[mikece]

>I really enjoy how simple the system is after all these years with Linux.

I still shake my head when I think back to the 90s and how Linux managed to overtake the BSDs. Good to see they are still very much alive and moving forward.

[btilly]

Yeah, a good lawsuit at the wrong time will do that to you.

For those who don't know what I am talking about, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc..... For what this has to do with Linux adoption, read http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/a... about how the uncertainty around all of the BSD distributions lead to people jumping onto the Linux bandwagon. This got Linux ahead and it never looked back.

[zokula]

The lawsuit myth needs to die!

Remember when SCO was trying to sue everybody over Linux? Why didn't the *BSDs become more popular then?

Linux being more popular then the BSDs had nothing to do with anything Legal outside of Linux being GPL.

[btilly]

On what basis are you saying that it is a myth?

During the BSD lawsuit, free software was not widely understood, the company doing the suing (AT&T) was one of the biggest in the world, and the one being sued (BSDI) was a nobody by comparison. It was clear that AT&T had grounds for a real case. Everyone I know that was there says that there was real fear of the outcome. And I've known a lot who were there.

By contrast when the SCO lawsuit happened, open source was far better understood, it was a small company (SCO) doing the suing, and the companies being sued were the biggest in the world (starting with IBM). This threat was far less credible, and if it failed, everyone assumed that they would get lost in the shuffle.

It didn't hurt for the latter case that groklaw stepped up and there were endless well-informed people who said that the case was groundless. And no, I don't just mean nerds who read slashdot. But also most of the tech media, various interested lawyers, and so on.

[asveikau]

The weird thing, though, is that 90s Linux felt a little more like the BSDs than Linux usually does today. I mean, the BSDs were always a bit more coherent, but the default install of a typical Linux distro felt a lot less "heavy" in the past. You can switch from Linux to one of the *BSDs and feel like you are bringing back the glory days.

Maybe this is a complaint about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd.

[smhenderson]

I tend to agree. I started with Slackware when I first used Linux and it is heavily inspired by BSD. It remains so today so I've switched back to using it for day to day work and on a few servers I manage.

All other servers are using OpenBSD so it looks like I've got some upgrades to get to!

[ColanR]

I just switched from ubuntu to OpenBSD, realized that it's not optimized for desktop usage, and have been happy with Void for a while now.

[asveikau]

I would disagree. In my experience OpenBSD is pretty good on a desktop or laptop. I've had fewer driver issues with it than FreeBSD for example (mostly wifi and graphics).

But "optimized for desktop usage" is a very vague term with different meanings for everybody. My tastes are geared towards a light X workstation that doesn't add any extra whistles unless you ask for them. In the Linux world the closest I've seen to this is Arch. I also used debian for a long time (starting with netinst and no GUI, and adding things only as I need them).

[ColanR]

Sorry I was vague. I don't know the reasons for the difference, but on my X230 OpenBSD seemed to have higher latencies in starting programs, and ran big programs like chromium slower than ubuntu and void did.

Driver support is great, I agree. And the network management is far simpler. It just felt slow.

[rnd0]

>Maybe this is a complaint about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd.

In the 90's Linux was pretty well aimed at the techy crowd. you were expected to know or learn administration (including the location of and editing of etc files) and not be afraid of './configure && make && make install'

Then the focus changed and while your Gentoos and Arches never went away, a larger portion of the focus was on either being user friendly and/or providing an enterprise desktop experience.

This is something the BSDs (with the exception of TrueOS) never did -and certainly not OpenBSD.

It's worth pointing out (and folks in this thread already have) that if you want the hacker's experience, it's still out there. It just has almost nothing to do with mainstream Linux (which is a shame).

[CameronNemo]

You may like a distro such as Void or Alpine.

[nine_k]

> about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd

Looks like it. I'm running Void Linux without all these, and it feels simple and lightweight. Also fast.

(OTOH when I have to work with BSD userland utilities that are part of macOS, I often miss the GNU extensions, e.g. to `date` or to `awk`.)

[blandflakes]

If you're using some kind of window manager or desktop environment, do you mind me asking which one?

[nine_k]

Xfce, with its WM.

[yellowapple]

Not coincidentally, the oldest extant distro (Slackware) is also the one most often praised for being the most "BSD-like".