[freebsd-questions] Future of FreeBSD 7.0 and up

[Howard Jones]

Dwight Smith wrote:
> Good morning,
>
> My name is Dwight Smith, and I only had a question or two in terms of
> the future useability of FreeBSD. I have used it on and off and found
> it to be a great UNIX operating system for servers, but my only major
> concern was the amount of time it takes to prepare a server such as an
> Apache Server with PHP and MySQL support as opposed to a Linux system
> which is what I am currently using now as well as my company. I guess
> my question is that will the ease of building or installing software
> for FreeBSD ever streamline to where you do not have to do as many
> steps and text config file entries? 
I built a new server just like you describe yesterday morning, from
scratch, to replace a dying Cacti server. The whole process took about
an hour, I guess. All the text files I had to alter were
/etc/rc.conf.local and the apache httpd.conf and MySQL my.cnf. Since the
last two are the same on any Unix system, I guess I'm confused about
which files you need to edit that you don't need to on a typical Linux
system...

My complete install was: FreeBSD 6.2 scripted with install.cfg to a
standard spec, freebsd-update, portsnap, install portupgrade, then
portinstall apache , php5 and mysql-server... substitute Kickstart for
install.cfg and yum/apt for portinstall and it's the same on CentOS.

I used to feel the same way about FreeBSD, but if you stick to the
straight and narrow and use ports where possible, you can streamline the
initial install and upgrade process quite a bit. If you don't need any
special kernel support, then freebsd-update covers the basic system
updates, too. If you install a lot of servers, then look into
install.cfg and the sysinstall manpage too - we go from blank server to
running system with our standard customisations and packages in about 8
minutes with one keypress, using standard tools.

Have fun,

Howie