FreeBSD for webserver?

[Paul Schmehl]

--On July 22, 2008 9:01:44 PM -0400 Sahil Tandon <sahil at tandon.net> wrote:

> Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists at tx.rr.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Some people enjoy doing that.  Most people just want the software to
>> work,  be easy to maintain and upgrade and then stay out of their way.
>
> Ahem, and that 'just works' crowd is generally not found using FreeBSD
> or in  an admin capacity. :-)

Perhaps you've misunderstood my point?

Compiling from source rather than ports gains you nothing, in most cases, 
and can cost you a great deal of extra time if you run into problems. 
Time is something most admins I know have precious little of already. 
There are certainly special cases where compiling from source is 
preferable, especially if you have a highly customized installation, but 
those are the exceptions rather than the rule.  My point was, when you 
install from ports, you *are* compiling from source.  You just don't have 
to deal with any of the quirks that arise when you're working from the 
tarball.  The port maintainers have already dealt with those issues for 
you.

If you prefer compiling from the tarball then by all means have at it.

As an admin myself, I build world and kernel by hand, but I build all my 
apps from ports.  (I've used freebsd-update for kernel and world updates, 
but I normally compile both.)

Paul Schmehl
If it isn't already obvious,
my opinions are my own and not
those of my employer.