This story reminds me of Jan Koum (of Whatsapp) when he donated a million dollars to FreeBSD: "one of the main reasons I got a job at Yahoo! is because they were using FreeBSD, and it was my operating system of choice. Years later, when Brian and I set out to build WhatsApp, we used FreeBSD to keep our servers running. We still do." (https://www.facebook.com/jan.koum/posts/10152852986375011)
It would be interesting to read about their experiences over the last 18 years.
I recently installed FreeBSD on a home server and was very pleased both with the process and the result. Also, the documentation is just impressive (that goes, in my experience, for all the BSD systems).
I was at Y! from 2004 to 2011, when I started it was FreeBSD only except for acquisitions. When I left it was a mix of FreeBSD and RHEL, with everyone being strongly encouraged to move to RHEL.
I think the justifications were better support for running on Linux (storage drivers, Java, MySQL, oracle), better support for virtualization (although bsd jails are better than virtualization in my opinion, and a better fit for Y!), and it would be easier to support one os instead of two and acquisitions (including inktomi) really wanted to run on Linux.
The drop dead date for getting off FreeBSD kept getting pushed back, but I'd guess they've moved almost everything by now.
We used FreeBSD exclusively at my first startup in 1999 (flashbase), partially because of Yahoo's success with it (I was at Stanford). We found the base OS to be very stable and the networking stack to be especially robust. But, the mysql port was not that stable and drivers for proprietary products, like Oracle, were hard to come by.
Back in the day, Oracle did a freebsd driver partially for Yahoo. The Oracle drivers were not open source and hence there were few options to connect without Oracle's help.
I worked in the kernel networking group at SGI in the 90s and there was a lot of freebsd loving there. Also, the FreeBSD license was more relaxed and commercial products (like NetAPP) could include and extend FreeBSD without disclosing their modifications.
Our frustration with lack of support for FreeBSD moved us to choose Linux and Windows (for SQL server support) the next time around in 2004.
FreeBSD has been my server platform since early 2000's, chosen for reliability and relative ease of configuration (vs. Linux, etc.). The primary server for my business was running FBSD since 2005, stopping only for of power outages, or periodic maintenance. (Still works too.) I have used FBSD on desktop systems too, though that has significant limitations.
It's my impression that the pace of FBSD development has been increasing in the last couple of years, hardware/driver compatibility included. As well, it seems recently there's been more "cross fertilization" among the BSDs, and Linux to a lesser extent, signs of health and vigor for these projects.
While there are former FBSD users deciding to go with a different OS, such switching is not new or a one-way thing. I think it's a safe bet some enterprises are choosing FBSD over something else, anyway there's little risk any major FOSS OS project will soon disappear.
I tried both as a teenager. At the time I ended up sticking with Linux, but even in retrospect it's hard to quantify why. I remember though that it felt more understandable and "approachable" somehow. It was little stuff like bash vs csh or the presence of ever so slightly more modern editors and utilities.
I think if FreeBSD would have put a bit more effort into modernization and community in the early to mid 90s we'd all be using it more now. It's guts were superior at the time and in a few ways still are.
There's not being modern, and then there's not chasing every rabbit down every hole. Right now I feel like FreeBSD is a wonderful mix of advanced, modern tech like ZFS and bhyve, married with an absence of "oooo-shiny!" misadventures like PulseAudio and systemd.
And in particular, right now I'm grateful that the BSDs are small enough to be ignored by the herds of people migrating away from Windows and bringing their mindsets with them - that all seems to be landing on Linux.
I had precisely the opposite experience. My father bought me RedHat 5.2 and no matter what I did, I could not get anything but a stuck X -- no mouse, no window manager, no login prompt. every time, just the immovable X.
Returned it for The Complete FreeBSD and never, ever looked back. FreeBSD got me jobs at interesting places, and a handful of life long, interesting friends.
I agree with some of the other replies here -- I'm perfectly happy and even glad the BSDs have exactly the size and composition of users they do.
well, NetBSD needs much more public love, in my opinion.
In the early 2000's i almost exclusively used FreeBSD. The hardware i used were always a bit behind the curve, and still i could max my network connections.
What made me move to Linux eventually, was the ability to keep all my software easily updated, including the kernel.
I've tried FreeBSD on occasion and that's exactly what kept me away from it. Keeping (multiple) systems current is always where most of the work is (if you do keep them current, that is), not on initial installation/configuration.
In 1996 I began working at a very bootstrapped Internet Service Provider (ISP). Some of you younger people might not even know what an ISP is - there used to be companies other than Verizon and AT&T that you could get Internet access from.
Any how, aside from an NT server or two, and a Sun IPX box, our servers were generally Linux (Slackware and Debian) and FreeBSD. Mostly FreeBSD.
FreeBSD had a lot going for it. A lot going for it over Linux at the time, for our company. Often we would get our hands on an x86 box of one type or another and have to make it into a server. These boxes usually had no CDROM, and usually we installed network cards, which themselves were coming in randomly, on their bus (usually ISA, sometimes PCI).
To get the latest version of Slackware, we'd have to download all five of the Slackware base "A" disks. Then the compiler was on the 10 "D" series of disks. Then the 4 "N" disks would have networking. Plus more if you want ghostscript (another set) or emacs (another set), or God help you, a workstation with X-windows running fvwm...
FreeBSD was two disks - boot and root. Then you go into ports and install from there. Because boot and root were enough to get your network card working - when Slackware and Debian often did not have those cards working at all. Many a time I was going to install Linux, couldn't get the network card working, put in the FreeBSD boot/root disks, got the network card working with no problem, and the would-be Linux box became a FreeBSD box.
It was not just network cards - these two disks had a great system for not just recognizing all Ethernet cards and getting them to work, but being able to install a full-out system over a modem and 56k (or 28.8k, or 14k) baud POTS connection. FreeBSD just made it real easy to install itself.
This was not just my opinion, others I knew thought the same thing. Not until Ubuntu did I find a Linux system that worked to make installing it easy. When wireless ethernet cards became more ubiquitous, I had left FreeBSD behind years before, but most Linuxes had trouble with every other card out there, even Ubuntu initially. FreeBSD never seemed to have these problems, being able to install easily was something they prioritized - and I think it helped them.
Also, our Linuxes at the time were vulnerable to the "ping of death" and these sorts of security problems. I still know companies which use FreeBSD. They started years ago and never changed.
I'm not sure when and why Linux started overtaking FreeBSD. Linux had this pre-GRUB boot loader called LILO which was horrible, but it did allow people with Windows boxes to be able to turn their desktop or laptop into a dual boot machine on which they could play around with Linux. Linux was more advanced on the multi-boot front if I recall, and that was probably one of the reasons it got ahead.
Also another mentioned reason is commercialized BSD like BSDI was under a cloud of lawsuits in the early 1990s, whereas commercial Linux companies like Red Hat were free of all of this, and this served to help Linux as well.
Well, you have a very different memory of the era than I do. I never had any problem getting an ethernet card working on Linux: there was never any work to do! They just worked out of the box.
I believe it was almost entirely due to the work of Donald Becker. I don't know anything about the guy, other than he had a NASA email address, but I kept seeing his name mentioned when looking for anything network card related.
I remember the floppy disk pain though. Few machines had CD-ROMs so basically it was copying 30 images overwriting Microsoft Windows & Office floppy disks (they were better quality than the cheap 3.5" disks you generally got supplied with and there were always spare ones) and then swap, swap, swap...
After installed several linux distros, I decided to try my chance with free BSD. I still remember how I suffered to setup my ADSL. But It was 10 years ago. I am sure the installation process is easier compared to the past but I am not that brave anymore.
[+] [-] janvdberg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krylon|10 years ago|reply
I recently installed FreeBSD on a home server and was very pleased both with the process and the result. Also, the documentation is just impressive (that goes, in my experience, for all the BSD systems).
[+] [-] toast0|10 years ago|reply
I think the justifications were better support for running on Linux (storage drivers, Java, MySQL, oracle), better support for virtualization (although bsd jails are better than virtualization in my opinion, and a better fit for Y!), and it would be easier to support one os instead of two and acquisitions (including inktomi) really wanted to run on Linux.
The drop dead date for getting off FreeBSD kept getting pushed back, but I'd guess they've moved almost everything by now.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yahoofbsd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erlichson|10 years ago|reply
Back in the day, Oracle did a freebsd driver partially for Yahoo. The Oracle drivers were not open source and hence there were few options to connect without Oracle's help.
I worked in the kernel networking group at SGI in the 90s and there was a lot of freebsd loving there. Also, the FreeBSD license was more relaxed and commercial products (like NetAPP) could include and extend FreeBSD without disclosing their modifications.
Our frustration with lack of support for FreeBSD moved us to choose Linux and Windows (for SQL server support) the next time around in 2004.
[+] [-] jrapdx3|10 years ago|reply
It's my impression that the pace of FBSD development has been increasing in the last couple of years, hardware/driver compatibility included. As well, it seems recently there's been more "cross fertilization" among the BSDs, and Linux to a lesser extent, signs of health and vigor for these projects.
While there are former FBSD users deciding to go with a different OS, such switching is not new or a one-way thing. I think it's a safe bet some enterprises are choosing FBSD over something else, anyway there's little risk any major FOSS OS project will soon disappear.
[+] [-] thatha7777|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|10 years ago|reply
I think if FreeBSD would have put a bit more effort into modernization and community in the early to mid 90s we'd all be using it more now. It's guts were superior at the time and in a few ways still are.
[+] [-] badsock|10 years ago|reply
And in particular, right now I'm grateful that the BSDs are small enough to be ignored by the herds of people migrating away from Windows and bringing their mindsets with them - that all seems to be landing on Linux.
[+] [-] pyvpx|10 years ago|reply
Returned it for The Complete FreeBSD and never, ever looked back. FreeBSD got me jobs at interesting places, and a handful of life long, interesting friends.
I agree with some of the other replies here -- I'm perfectly happy and even glad the BSDs have exactly the size and composition of users they do.
well, NetBSD needs much more public love, in my opinion.
[+] [-] abricot|10 years ago|reply
What made me move to Linux eventually, was the ability to keep all my software easily updated, including the kernel.
[+] [-] CrLf|10 years ago|reply
Honestly, I don't know if this is still the case.
[+] [-] betaby|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ologn|10 years ago|reply
Any how, aside from an NT server or two, and a Sun IPX box, our servers were generally Linux (Slackware and Debian) and FreeBSD. Mostly FreeBSD.
FreeBSD had a lot going for it. A lot going for it over Linux at the time, for our company. Often we would get our hands on an x86 box of one type or another and have to make it into a server. These boxes usually had no CDROM, and usually we installed network cards, which themselves were coming in randomly, on their bus (usually ISA, sometimes PCI).
To get the latest version of Slackware, we'd have to download all five of the Slackware base "A" disks. Then the compiler was on the 10 "D" series of disks. Then the 4 "N" disks would have networking. Plus more if you want ghostscript (another set) or emacs (another set), or God help you, a workstation with X-windows running fvwm...
FreeBSD was two disks - boot and root. Then you go into ports and install from there. Because boot and root were enough to get your network card working - when Slackware and Debian often did not have those cards working at all. Many a time I was going to install Linux, couldn't get the network card working, put in the FreeBSD boot/root disks, got the network card working with no problem, and the would-be Linux box became a FreeBSD box.
It was not just network cards - these two disks had a great system for not just recognizing all Ethernet cards and getting them to work, but being able to install a full-out system over a modem and 56k (or 28.8k, or 14k) baud POTS connection. FreeBSD just made it real easy to install itself.
This was not just my opinion, others I knew thought the same thing. Not until Ubuntu did I find a Linux system that worked to make installing it easy. When wireless ethernet cards became more ubiquitous, I had left FreeBSD behind years before, but most Linuxes had trouble with every other card out there, even Ubuntu initially. FreeBSD never seemed to have these problems, being able to install easily was something they prioritized - and I think it helped them.
Also, our Linuxes at the time were vulnerable to the "ping of death" and these sorts of security problems. I still know companies which use FreeBSD. They started years ago and never changed.
I'm not sure when and why Linux started overtaking FreeBSD. Linux had this pre-GRUB boot loader called LILO which was horrible, but it did allow people with Windows boxes to be able to turn their desktop or laptop into a dual boot machine on which they could play around with Linux. Linux was more advanced on the multi-boot front if I recall, and that was probably one of the reasons it got ahead.
Also another mentioned reason is commercialized BSD like BSDI was under a cloud of lawsuits in the early 1990s, whereas commercial Linux companies like Red Hat were free of all of this, and this served to help Linux as well.
[+] [-] phaemon|10 years ago|reply
I believe it was almost entirely due to the work of Donald Becker. I don't know anything about the guy, other than he had a NASA email address, but I kept seeing his name mentioned when looking for anything network card related.
I remember the floppy disk pain though. Few machines had CD-ROMs so basically it was copying 30 images overwriting Microsoft Windows & Office floppy disks (they were better quality than the cheap 3.5" disks you generally got supplied with and there were always spare ones) and then swap, swap, swap...
[+] [-] rythie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] merlincorey|10 years ago|reply
Or maybe BSD has maintained its technical superiority in some areas for some users.
[+] [-] X-Factor|10 years ago|reply