NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

Why are we using FreeBSD?

Scaleable Services Workshop

AfNOG 2008Rabat, Morocco

slides by Hervey Allenpresented by Joe Abley

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

What are the options?

Unix: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, HP/UX, IBM AIX, etc.

Linux: Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc.

Windows: Vista, XP, Server 2003

Other?

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A “neutral” discussion Windows has matured as a server platform. Windows can now deliver some services

under load as well as Unix. Linux is now as responsive as Unix under

load in many situations. Windows, Unix and Linux outperform each

other in various scenarios. No OS is necessarily the right tool for all

situations. Use the tool that works best for you.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: Linux

Strictly speaking much of the prior slide is true, but there are some issues:

Linux As an OS is equal to Unix for provisioning

network services, but across distributions is not as robust as FreeBSD.

Which distribution do you choose? Why? Will it stay a good choice over several years?

Still has a lack of debugging and network tools when compared to Unix.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: Windows

A major issue with Windows is who makes it, how they make it and what drives them to make it as they do.

Windows has largely developed in response to market forces at the expense of proper operating system design – i.e., Marketing won!

Endless poor design decisions that have compromised the Operating System for commercial gain.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: Windows cont.

The responsiveness of Microsoft to security flaws, stability issues, etc. has been mediocre to abysmal.

Microsoft FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt campaigns are extensive and destructive to the IT community.

Microsoft's lack of respect for agreed-upon standards has caused endless problems for millions of users and companies world-wide.

While all of this may be legitimate business practices, they have put customer (your) data at risk, which is not acceptable.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: Windows cont.

Windows 1.0 released Nov. 20, 1985. Since then arguably four attempts to include proper design practices have been made. These were: Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows 2003 Windows Vista

Windows NT was probably the the purest attempt at proper design.

Windows 2003 is pushing “Windows” to a non-GUI environment. I.E., what Unix has done from the start.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: Windows cont.

In most/many cases Windows licensing is onerous.

As a counter-example see how IBM licenses, designs, builds and supports their closed Operating Systems.

Microsoft is willing to block superior technical solutions at the expense of humans for the sake of profit (WSIS Summit II, Tunis, Ethiopia, Nov. 2005*).

For many, many years Unix (FreeBSD) was the only reasonable choice for truly stable, large-scale, secure network servers (at a reasonable cost).

*http://www.itworld.com/Tech/4535/051128msremove/ http://ipjustice.org/WSIS/IPJ_WSIS_Report.html

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: Windows cont.

Support. What does this mean? Support for Windows is no better or worse than for Linux than for Unix.

With all this...

Even if Windows is a reasonable choice it's not clear that it is a safe one from a long-term customer perspective.

Microsoft philosophy pervades other products as well. Consider Microsoft Office file formats.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

A rebuttal: FreeBSD

FreeBSD does not support unnecessary hardware as Windows and Linux do. ;-)

But, it does pride itself on supporting hardware you are likely to use in servers.

Anything else?

NoteWe are interested in server operating system issues, not Desktop issues.

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

FreeBSD: Why it's cool

It's fast Extremely stable Proven over many years at many sites (Yahoo) Uses a single source tree FreeBSD project is a non-commercial & independent FreeBSD uses the BSD license vs. the more

restrictive GPL license Excellent software package system Updating and upgrading FreeBSD is reliable and can

be done without a binary install FreeBSD has a massive software repository

(18,500+ ports as of May 2008).

NSRC@AfNOG '08Rabat

FreeBSD: Why it's cool cont.

FreeBSD can run Linux applications, and it can run them as efficiently as Linux in most cases

Several superior FreeBSD features include: Indexed database file for user passwords Software RAID such as geom ZFS file system support A large and experienced community for support Very geeky logos...