I've got a major question...

[Alejandro Imass]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 3:11 AM Ralf Mardorf via freebsd-questions <
freebsd-questions at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 08:15:18 +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> >I know, this is a very individual point of view and experience, but
> >as you can see: It _is_ possible, and it starts with the right
> >decision. :-)
>
> Hi,
>
> it makes a big difference, if somebody needs to ask for recommendations
> or not. It makes a difference, if somebody is assuming "probably
> Canonical/Ubuntu would be a better fit than FreeBSD" or knows if it
> does or does not.
>
>
>
[...]


> There's no paper shop without magazines promoting Linux container
> approaches as the ultimate solution for everything. Take, for example,
> Ubuntu's snap thingy. Due to the container approach some software might
> be unable to provide full functionality, since access to software
> outside the container could be tricky, even impossible.
>
>

We are discussing a Desktop environment, not virtualization nor containers.
For the Desktop, there is not a single Linux distribution that is more user
friendly than Ubuntu and FreeBSD is not especially user-friendly when it
comes to using it on the Desktop: I am referring to hardware and software
compatibility with every day tasks, ease of use and community and/or
commercial support.

Regarding Linux containers IMHO they are just a bad copy of FreeBSD Jails
and in my own projects both personal and my own companies I use FreeBSD
with EzJail and I can do what other people are doing with Docker and
Terrfaform, etc. Nevertheless, in the mainstream IT industry, sadly FreeBSD
Jails are not well known, nor is FreeBSD in general. I say sadly, because
it would be a great contender to all the Linux container-based stuff that
is being used today.

IIRC I started a thread a while ago suggesting that Jails should be
rebranded to FreeBSD Containers and things like EzJail should be native.
But no one seemed interested in this discussion.


> I'm absolutely pro Linux, FreeBSD and anything FLOSS for desktop
> computers, but to get work done, I'm using a proprietary product
> named after a fruit, too and I at least need to run wine-staging on
> Linux, too. Wine isn't without pitfalls.
>
>
Agreed, Wine seems to have run it's course IMHO. Use actual Windows, even
if virtualized, when running Windows-based software.


> Assuming a company gets work done on proprietary operating systems,
> then ensure that migrating to FreeBSD or a Linux distro does provide
> what is needed and that the software worked in the past, at the moment
> and doesn't have dependencies against phase-out model libraries.
>
> Choosing a Linux distro is not easy to do and depends much on the
> target.
>
>
Here I have to disagree. I used Linux on the desktop _exclusively_ from
1998 to 2012 and I tried most, if not all, the main distros throughout that
time and Ubuntu always won in terms of ease of use and compatibility and
stuff just works. NVL when I switched to Mac in 2012 it was like having the
best of of both worlds and now I am stuck with the complete Apple
ecosystem, but I keep using FreeBSD in my servers (since 2006).

Best,
Alex