See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_Free...
FreeBSD was popular for many appliances, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as it was generally rock-solid, had very mature networking, and the legal departments at the time liked the more permissive licence.
It's getting less and less common to see it, though. Sheer market share numbers mean performance, driver support, user familiarity, and companies no longer being afraid of the GPL mean that has Linux pretty much taken over.
It makes me a bit sad, but the OS on most Juniper gear is just a control plane for ASICs nowadays and NetApp has moved on to more advanced filesystems. Finding developers to write drivers/software for Linux is probably an order of magnitude easier.
A USB distributions like NomadBSD ( https://www.nomadbsd.org/ ) can be used to test compatibility without installing the OS.
Also, for HW compatibility: https://bsd-hardware.info/
Even if true, not having great support for laptops doesn't mean "no one uses FreeBSD". Obviously it's supported by essentially all server hardware and is used there, as well as many routers and the Playstation.
It's a desktop (a NUC) though so I don't use WiFi. I really hate laptops.
I run it myself on my desktop and it's great. What I like is that it's not constantly changing stuff for the sake of it like with Linux. New init systems, changing ifconfig for other commands etc. And it's much better documented.
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
While macOS used some userspace components from FreeBSD, it has no commonality with it. Darwin is a different kernel that works completely differently. macOS also has quite a bit its own stuff in the userspace.
I already said the same in that HN thread and will repeat it here:
Let's do it the other way round: run Windows in FreeBSD with bhyve and voila. But even better, just switch to FreeBSD. It's an amazing and rock solid OS.
Microsoft loves open source so much that they are putting efforts into... making you keep using their lousy closed source OS infested with telemetry and dark patterns. No thanks.
I still think they could fulfill that requirement and call it the "Windows Linux subsystem" or something, but what do I know?
Unrelated, but I think the WSL2 design is kind of stupid. It's just a VM. I think the WSL1 design, where it was a syscall layer, is a better call. But that was slower, IIRC chiefly because the NT filesystem syscalls are slower than Linux's VFS. Rather than improve that problem, they side-step it by running Linux in a VM.
The WSL2 design isn't stupid, it's practical. What I will give you is that it's not elegant in an "ivory tower of ideal computing" sense.
It is stupid in that it's not really any kind of subsystem, it's just a vm. VMs have their uses, but it's basically just an app.
The reason hardware such as my usb serial example (or any serial) worked on wsl1 was because it actually was a subsystem.
So I guess this project should be FreeBSD's subsystem for Linux? Or should it be FreeBSD's subsystem for Windows' subsystem for Linux?
Sure, but it is a Linux system.
It's kind of like saying Edge is a "Windows subsystem for the browser".
WINE => Windows Subsystem for Linux/FreeBSD/UNIX
WSL => Linux/FreeBSD Subsystem for Windows
CJefferson•5h ago
I love WSL2, I basically live in it. I need Office, and working laptops, too much to go full time Linux, and I want to be able to play games so I don’t want a Mac (yes I know Mac has some games, but not anything compared to windows).
tiahura•4h ago
bombcar•4h ago
jen20•2h ago
pjmlp•4h ago
What WSL has brought is that now it is one thing less to install.
However what got me started with Linux back in 1995, was the not so great support of POSIX in Windows NT.
Had Microsoft kept selling Xenix, or done Windows NT POSIX subsystem property, Linux would most likely never taken off.
Quite ironic given how Bill Gates used to talk about Xenix taking over.
walkabout•4h ago
Now, this won’t help if you play a lot of new games at launch (and aren’t ok playing them on a console instead of PC) or lots of multiplayer games with heavy-handed anti-cheat, but otherwise, Linux as a gaming OS has become pretty damn viable lately. Windows hasn’t been for anything but gaming for me since somewhere around the turn of the millennium, and I’ve just finally been able to ditch it completely. Which is really nice.
What I’m getting at is all-Linux (if you have more tolerance for Linux on the Desktop jank than I do) or Mac-for-work, Linux-for-play are now both non-terrible combos for having gaming available, and unless you need Nvidia or AMD graphics on your work machine (in which case, sure, may as well share that hardware for both roles), there are real benefits to work-system stability you can get by separating those.
(I do agree with you that running Linux under virtualization on either Windows or Mac is the only non-crazy-making and/or non-professionally-embarrassing way to work in Linux on a laptop, and I write that as someone who did run Linux on a laptop as my primary serious OS for most of a decade)
[0] nb. depending on what “a lot” means, Apple Silicon with a lot of system memory might still be a really good option.
dijit•4h ago
Games are pretty much there for linux, reasonable stress about anti-cheat aside; but the network effects of Microsoft office are the real poison pill.
The irony of course is that if it wasn’t for games you could have a good time using office on MacOS with their cut down versions: but no such version exists for Linux and FreeBSD.
Since its purely network effects, I’ve taken to trying to promote Google Docs usage; since their tools anywhere with a modern browser, which is practically every modern desktop environment.
I know its pushing another US tech giant, but somehow the network effects are less egregious.
leoedin•3h ago
dijit•3h ago
The real killer is Excel. The web version has zero support for crucial tools like Power Query or Power Pivot, which are essential for any modern data analysis. You can't run, edit, or even create serious VBA/Macros, and advanced data validation and conditional formatting are stripped down to the bone.
For Word, if you're in law or academia, forget it. Features like Table of Authorities or Table of Figures are either completely missing or so simplified they are useless. Even the ability to handle standard APA or MLA citation styles is heavily cut down compared to the desktop app.
And for PowerPoint? You lose access to serious third party add-ins, and the granular control over animations and timers that professionals need just isn't there.
So, while the web version might be fine for a quick edit of a simple file, if you need to reliably work with a complex document from a Windows-based company, the compatibility issues and missing features will force you into a desktop app eventually. If you're going to be forced into a desktop experience anyway, you might as well bite the bullet and go LibreOffice for its feature completeness on Linux/FreeBSD.
It's a stronger bet than relying on Microsoft's cut-down web versions.
Sincere6066•2h ago
I also try to avoid google wherever possible.
vachina•1h ago
TiredOfLife•40m ago