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by weavie 4179 days ago
I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes.

I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to setting up on FreeBSD?
4 comments
thisismitch 4179 days ago
If you haven't had trouble with Linux, I'd say you could manage in FreeBSD.

We've prepared tutorials that can help you get started with the basics: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd

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olssy 4179 days ago
It shouldn't be a struggle at all just be conscious that freeBSD does not try and protect the user from him/her self. Case in point, "kill 1" won't do anything on linux but in freeBSD it will kill the init process.
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icantthinkofone 4179 days ago
I just started running the same thing a couple of months ago without issue. Go for it. It works great.
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sneak 4179 days ago
You're still using the 2005 sysadminning model of instances/hosts running services. Use elastic beanstalk or similar to pop up a layer of abstraction to "app". Your time is finite.
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woodman 4179 days ago
> or similar

Is this alternative method another SaaS with a different API and performance characteristics? That takes time as well, in addition to the vendor lock-in. BTW, stacking abstraction x infinity is what causes systems to be bloated, unreliable security risks. Time spent gaining a greater understand of components on layers below the level of the stack you're operating on is time well spent, you'll be a better developer for it.

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cbd1984 4179 days ago
That, or do everything with VMs and guests, like they did in the 1960s and 1970s assuming you were using IBM mainframes.
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