this shop only had a old 2009 mac mini left over in the cupboard. It does the job, 100Mbit is fine for provisioning, and if I want more I'll just use a USB Ethernet dongle. Linux, failed. FreeBSD, booted off memory stick and has been working flawlessly. I now have a working PXE server coded in TCL and running on FreeBSD. It's glorious and because so I've now been told going forward all my future creations must be Python. Urgh but fair enough, TCL is niche.
ZFS <3, why the hell TrueNAS went Linux is beyond my grasp.
I run FBSD 16 (bleeding edge) on my main rig, 4x screens. 2x27' 4K, 2x27' all work flawlessly with Xorg.
Jails are fantastic, my web browsers never touch the OS and at any point I can torch them and roll back to a clean snapshots. Thanks ZFS.
Four of my colocated servers are running FreeBSD. Two of them have over 1000 days uptime.
My laptop which works flawlessly including suspend (MSI Modern 2015) works as my media TV station with Bluetooth audio streaming to my sound bar with a 3rd party HDMI transmitter. This runs FreeBSD.mookie@cookie:~ $ uname -a && uptime FreeBSD cookie.server 12.2-BETA1 FreeBSD 12.2-BETA1 r365618 GENERIC amd64 10:39PM up 1699 days, 1:31, 1 user, load averages: 0.64, 1.30, 1.31I didn't see you give any reason to why you don't like FreeBSD. because what you can do on Linux, you can do on FreeBSD.
./configure, make, make install. Nothing else is required unless you want docker, then eww. go away.
My life of a FreeBSD admin has been a large weight off my shoulders. And I was there when Linux was on the 2.x branch kernel & you had to write your own X config without internet at the age of 13. If it wasn't for Minix pissing off Linus, Linux wouldn't of existed. The only distribution if forced would be Slackware.
I will say the FreeBSD handbook is such a breath of fresh air compared to other OS documentation. Everything is easy to find and well formatted. Same goes for the OS internals themselves. It's just a cohesive project altogether.
You're seeing the benefit of the cathedral model right there: a centralized, architected approach yields unified documentation, whereas the bazaar is inherently fragmented.
Back in college I spent some time translating portions of it to Russian. It was super easy to work with the project on that. I honestly have no idea if any of my contributions are still a part of it but I am really glad I did that.
same experience for me, I translated a few chapter to Italian while in university, I learned a lot and the translation project was super well run.
I ran it for a while it’s nice. Easy as breathing ZFS on root and zfsbootmenu is really nice. Also the userland is maintained in connection with the kernel (or something to that extent) and it’s just a nice solid whole.
ZFSBootMenu doesn't work with FreeBSD, it only knows how to boot a Linux kernel.
Maybe he meant boot environments ?
That’s what I meant. My bad. Got confused.
It took 30 years for linux to finally fulfill "x is the year of Linux Desktop", but I don't know if *BSD will ever get there.
It is more that Windows abdicated its 87% market share due to incompetence in brand management. =3
fine by me, microsoft deserves to go to hell.
Good to RTFM again and learn what's new (from a personal perspective)
e.g. Thin Jails
https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/#thin-jailh...
not to pick on OP but what is up with all the links to OS project homepages today? i've seen illumos, LFS, FreeBSD and a handful of others. did i miss something (other than W11 shitting the bed with app launching) that's got people suddenly interested in alternative OSes today?
When you finally understand the full stack you inevitably end up down operating system rabbit holes.
You try them out. To jump distro to distro. Linux to BSD to Linux to Amiga EMU to C64 to BSD again. It’s a short circuit of the brain. One that thinks if they just learn one more thing. In the end, learning how these things work makes us better engineers. Knowing how compilers work makes us better engineers. Knowing how our mind works makes us better engineers. If you don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, don’t. Enjoy the Vista, or National Parks, or whatever you got going on. Some of us like digging underground.
(This is just fun poking at what I’ve observed and in no way represents you, the OP, or my employer.)
The site guidelines is supposed to be anything that a hacker finds interesting.
This feels a bit like dumping the manual to a Toyota Camry without explanation. It’s technical, but what’s interesting?
Maybe there is interesting stuff in here - but I’d love to see submissions do some kind of analysis to justify it - like an appreciation of an example of well-run user documentation, or a highlighting a clear and concise explanation of how a particular subsystem works.
These posts just rocket to the top of Hacker News with no discussion.
Sometimes a reminder for the audience is all it takes. Every couple of years we get new blood here and every year we lose some.
Don't conflate engineer with programmer.
Programmers would build vehicular bridges with the same workmanship as Engineers writing code. =3
no, i get it - i've been to wonderland and back :) i just noticed more of these types of links today than i usually see.
my money is on fake-internet-points farming, and is directly related to "all the links to OS project homepages today"
Surely most of us have heard of FreeBSD here. To the point that it should not be the top hit on the front page of hacker NEWS
At a certain point in some use-cases the Linux problems outweigh the "improvements", and more traditional partially conformant posix systems reduce complexity.
For example, the reduced attack surface area of OpenBSD hardware support is a kick in the pants for average users, but desirable for hardened system design.
Why does none of this really matter practically? (seriously it doesn't)
In general, Linux has so many people looking at its code, that the CVE and driver issues will be addressed with higher frequency. Thus, FreeBSD/OpenBSD lower 0-day incident rates tend to be illusionary, as the security incidents in fringe OS always have lower discovery probability.
I am a fan of most things posix, and acknowledge most problems originate from Application space rather than the OS itself. =3
I had the printed handbook from the 3.x days, was a great resource and I am sure it still is.
Kinda feels like the submission title should be changed to FreeBSD Handbook, and possibly even the relevant version info.
I've said it before too, it is exemplary in terms of what documentation should be ; just read through it with a VM on, type the things, and everything just works, no googling or LLMing around. I heard it is the same for other BSDs as well, will try those some day. Also a testimony of how coherent this system is.
As a seasonned SRE it is a breathe of fresh air in this world where everything else seems to change from one version to another and nothing seems to work at first try, ever.
I'd love for someone to show us an OS (not just a kernel) that is more secure.
In general, Linux has so many people looking at its code, that the CVE and driver issues will be addressed with higher frequency. Thus, FreeBSD/OpenBSD lower 0-day incident rates tend to be illusionary, as the security incidents in fringe OS always have lower discovery probability. =3
How come this one about FreeBSD is [flagged] and this one [1] about SmartOS not?
Someone should make a new mobile OS like android but based on FreeBSD.
We need to say goodbye to the unix philosophy. From the security point of view there are much better options. Also text based tooling is cumbersome compare to the alternatives. We should aim higher than just the cathedral approach of unix alternatives.
Like so many things in life, there are so many variables/criteria and different ways to weigh them that I do not think one can make a claim like "text based tooling is cumbersome compare to the alternatives".
What are the alternatives? I had to do a little windows shell programming when working on Chef orchestration to set up windows servers.
There was "flow" programming in WebMethods I had to work on that tried to provide a snap in place component GUI to program data transformation.
I would say that there is something limiting in all the GUI based interfaces I have had to work with. Some option you can not get to, or it is not apparent how two things can communicate with each other.
Text based options have always seem more open to inspection, and, hence, easier to reason about how it works. YMMV.
Fair tbh
FreeBSD is notoriously bad with modern hardware especially Bluetooth/wifi/etc so I can’t think of a worse base OS for mobile tbh
Vibe coding could change that. Porting drivers from Linux got much easier.
Good point.
Why a whole new mobile OS? Linux is the least important part of Android. It could be replaced. Probably will be, by Fuschia.
I'm not an expert here, but I this is pretty unlikely at this point.
Google has been working on Fuschia for a decade, and far as I can tell, the only place it was ever deployed was to a Google smart home hub 5 years ago. The only Fuschia news I've heard since then was about layoffs and killing projects related to it (e.g. Chrome on Fuschia).
If Google isn't moving any of their own phones over to Fuschia after a decade of work, it's hard to imagine them unilaterally flipping Android to it and forcing the hand of every Android OEM to follow suit.
Simplicity. Also maybe use Go for apps instead of Java.
The idea is it would be nice to have an OS that is a little easier to learn for the next generation of devs.
Simplicity how? It would require a great deal of complex work.
Simplicity in the sense that BSD is a much smaller codebase than linux and therefore less complex and easier to onboard new devs.
It wouldn't be a smaller codebase if you built an Android-like mobile OS on top of it.
Good OS. Idk what to say. I thought this was a news site.
You are mistaken.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
I stand corrected.
FreeBSD is nice nowdays if you are lucky with hardware but it has slower RAM memory read and write speed compared to Debian Linux
Does it support arm64?
I use FreeBSD on a raspberry pi 3b using the arm64 image. It’s under aarch64:
https://download.freebsd.org/releases/arm64/aarch64/ISO-IMAG...
How is the support? I would like to use CARP/pf if possible on RPI4/5.
I only have a 3B but everything I need works for me. I don’t do anything advanced with the GPIO pins, just as a headless little arm server running stuff in jails. Everything is quick. Ethernet only but network performance seems solid. Honestly feels as responsive as my amd64 desktop with 32 gb of ddr4 ram and 8 cores. My desktop has worst support for FreeBSD. No networking or graphics out of the box and significantly more work to get that “working” compared to the pi.
Yes, arm64 support has been Tier 1 since FreeBSD 13.0.
Posts FreeBSD
Refuses to elaborate
Leaves
It could be worse. Could be written by an LLM.
Karma farming.
Like how people look up what links got lots of engagement two years ago and then re-post them for a new audience.
"If I haven't seen it, it's new to me."
- Charles Manson quoting NBC in Family Guy
After first wrapping it in low quality blog spam.
Honestly lmao