[aklug] Re: My Recent Experience with FreeBSD

* Josh Rhoades <kaiden11@gmail.com> [2008-12-03 14:58 -0600]:
> [snips throughout]

First, ditto the nice post.

> The sshd worked "out of the box," (though I did tweak it to disallow
> root access),

I would recommend is disabling root access via ssh, instead installing
sudo from ports or packages. "sudo" was often the very first package I
would install after installing FreeBSD. With sudo you can do most of
the standard system/ports install/configuration/deinstall tasks without
tooling around as root. The less time spent as root, the better for
your blood pressure (if something goes wrong, that is).

>and both the ipfw and powerd configuration were a matter of adding:
>
> firewall_enable="YES"
> firewall_type="client"
> powerd_enable="YES"
>
> ...to my /etc/rc.conf file. Of course, depending on what you're having
> to do with a machine, this could get extremely complicated, but for my
> basic uses, it was pretty painless.

That is one of the strengths of the BSDs: Very simple setup, because
just about everything in the base system can be managed from one central
location. I remember that fondly, but my current server (leased VPS) is
a linux server because I couldn't find a FreeBSD VPS which was cheap
enough. I decided that playing with hardware was not as important as
school, darn the luck. ;]

> The ports system is nothing short of badass. I appreciate its
> simplicity: it is a directory structure, organized by function (system
> utilities, databases, programming languages, etc), of thousands of
> Make files, each responsible for downloading, compiling, installing,
> and uninstalling various program packages.

Check out the recent thread on freebsd-ports [1] regarding the addition
of an easy to administer method of applying local patches to any port in
the tree. This, in particular, is something I've been hoping for...
perhaps I'll have to go looking for a FreeBSD VPS which can offer what I
need for around $25 a month. Hrmmm.

[1]: <http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=39627+0+current/freebsd-ports>

> Overall, the system feels very solid.

My impression of FreeBSD as well.

> I've just started using this, and have been so far impressed. I'm sure
> if I attempt to get fancier with a graphical environment and such, my
> criticisms would be more, but for now, I don't really have anything
> that isn't a product of my familiarizing myself with how FreeBSD does
> their configuration.

I've run FreeBSD as my desktop system before, although never for longer
than a few months. My job currently requires a program that requires
windows, and I've bowed to the inevitable and have a laptop running
Windows. Of course, on that laptop I have a VirtualBox machine running
Debian which allows me to run all my favourite programs. ;]

> Has anyone had a particularly bad experience with FreeBSD? Or more
> specifically, is there something I should be avoiding, or leave to a
> later project with another OS that supports a feature better?

The primary thing I noticed about the GUI desktop in FreeBSD is the lack
of automated menuing. This may have changed, after all it's been a few
years, but there was no standard for adding menu items of installed
packages and ports. That was the only problem I had with FreeBSD as
desktop, other than that it did everything I needed. Of course, my
needs were pretty limited.

> also because my friends have no idea what I'm talking about. Oh sure,
> they know how to comment on somebody's Facebook wall, but the minute
> terminal emulation gets brought up you're suddenly no longer fun to
> talk to at parties...

Heh. I know precisely what you're talking about. It's interesting how
many people consider themselves computer savvy until you start talking
about the technical side of things. I believe the phrase I've heard
when I find someone to talk tech with is: "Geek-off"

Regards,

-- 
dave [ please don't CC me ]
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