[TUHS] Re: What do you currently use for your primary OS at home?

[Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org>]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Larry McVoy wrote:

> So I'm a SunOS guy, got there just after SunOS 4.0, contributed to 4.1, 
> really contributed to 4.1.1 and 4.1.3.  I loved SunOS.

SunOS 4.1.4: pure bliss...  But we know what happened next :-(

> FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a while 
> back.  While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I know, I walked 
> the code), FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s.  Raise your hand if you have 
> installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years.  That "UI" for partitioning the 
> disks, so arcane.  The whole install experience is _awful_.

Well, OK, in approx order :-)

    As a FreeBSD nut, consider yourself asked...

    User since, oh, when BSD/OS got borged, I guess.

    And I've seen worse UIs...  Mind you, that SunOS installer was great!

Now, hands up all those who partially overlapped root with swap etc (on 
any *nix box)...

> SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD.  But BSD is so dead it 
> is not even funny.  Linux is light years ahead.  Here is an example from 
> more than 20 years ago.  I was installing RedHat Linux and the machine I 
> was installing on didn't have a mouse.  The installer was graphical and 
> it was just easier to tab through the options than go find a mouse.

You like that abomination known as "systemd"?  As for mice, I always kept 
a couple in the drawer (serial, RF, etc).

> I'd love it if BSD had kept up but it has not.  Linux is way better. 
> Yeah, all the bloat is annoying but we are not running on 64KB PDP-lls. 
> L1 is that size, L2 and L3 are bigger.  Main memory is many orders of 
> magnitude bigger, I'm typing this on a 32GB memory laptop.  It's fine.

I'm typing this on a Mac 8GB laptop, into my FreeBSD 512MB (yes) server 
(it works; I can't afford anything better on my pension).

Oh, I've also used OpenBSD, but since you practically need permission to 
even fart then I'd only recommend it as a firewall.

It's all abut horses for courses: OpenBSD for a firewall, FreeBSD for its 
amazing ports, NetBSD to run on weird hardware, and a Mac for fun :-)

The only reason that I have a Penguin (if I can just revive it) was to run 
stuff that doesn't seem to exist elsewhere; I haven't missed it...

-- Dave