[laumars]

You do realise that "different" platforms can still be popular enough to have a lot of the same ecosystems. Hell, Docker itself used to be the "alternative"; not even that long ago in fact.

FreeBSD might only have a fraction of the community that Linux does, but that's still a pretty large number of developers and sysadmins in real world terms.

Disclosure: I run both FreeBSD and Linux systems.

[rleigh]

There are also some interesting systems build on top of jails. I'm starting to use iocage, which uses both ZFS and jails to manage and create systems with great ease. Better or worse than Docker? It's different. It does some things docker does not, and vice versa. I'm currently in the evaluation stage, and it's likely I'll be using it to replace hand built jails running PostgreSQL, builds and other single-purpose tasks.

[xaduha]

And your point is? A suggestion to switch to BSD and jails for an average user of Docker is laughable.

[laumars]

Well if someone is competent enough to create a Docker image then it's not a great stretch to assume many of them would also be competent enough to create a jail. And FreeBSD is just as easy to use as Linux (actually, I generally find it easier to administrate than Linux since things are more rigorously laid out. But a lot of that is also down to my own personal preference).

At the end of the day, both Jails and Docker are well documented. So even the people only interested in blindly copying and pasting commands should be able do the basics.

The real problem FreeBSD and jails face isn't with support nor accessibility but rather dumb prejudice. Much like why many Windows users think Linux is difficult. If you spend your whole time shouting that your way of doing things is the best then you're never going to give anything else a fair chance.

[xaduha]

You're missing the point. Even if jails is the most elegant, easy and powerful technology in the world it's still on BSD. People are not going to switch to BSD just because of jails. Sure, then can use both, but why?

Docker and linux containers in general made things easier and more accessible for many. Switching from that to jails doesn't make sense.

[laumars]

> You're missing the point. Even if jails is the most elegant, easy and powerful technology in the world it's still on BSD. People are not going to switch to BSD just because of jails.

We're not just talking about jails though. The OP was discussing systemd + containers. Switching to FreeBSD to escape systemd isn't that weird of an idea since most of the same Linux software will also run on FreeBSD. In fact I'm seriously considering switching my Debian 7 (Wheezy) servers over to FreeBSD rather than upgrade to Debian 8 (Jessie) and have deal with systemd. Anecdotally I've read other people consider switching away from Linux as well

You might like systemd and Dockers. That's great. But that's your personal preference. You shouldn't be so surprised when other people might prefer to run the same software but on a different platform.

On a tangent note: I also have a bunch of existing systemd systems - RHEL servers, ArchLinux desktops, etc - that I'm very happy with and intend to keep running Linux. I make this point just to emphasise that I'm not anti-Linux nor a FreeBSD fanboy. Just someone who's platform agnostic.

> Sure, then can use both, but why?

Why not? This isn't a sports team where you're expected to only support one product. It's quite possible to use multiple different technologies based on whatever fits a specific purpose better.

[xaduha]

> Why not? This isn't a sports team where you're expected to only support one product.

Linux/Docker and BSD/jails aren't even in the same league.

[laumars]

> Linux/Docker and BSD/jails aren't even in the same league.

Since you don't have any basis for comparison, I'm going to have to assume that you're now just trolling me. So I'll end our correspondence here.