The fact that DO had to make this announcement at all is a sign that things have gotten worse for VPSs.
Before, when a company provided Xen or Kvm, you generally would get to have low-level access such as the ability to virtually connect to a serial port or vnc session of your box as it booted. You also, typically, could provide your own ISO images.
Even if you couldn't provide your own iso, being able to interact with the VPS in the above way would allow you to use one of the provided disks and then bootstrap the install of another (this is how I installed gentoo on many providers that didn't "support" it)
DO's stance that you must use one of their images, you can't upload your own, and you can't even use your own kernel (I'm not kidding! If you "sudo apt-get update" to get a new kernel security update and reboot, DO will IGNORE your shiny new kernel because they hardcode the kernel as one they control. See [0]).
This is terrible. We shouldn't be happy that they're adding FreeBSD to the list of images they allow you to use, we should be showing, with our wallets, that their restrictive setup that doesn't allow you to touch anything outside of their tiny garden and exposes you to security issues is unacceptable. We should be using other providers, like Linode, AWS, and GCE, all of which allow bringing your own image in some form.
I assume you also complain about the availability of microwave meals? That'll only become a problem when you can't buy raw fruits and vegetables anymore, but I didn't see that happen. Likewise, you mention more customizable VPS options in your post.
There's a market for everything. You don't understand my use case. My use case is "I want to click a button and then I want to be able to `apt-get install what-i-want` and then it should work. I don't even care whether it's Debian or Ubuntu, as long as it has apt-get because that's all I understand.
Granted, maybe I shouldn't be running VPSes at all but hey, it works, and I bet DO has many customers like me.
There are plenty of companies that will let you upload your own images. It's not very convenient. Provider's images are somewhat easier to use.
The best solution is to have maintainers of the OS prepare cloud distributions. Many already do for AWS or OpenStack. Our own 'cperciva is responsible for EC2-compatible version of FreeBSD.
Until this becomes a standard, there's nothing wrong with partial solutions. I created a FreeBSD droplet right away.
This is the reason why I no longer have VPSes at DigitalOcean, sometimes I couldn't update my CentOS kernels when important updates were available because DO lagged for a few days in making them available.
> Before, when a company provided Xen or Kvm, you generally would get to have low-level access such as the ability to virtually connect to a serial port or vnc session of your box as it booted. You also, typically, could provide your own ISO images.
It's remarkable that you start your sentence with "before". As a prgmr.com user, I can still get an out-of-the-band console and run my own kernel without any fanfare. (no affiliation at all, just a happy user)
Sounds like they aren't using kvm or xen (even though most providers do not allow for image uploading). OpenVZ is even more frustrating when your working with ipv6 (UGH!).
Just deployed a FreeBSD droplet and I'm not sure if it's just because the host network is busier than my other droplets, but I seem to be getting about half the network performance that I can in a default linux droplet. They are using Virtio, which is good since it doesn't require hardware emulation like the E1XXX devices on KVM. I should probably use a better test than cachefly but just wondering if theres any known tweaks/tips that should be done for FBSD on KVM with virtio devices.
Disk performance is also lacking in comparison to the ubuntu droplet as shown in the pastebin. Could just be because everyone's spinning up fbsd boxes on this host? :)
It's not only DO. I had to create a Linux VPS in order to run a Sinatra application because when deployed on FreeBSD it took more than 60 seconds to send a response to the remote API and the connection was timed out!
After performing some tests[2] I figure out that the problem was not FreeBSD per se, but the FreeBSD deployment on the specific virtual server... I think that *BSDs should be avoided because they tend to be a lot slower than linux deployments on virtual machines.
Smart move. I will definitely be spinning up some FreeBSD droplets. This will attract people like me who enjoy building lean and mean BSD servers, and give people an alternative to Linux if they choose.
Nice work Digital Ocean, love the way you folks keep pushing forward. Need some tutorials written?
After reading the tut on HN the day before on how to be your own vpn provider with openbsd [1] I started to search for a tutorial that was either openbsd or freebsd with softether without much luck. I was about to do an instance of debian & softether.
Perhaps my comment would be better served in another way. I'm new at this and have no idea what I'm doing. :)
How can I go about from setting a vpn server with a webpage for paying customers?
I'm looking at it more like a learning experience than to make it into a business, but if it works great. Could you or someone point me into the right direction into what needs to be read for each step of the way? I have very little linux experience, non in bsd and a little in python.
We've already put together a lot of basic documentation in-house, [0] but we'd love to expand on what we have in the library. Checkout our "get paid to write" program. [1]
As a web developer who knows enough Linux to do minimum dev-ops, could anyone recommend some things worth playing around with in FreeBSD? Like "do this and see how easy it is vs Ubuntu!". Or are the gains more long term like better stability?
* PF (default on OpenBSD, a fork exists on FreeBSD) configuration is way more human-readable than iptables. Makes a lot easier to create custom complex rulesets.
* Documentation is much cleaner on FreeBSD (or OpenBSD) compared to GNU/Linux. Again helps you deploy complex solutions easily.
* The upgrade process (using ports or pkg) is well documented, easy to execute[1].
* ZFS makes FreeBSD a very solid file server
So, other than specific software, a clean approach on how start/stop services, where goes what, etc. I don't see any other reason for someone to switch from Linux to BSD.
However, given my experience ruby (I'm a ruby programmer) under-performs on FreeBSD VPSs compared to Linux VPSs while on bare metal doesn't. There are reports citing NetBSD as fastest ruby bare-metal OS. But again, differences shouldn't be all that much between BSD and Linux deployments in bare metal to justify a switch on VPSs though, if deploy ruby apps, I'd say stick with Linux.
[1] Hm. It's easy to execute if you are not afraid to read some extra documentation. But once you get the hand of it, it's really a breeze, never had serious issues with FreeBSD in ~3 years.
Dtrace alone will turn you from a developer to a Developer + Systems admin + practical OS engineer, you will understand how your stack is performing within various lower levels of the operating system and be able to tune the hell out of your stack from bottom up.
I switched from CentOS to FreeBSD as my daily driver a little over a year ago, for the ports tree. I needed a bleeding edge version of valgrind, but my ~/bin and ~/lib were already pretty unwieldy - so that is what caused the switch. That and ZFS. But I've found a couple of other things that I really like: the documentation is awesome, and config files are where you'd expect them to be. Being able to tune system internals online with sysctl is really awesome as well. Wanna change the lowest possible C-state one cpu3? sysctl hw.acpi.cpu.3.cx_lowest=C3.
I dunno how useful that is for web devs, but as a C programmer and perpetual tinkerer - FreeBSD suits my needs very nicely.
IMO, just having something of the quality of FreeBSD's handbook (https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/) is a significant point to consider. It is the best piece of documentation for a system I have ever read.
As a developer you might find jails useful. I use them to create multiple isolated 'virtual machines' on the same machine. In each one I can install a different set of packages and I like the my base system in clean. With zfs, I also snapshot each jail before major changes so rollback is easy. Try this and see how easy, well-integrated it is as opposed to something similar on linux.
My reasons for using FreeBSD are a little more philosophical:
- I want to have a stable base O/S to which I can always easily return.
- I want to be able to customize installed packages in an easily scalable way.
- I want a server O/S to be simple to maintain, relative to Windows or Solaris.
- I want the goddamned documentation installed.
During development it's difficult to get RHEL or Ubuntu back to a known-good set of base packages without fiddling a lot with the package manager. It's better nowadays with package groups and autoremoval supported in both yum and APT, but with FreeBSD, you can always punt, do "pkg delete -a && rm -rf /usr/local" (or "pkg_delete" in the before time), and start over. The base configuration is also pretty simple and centralized, with most of what you need in /etc/rc.conf or /etc/periodic.conf.
pkgng + poudriere + a suitable web server makes custom package management really, really easy. I haven't tackled Spacewalk or similar tools for Linux, but even building locally customized versions of packages on RHEL or Ubuntu is a moderately complicated process compared to the FreeBSD Ports Tree. On RHEL or Ubuntu, you typically have to install the developer tools, hunt down the source RPMs/DEBs, edit the package definition, run rpmbuild/debuild, and install the resulting RPM. Compare that to the FreeBSD Ports Tree, where you run one command to download/update your copy of the package definitions, add whatever package-specific knobs you need to /etc/make.conf, and run "cd /usr/ports/category/packagename && make install" (the compilers and everything come built into the base system).
I'm not going to start an argument about the relative merits of init systems, as systemd (Linux), SMF (Solaris), and SCM (Windows) all have their merits, but I personally like the simplicity of configuring everything through /etc/rc.conf on FreeBSD. It's definitely old school, but then I cut my teeth on NeXTSTEP, SunOS 4, and Slackware Linux, so rc-style init scripts feel pretty natural to me.
As for documentation, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to run "man something" only to find out I need to install the -doc package. (Also, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to compile something, only to find out I need to install the -dev package.) Compared to Linux, FreeBSD has superior documentation. Even kernel bits get manual pages, and not just syscalls in section 2, but kernel interfaces and modules in section 4.
Of course I use both FreeBSD and Linux to great effect at home and at work, as well as Windows and Solaris. I just _like_ FreeBSD better.
They have a bunch of stuff that was "planned" for Q1 2014 (separate hardware for master/slave setups) that aren't even close to shipping. Pretty frustrating. I like Digital Ocean and I use them in production for some apps but it's very hard to take their techops team seriously when they are missing deadlines by 12-18 months or more without regular updates. It's pretty unprofessional.
It's the highest voted request and there was no response for over 2 years. The first response after that time didn't even address the request but tried to distract with an unrelated feature request. This is pretty frustrating and the reason I will move my VPS from DO to another hoster. If you think I'm bitching around that's because I am. The way DO handles this is ridiculous.
I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes.
I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to setting up on FreeBSD?
It shouldn't be a struggle at all just be conscious that freeBSD does not try and protect the user from him/her self. Case in point, "kill 1" won't do anything on linux but in freeBSD it will kill the init process.
You're still using the 2005 sysadminning model of instances/hosts running services. Use elastic beanstalk or similar to pop up a layer of abstraction to "app". Your time is finite.
There does seem to be one part of their announcement that's a bit off:
While similar to other open source unix-like operating systems, it’s unique in that the development of both its kernel and user space utilities are managed by the same core team, ensuring consistent development standards across the project.
Wouldn't it be Linux that would be unique in that they don't do this? Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, all the BSDs, Mac OS X (which is certified Unix) does this as well. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
The second part of the statement, the way I read it, is comparing FreeBSD to DigitalOcean's current offerings - Linux. Keep in mind the post is for someone that's already using DO's services, which is a person who has only ever used Linux on their platform.
> While similar to other open source unix-like operating systems, it’s unique in that the development of both its kernel and user space utilities are managed by the same core team, ensuring consistent development standards across the project.
They may be treating the various linux distributions as separate entities. Then the number of Linux based operating systems should far outpace just about anything else ....
In case someone missed it: The header graphic in this article is a great homage to Beastie, the (original?) FreeBSD mascot, analogous to the Tux Linux penguin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon
You might want to check out vultr.com.
They don't directly support OpenBSD, but allow you to install an OS an a VM instance with an ISO image, either by you supplying it or they'll pull it for you through an ftp or http link. Their pricing is similar to DO.
I managed to get an instance running without too much trouble.
(I do not work for vultr, or affiliated in any way).
And yet, still no universal support for IPv6, and the droplets that do get it only get 16 addresses. Yes, I am going to complain every time DO comes up in the news until this is fixed.
Finally, finally, finally! I've been waiting for either DO or Linode to offer this since forever. Now the only thing left on my wishlist is OpenBSD support.
Depending on demand, adding other BSD variants is certainly a possibility. We had to start somewhere, and the FreeBSD community has been very vocal about wanting to see this happen. This is the first non-Linux OS we've decided to support, so we're excited to get feedback on it.
What's your idea of a low-memory virtual machine? For test purposes I'm running FreeBSD/amd64 under Hyper-V in 128-MB RAM without any problems, although it is using around 32-MB of encrypted swap. That includes the Salt minion, Postfix, and an untuned static Apache 2.4 installation. Of course, it's much more comfortable in 256-MB RAM with around 44-MB RAM free according to top, and of course that's workload-dependent (e.g., my mail relay running amavisd-new and ClamAV wants 1.5-GB RAM after loading all of the spam and virus signatures). I could definitely see wanting to run FreeBSD in 128-MB or less RAM, but I'm very curious about your specific workloads. (It's the gearhead equivalent of wanting to look under the other guy's hood. If you're doing something cool, I want to hear about it!)
P.S. Hyper-V will let me go as low as 32-MB RAM, so thanks to you I'm keen to try out different operating system installs (and workloads) in low-memory environments.
P.P.S. Upvoted parent - I think the parent comment contributes to the discussion, even though I would personally love to see commenter go into more detail.
I've been using Vultr.com for this for a while and they're pretty nice. Slightly cheaper, promises that they don't oversell their servers, and they've had FreeBSD for long enough to have got the kinks out.
They also let you just upload an ISO and install any OS you like from there, which is handy for non-default FreeBSD configurations like ZFS-on-root
A service that is a bit ugly, here is what I feel about, you register, you give your credit card, and you just don't know how it will cost.
That point is just bad and make me feel that will cost an eye.
I have so much experience with Linux I feel like FreeBSD I would have so much to re-learn. What makes it worthwhile and how transferable is my knowledge?
It's kind of ironic that they list FreeBSD's excellent documentation as one of the reasons for consideration, especially considering that their own documentation is so bad!
I mean, what kind of company links directly to blog entries, with incomplete and outdated information, all across their web-site?
Ain't nobody got time to read the blog comments and figure out what's the current status of stuff is.
And the above post is downvoted to -2 for which precise reasons?!
Does anyone really disagree that documentation at DO is total crap?!
If it wasn't total crap, why would their employees link (on social media) to the upstream www.freebsd.org instead of any kind of FAQ on their own website? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890383 Oh, right, because DigitalOcean's documentation (about their own features (and disabling of features from FreeBSD)) is absent and non-existent!
Should have gone with OpenBSD instead to be honest. Half the requests on your UserVoice are for OpenBSD. All the coolest stuff in FreeBSD comes from OpenBSD.
OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD, the OpenSSL rewrite LibreSSL, and the NTP rewrite OpenNTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland, the cleanest configuration syntax and some of the world's best documentation.
For security probably. But security isn't the only reason that I choose an OS. OpenBSD's security comes at a cost. They are usually late to the party on non-security features. Many of the security features make OpenBSD much slower. Even for security software OpenBSD isn't as big a win as the devs make it out to be. Take for instance PF, OpenBSD developers will be quick to point out that the OpenBSD version is more up to date. But that doesn't tell the whole story, FreeBSD is using a fork which allows for multi-threaded execution which is a must most non-trivial deployment scenarios. Further more OpenBSD often takes to hard of a line on security enhancements with the belief that the kernel should be the line in the sand. Usually, one prefers multiple layers of security but OpenBSD says the kernel is often good enough. See OpenBSD's refusal to add a MAC framework for an example of this. Jails also don't exist for similar reasons, though they are useful for reasons other than security.
The source you have for the 'testbed' for new technologies makes the claim but barely has warrant for it. On the other hand, OpenBSD is much more liberal about breaking compatibility especially when it involves security. While I'm not going to excuse OpenSSL, NTP, or Sendmail they are all general robust software that has been in use for decades. Aside from LibreSSL the OpenBSD rewrites have been incompatible.
FreeBSD also offers a number of incredibly compelling features outside of what OpenBSD can, or will offer in the short to medium term. I'll just list them: virtualization with Bhyve, boot from zfs, a linux compatibility layer, a much more modern package manager, official java support, the ability to install binary blobs.
None of this is to say that OpenBSD isn't a great choice, but recognize there are reasons to choose both platforms and that one doesn't need to spread FUD to advocate for their favorite platform.
TheDong|11 years ago
Before, when a company provided Xen or Kvm, you generally would get to have low-level access such as the ability to virtually connect to a serial port or vnc session of your box as it booted. You also, typically, could provide your own ISO images.
Even if you couldn't provide your own iso, being able to interact with the VPS in the above way would allow you to use one of the provided disks and then bootstrap the install of another (this is how I installed gentoo on many providers that didn't "support" it)
DO's stance that you must use one of their images, you can't upload your own, and you can't even use your own kernel (I'm not kidding! If you "sudo apt-get update" to get a new kernel security update and reboot, DO will IGNORE your shiny new kernel because they hardcode the kernel as one they control. See [0]).
This is terrible. We shouldn't be happy that they're adding FreeBSD to the list of images they allow you to use, we should be showing, with our wallets, that their restrictive setup that doesn't allow you to touch anything outside of their tiny garden and exposes you to security issues is unacceptable. We should be using other providers, like Linode, AWS, and GCE, all of which allow bringing your own image in some form.
[0]: https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digital-oce...
skrebbel|11 years ago
There's a market for everything. You don't understand my use case. My use case is "I want to click a button and then I want to be able to `apt-get install what-i-want` and then it should work. I don't even care whether it's Debian or Ubuntu, as long as it has apt-get because that's all I understand.
Granted, maybe I shouldn't be running VPSes at all but hey, it works, and I bet DO has many customers like me.
blfr|11 years ago
The best solution is to have maintainers of the OS prepare cloud distributions. Many already do for AWS or OpenStack. Our own 'cperciva is responsible for EC2-compatible version of FreeBSD.
Until this becomes a standard, there's nothing wrong with partial solutions. I created a FreeBSD droplet right away.
quicksilver03|11 years ago
toni|11 years ago
It's remarkable that you start your sentence with "before". As a prgmr.com user, I can still get an out-of-the-band console and run my own kernel without any fanfare. (no affiliation at all, just a happy user)
dewarrn1|11 years ago
dhaivatpandya|11 years ago
compuguy|11 years ago
saper|11 years ago
nly|11 years ago
czk|11 years ago
Disk performance is also lacking in comparison to the ubuntu droplet as shown in the pastebin. Could just be because everyone's spinning up fbsd boxes on this host? :)
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=E8Q06XgM
sullrich|11 years ago
smallsharptools|11 years ago
atmosx|11 years ago
After performing some tests[2] I figure out that the problem was not FreeBSD per se, but the FreeBSD deployment on the specific virtual server... I think that *BSDs should be avoided because they tend to be a lot slower than linux deployments on virtual machines.
[1] http://www.transip.eu
[2] https://gist.github.com/atmosx/14efea27eb2c1e38af09/
saper|11 years ago
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes transferred in 57.605991 secs (18639412 bytes/sec)
0.023u 6.128s 0:57.61 10.6% 25+172k 7+81916io 3pf+0w
> sudo mount -o nosync -u /
> mount
/dev/gpt/rootfs on / (ufs, local, soft-updates)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, multilabel)
> time dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test bs=64k count=16k
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes transferred in 5.135908 secs (209065631 bytes/sec)
0.016u 2.274s 0:05.16 44.1% 24+169k 8+8193io 0pf+0w
radimm|11 years ago
JeremyMorgan|11 years ago
Nice work Digital Ocean, love the way you folks keep pushing forward. Need some tutorials written?
Teichopsia|11 years ago
After reading the tut on HN the day before on how to be your own vpn provider with openbsd [1] I started to search for a tutorial that was either openbsd or freebsd with softether without much luck. I was about to do an instance of debian & softether.
Perhaps my comment would be better served in another way. I'm new at this and have no idea what I'm doing. :) How can I go about from setting a vpn server with a webpage for paying customers?
I'm looking at it more like a learning experience than to make it into a business, but if it works great. Could you or someone point me into the right direction into what needs to be read for each step of the way? I have very little linux experience, non in bsd and a little in python.
Thanks in advance.
[1] http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/
andrewsomething|11 years ago
[0] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd?primary_... [1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/get-paid-to-write
xhrpost|11 years ago
atmosx|11 years ago
* PF (default on OpenBSD, a fork exists on FreeBSD) configuration is way more human-readable than iptables. Makes a lot easier to create custom complex rulesets.
* Documentation is much cleaner on FreeBSD (or OpenBSD) compared to GNU/Linux. Again helps you deploy complex solutions easily.
* The upgrade process (using ports or pkg) is well documented, easy to execute[1].
* ZFS makes FreeBSD a very solid file server
So, other than specific software, a clean approach on how start/stop services, where goes what, etc. I don't see any other reason for someone to switch from Linux to BSD.
However, given my experience ruby (I'm a ruby programmer) under-performs on FreeBSD VPSs compared to Linux VPSs while on bare metal doesn't. There are reports citing NetBSD as fastest ruby bare-metal OS. But again, differences shouldn't be all that much between BSD and Linux deployments in bare metal to justify a switch on VPSs though, if deploy ruby apps, I'd say stick with Linux.
[1] Hm. It's easy to execute if you are not afraid to read some extra documentation. But once you get the hand of it, it's really a breeze, never had serious issues with FreeBSD in ~3 years.
joshbaptiste|11 years ago
woodman|11 years ago
I dunno how useful that is for web devs, but as a C programmer and perpetual tinkerer - FreeBSD suits my needs very nicely.
romaniv|11 years ago
gtrubetskoy|11 years ago
vbit|11 years ago
I use ezjail, btw.
xenophonf|11 years ago
- I want to have a stable base O/S to which I can always easily return.
- I want to be able to customize installed packages in an easily scalable way.
- I want a server O/S to be simple to maintain, relative to Windows or Solaris.
- I want the goddamned documentation installed.
During development it's difficult to get RHEL or Ubuntu back to a known-good set of base packages without fiddling a lot with the package manager. It's better nowadays with package groups and autoremoval supported in both yum and APT, but with FreeBSD, you can always punt, do "pkg delete -a && rm -rf /usr/local" (or "pkg_delete" in the before time), and start over. The base configuration is also pretty simple and centralized, with most of what you need in /etc/rc.conf or /etc/periodic.conf.
pkgng + poudriere + a suitable web server makes custom package management really, really easy. I haven't tackled Spacewalk or similar tools for Linux, but even building locally customized versions of packages on RHEL or Ubuntu is a moderately complicated process compared to the FreeBSD Ports Tree. On RHEL or Ubuntu, you typically have to install the developer tools, hunt down the source RPMs/DEBs, edit the package definition, run rpmbuild/debuild, and install the resulting RPM. Compare that to the FreeBSD Ports Tree, where you run one command to download/update your copy of the package definitions, add whatever package-specific knobs you need to /etc/make.conf, and run "cd /usr/ports/category/packagename && make install" (the compilers and everything come built into the base system).
I'm not going to start an argument about the relative merits of init systems, as systemd (Linux), SMF (Solaris), and SCM (Windows) all have their merits, but I personally like the simplicity of configuring everything through /etc/rc.conf on FreeBSD. It's definitely old school, but then I cut my teeth on NeXTSTEP, SunOS 4, and Slackware Linux, so rc-style init scripts feel pretty natural to me.
As for documentation, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to run "man something" only to find out I need to install the -doc package. (Also, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to compile something, only to find out I need to install the -dev package.) Compared to Linux, FreeBSD has superior documentation. Even kernel bits get manual pages, and not just syscalls in section 2, but kernel interfaces and modules in section 4.
Of course I use both FreeBSD and Linux to great effect at home and at work, as well as Windows and Solaris. I just _like_ FreeBSD better.
namidark|11 years ago
bsg75|11 years ago
josegonzalez|11 years ago
phillc73|11 years ago
I wonder if we'll now see additional storage addressed soon?
[1] https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea...
Edit: I've had this theme bookmarked for ages, now might be the time to build it! http://daemon-notes.com/articles/desktop/example
icelancer|11 years ago
yogo|11 years ago
emsy|11 years ago
thiagoc|11 years ago
[1] https://backupsy.com/aff.php?aff=367
weavie|11 years ago
I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to setting up on FreeBSD?
thisismitch|11 years ago
We've prepared tutorials that can help you get started with the basics: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd
olssy|11 years ago
icantthinkofone|11 years ago
sneak|11 years ago
swills|11 years ago
tw04|11 years ago
None of the OS's you listed are open source.
The second part of the statement, the way I read it, is comparing FreeBSD to DigitalOcean's current offerings - Linux. Keep in mind the post is for someone that's already using DO's services, which is a person who has only ever used Linux on their platform.
ChristianBundy|11 years ago
> While similar to other open source unix-like operating systems, it’s unique in that the development of both its kernel and user space utilities are managed by the same core team, ensuring consistent development standards across the project.
emeraldd|11 years ago
isaacdl|11 years ago
k__|11 years ago
_nickwhite|11 years ago
unknown|11 years ago
[deleted]
wtbob|11 years ago
subliminalpanda|11 years ago
I managed to get an instance running without too much trouble.
(I do not work for vultr, or affiliated in any way).
IgorPartola|11 years ago
zachberger|11 years ago
mrbigidea|11 years ago
pyvpx|11 years ago
edwinnathaniel|11 years ago
Thank you very very much for supporting FreeBSD!
swills|11 years ago
ghc|11 years ago
keidian|11 years ago
vince_refiti|11 years ago
pellaeon|11 years ago
http://pellaeon.github.io/bsd-cloudinit/
pyvpx|11 years ago
edit: after actually reading TFA, it seems unlikely. Well, it seems like Dragonfly is most likely, if any others.
andrewsomething|11 years ago
zzzcpan|11 years ago
EDIT: Anyone cares to explain downvotes?
xenophonf|11 years ago
P.S. Hyper-V will let me go as low as 32-MB RAM, so thanks to you I'm keen to try out different operating system installs (and workloads) in low-memory environments.
P.P.S. Upvoted parent - I think the parent comment contributes to the discussion, even though I would personally love to see commenter go into more detail.
cnst|11 years ago
What kind of IPv6 allocation do they provide?
gergles|11 years ago
ketralnis|11 years ago
They also let you just upload an ISO and install any OS you like from there, which is handy for non-default FreeBSD configurations like ZFS-on-root
barkingcat|11 years ago
unknown|11 years ago
[deleted]
filmgirlcw|11 years ago
aurelien|11 years ago
lcmatt|11 years ago
The price you see in the huge font is the price you'll pay at the end of the month...
unknown|11 years ago
[deleted]
neumino|11 years ago
wcchandler|11 years ago
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Install_from_existing_L...
nine_k|11 years ago
I'd love if someone explained it.
ltofbss|11 years ago
schmichael|11 years ago
ohnoesmyscv|11 years ago
eklavya|11 years ago
jbverschoor|11 years ago
Same as ec2 yes, but aws provides ebs.
Scottymeuk|11 years ago
cnst|11 years ago
I mean, what kind of company links directly to blog entries, with incomplete and outdated information, all across their web-site?
Ain't nobody got time to read the blog comments and figure out what's the current status of stuff is.
cnst|11 years ago
Does anyone really disagree that documentation at DO is total crap?!
If it wasn't total crap, why would their employees link (on social media) to the upstream www.freebsd.org instead of any kind of FAQ on their own website? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890383 Oh, right, because DigitalOcean's documentation (about their own features (and disabling of features from FreeBSD)) is absent and non-existent!
hiphopyo|11 years ago
OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD, the OpenSSL rewrite LibreSSL, and the NTP rewrite OpenNTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland, the cleanest configuration syntax and some of the world's best documentation.
FreeBSD, on the other hand, is becoming more of a testbed for experimental, some would even say unnecessary technologies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546756. It's also having a hard time catching up to OpenBSD: http://itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/62641-crypto-....
bch|11 years ago
> All the coolest stuff in FreeBSD comes from OpenBSD
This is juvenile "I'd rather push a Ford than drive a Dodge" level commentary. It's not true, and isn't even interesting.
That any BSD is getting support is a good thing -- it opens the door to others following, and is good news.
tbirdz|11 years ago
I disagree. Jails, ZFS, and DTrace did not come from OpenBSD.
elektronjunge|11 years ago
The source you have for the 'testbed' for new technologies makes the claim but barely has warrant for it. On the other hand, OpenBSD is much more liberal about breaking compatibility especially when it involves security. While I'm not going to excuse OpenSSL, NTP, or Sendmail they are all general robust software that has been in use for decades. Aside from LibreSSL the OpenBSD rewrites have been incompatible.
FreeBSD also offers a number of incredibly compelling features outside of what OpenBSD can, or will offer in the short to medium term. I'll just list them: virtualization with Bhyve, boot from zfs, a linux compatibility layer, a much more modern package manager, official java support, the ability to install binary blobs.
None of this is to say that OpenBSD isn't a great choice, but recognize there are reasons to choose both platforms and that one doesn't need to spread FUD to advocate for their favorite platform.
wglb|11 years ago