From the post:
> Linux has systemd, not my favorite thing out there, Windows is privacy nightmare. That left me with 2 major options: Linuxes without systemd (Gentoo, in my case) or BSDs.
> Since I run FreeBSD servers anyway, I just migrated to FreeBSD.
Basically because the author hates systemd (not an invalid point, but that ship has sailed) and has familiarity with FreeBSD. This isn’t really an article that’s trying to convince people to run FreeBSD. It’s trying to explain why they left macOS. Where they ended up is less consequential, IMO.
The larger question of “if not macOS, then what” is almost a throw away in this post. Which, I don’t blame the author for at all... it’s a prickly issue and includes a lot of background context that dilutes their primary point of macOS issues.
The ship has only sailed for the mainstream Linux OSes. With Ubuntu for example other things bother me too, like snap, I don't want all this overhead. But I see more and more people moving away from those things.
"Giving in and going with the flow" is not necessary with open OSes. It's exactly why I'm moving off macOS too, because I'll no longer be locked into some company that decides what's best for them (and not me)
Considering MacOS and Windows have much more software and driver support than Linux, it's only natural to choose to give up a little more for better docs, userland, and all the other benefits of FreeBSD.
It's the exact same argument the "works for me" Linux folks use, taken to its full conclusion.
Sorry, I know it's nit-picking, I just had to say something.
Yeah, especially the "over Linux" part.
> This is the most perplexing decision in the article. Why would OP do this? I have FreeBSD running on an old laptop, along side an Ubuntu laptop. There's more software ported for Ubuntu than FreeBSD and I don't want to rebuild everything for BSD, I have too much work to do. Nobody targets BSD but BSD devs.
For instance, I use Arch+KDE for years in the same laptop and I never had problems with updates thanks to the Arch's rolling release approach. That's why, for example I don't get why FreeBSD over Linux in that particular regard.
He wrote bout it tho. OP dislikes systemd's approach to things
(No beef, just thought it was funny)
I should be more specific, I meant serial-port: lots of USB devices communicate through a USB serial-port driver, but not every USB device appears as a serial-port (e.g., all USB devices expose endpoints for bulk or serial transfers, but whether that maps to a COM: or /dev/tty* depends on the driver).
I think the one thing he said that resonated is: "Doing forensics is almost impossible." Holy hell, yes. I use a lot of weird USB hardware, and debugging USB serial-port issues is impossible (even with a Beagle USB debugger, it only gets you half way, system logs on macos are not particularly helpful).
Why FreeBSD over Linux?
This is the most perplexing decision in the article. Why would OP do this? I have FreeBSD running on an old laptop, along side an Ubuntu laptop. There's more software ported for Ubuntu than FreeBSD and I don't want to rebuild everything for BSD, I have too much work to do. Nobody targets BSD but BSD devs.
I'd like to know though, OP aside, besides the BSD networking speed and extensions, why FreeBSD over Linux when the latter is more widely supported for GP dev?
I feel the author's frustration, though. macOS is really diverging[1] from BSD and become even more obfuscated, and as a power user who spent over two decades working in Linux, it is very hard for me to treat macOS and Win10 seriously as development platforms (to my hireability's detriment, I suppose) for anything other than Node/Electron and playing around for my own projects.
> I use Windows 10 on a PC I built and it's fine.
Because you probably don't use Win10 the way other people use it. If you've spent any time developing in Linux, Windows is a pathetic development system once you step outside Visual Studio. The Unix command line is one of the most insanely flexible tools every built, which is why the philosophy has changed so little in 40+ years. (Plus I don't like ads popping up in the toolbar or start menu when I'm trying to work.)
[1] Case in point: I tried setting up iPerf on a new MBP today. port/brew both failed to install correctly with lib dependencies broken. `iperf`? Seriously? /smh/
EDIT: I meant despite OP's decision in Q above.