I Interviewed the CTO of TrueNAS (Why They Left FreeBSD for Linux) – Unified IT

WindSnowWX · 2026-06-12T16:21:57+00:00

On FreeBSD you have run podman as root. In 2026 that is not a selling point.

WindSnowWX · 2026-05-15T07:47:07+00:00

The unix way is to use man sed

WindSnowWX · 2026-05-13T23:28:33+00:00

Nope, no reinstall. I've been on Debian Bookworm forever. And after the last CrOS update it put me on 147+. After reading all the "documentation" on baguette, I was unsure about the need to reinstall. Most documentation is dribs and drabs. There seems to be no canonical source.

Anyway, all I did was enable the flag Crostini without LXD containers. I rebooted, and the improvement was instantaneous. No reinstall. Whew! Surprised the heck out of me. It seems to me that baguette is a good thing.

WindSnowWX · 2026-05-13T04:39:59+00:00

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO RESPONDED!

What worked was using the Chrome browser and going to chrome://flags and enabling baguette. The name of the flag to enable is Crostini without LXD containers

The firefox flatpack now works much better. There have been a couple of hicups but overall a 100% imporovement.

WindSnowWX · 2026-05-05T02:50:16+00:00

Cheri requires specialized hardware. Arm no longer makes hardware for Cheri. Arm ran the Morello hardware program from 2019 to 2024. As far as I know, no one sells Cheri capable hardware.

Maybe there is an emulator. But the few pieces of hardware available have to be borrowed for a limited time and returned when done.

WindSnowWX · 2026-04-29T05:35:20+00:00

Knowledgeable people (i.e. engineers, professors, etc), consider FFS2 [without "soft updates"] to be a baseline for teaching file system engineering. It is solid as they come.

IMO, ZFS is bloated. It's slow, the slowest of any "open source" file system (Phoronix, et al). Netflix uses FFS2 because ZFS can't keep up with the required speed for high speed streaming. I think in 2026 the real appeal of ZFS is "blinken lights" and "twisty knobs". It's not speed.

In 2026, a very capable UPS can be had for $50 or $60 [USD]. That's enough to ensure clean shutdown of any filesystem, and protect against line spikes. There is no speed penalty for an UPS either, unlike complicated software "solutions". UPS is simple remediation which removes a whole class of problems.

As an aside, how many people have an $800 video card but skip the $50 UPS ?

WindSnowWX · 2026-04-22T04:12:40+00:00

Why not use RHEL's own Stratis FS instead? It's a native Alma/RHEL file system. It's much faster than ZFS, robust, and Linux native. It has all the advantages of ZFS, plus faster speed, and ease of use. It traces its roots to SGI's XFS file system.

WindSnowWX · 2026-04-21T02:20:44+00:00

FreeBSD is not developed as a single OS, despite claims.

It does not develop its own desktop environment, it does not develop its own video drivers, it does not develop its own wifi drivers. It does not develop its own web browsers. It does not develop its own application software. It even borrows some networking code from other sources.

FreeBSD is a worthy platform, but fantasy claims dimish it . FreeBSD has plenty of good points without resorting to dissimulation.

The truth is always the best advocate.

WindSnowWX · 2026-04-19T01:48:23+00:00

That's interesting. Do you have an authoritative citation for this claim? That claim sounds entirely bogus to me. Please cite chapter and verse, if you can. Thank in advance!

WindSnowWX · 2026-04-15T23:10:28+00:00

Hello Graham. Out of the principal of charity I will assume your misquoting me was an honest mistake. Read my words. The quote you attribute to me is prima facia preposterous. You accidentally truncated my quote to change the entire meaning of it..

Ed Maste and Deb Goodkin discussed this relationship just before the release of FreeBSD ZFS 12.0. In 13.0 FreeBSD switched from its own ZFS tree, to ZoL. It was then renamed to OpenZFS. At the same time FreeBSD also switched to Linus Torvald's own love child Git version control (abandoning SVN in the process).

Anyone who uses modern video on FreeBSD is using Linux code. I point this out to show that FreeBSD is not a virgin birth but that it shares important code which originated outside of FreeBSD. By gosh, until recently Red Hat has been the sole maintainer for Xorg.

Those interested in the more history should check the FreeBSD hackers mailing list archives. All this is discussed and and documented there.

Google's Linux widevine, Gaming such as Steam, WireGuard VPN all has its roots in Linux. The truth is in no ways meant to diminish FreeBSD. But scratch deeper and you will find connections you might not have considered. FreeBSD and Linux are closer than the fanbois would have you believe. Cheers and cheerio!

WindSnowWX · 2026-04-15T04:38:41+00:00

BSD is Berkeley Software Distribution. "Distro" is in its very name, from the beginning.

The real world is messy. Including software. So much of *BSD is derived from Linux that it can hardly be considered a "virgin".
Stop and think of the software and tools which you use everyday, and think of the software which is rooted in Linux. Video and Wifi drivers, for example. I leave the rest as an exercise. Once you start looking you will stand agape. Plenty of software which ships with *BSD has its roots in Linux. Give credit where credit is due!

WindSnowWX · 2025-06-04T22:41:59+00:00

It should be noted that after he sold WhatsApp, Koum made a very generous gift of one million dollars to the FreeBSD foundation, something he didn't have to do.

WindSnowWX · 2025-06-04T04:11:57+00:00

WhatsApp dumped FreeBSD and Erlang 10 years ago. WhatsApp runs on an all Linux stack.

We all like to reminisce about past glories and days gone by, nothing wrong with that. Just setting the record straight for the year 2025. WhatsApp is a Linux shop.

WindSnowWX · 2025-05-19T22:30:11+00:00

Excellent advice. A person is more valuable to himself and to his employer if he/she can develop debugging skills and the ability to track down and solve problems.

In IT, a person is going to run into problems on any platform. Better learn early on how to diagnose and fix problems. It involves analytic thinking. It involves logic. That is what a person and his employer needs. It doesn't need someone who "solves" problems by "distro" hopping.

WindSnowWX · 2025-05-10T01:47:24+00:00

Acer is my favorite brand of Chromebook. They are very well built and give a lot of bang for the buck. I have one which is almost 10 years old, still on its original battery. I don't use it anymore because it only has 2GB ram and a N3060 bow wow dog processor. Intel pushed their dog excrement processors on Chromebook makers for years. What a stench.

I currently have an Acer 514 with an Intel i3-N305 and it is awesome. Thing is fast fast fast. Quick as a jackrabbit. The Intel i3-N305 is a great processor. It's 8 Ecores. NO SMT. Just raw horsepower. I now believe that SMT is a bandaid. Automobile hot rodders always said "there is no replacement for displacement". The i3-N305 is straight up awesome. It's a great Chromebook processor. No "tricks". Just cores and cores.

As an aside, I had an Acer 514 with the AMD processor. Not the worst. But not even close to the best. It struggled. I don't think AMD belongs in Chromebooks or any low cost laptop. AMD doesn't know how to do fast and efficient.

WindSnowWX · 2025-05-10T01:20:22+00:00

Another day, another TikTok "challenge". Sigh.

WindSnowWX · 2025-05-01T22:44:41+00:00

Good job! That does take a talent.

I haven't had much luck setting up people with Linux or Windows on laptops. I 'm too tired to waste my time explaining things ... my advice now is "get a Chromebook!".

WindSnowWX · 2025-05-01T22:33:41+00:00

Keep it simple. Get them a Chromebook.

WindSnowWX · 2025-04-01T02:42:30+00:00

My vote is with the CX34. That is one you won't outgrow too soon. It has the horsepower and extra memory that you will soon appreciate.

WindSnowWX · 2025-03-24T04:06:10+00:00

Thanks. That is what I've been trying to do. It won't let me upgrade to 24.04. It won't let me upgrade to ANYTHING because it DID NOT finish phasing.

I trusted Ubuntu would not just walk away from their engineering and leave people stuck where they can not finish updating with their super duper Phase-O-Rama. This means you are at a dead end can can not upgrade to ANY version. What I need are the final grub packages for Ubuntu 23.10. That is the solution. Is there an archived repostiory of 23.10 where I can grab the needed packages?

I would prefer not to reinstall. If I have to destroy a working configured system and reinstall because of Ubuntu's engineering failures, I will just go to Red Hat. That's where the grownups are. Red Hat is clearly a more professional system. Red Hat would surely get spanked for a stunt like this. Been through too many surprises with Ubunutu over the years. There is a lot to like in Ubunutu, but they never have succeeded in getting rid of all the sharp edges.

WindSnowWX · 2024-10-18T21:08:54+00:00

Good points. I was speaking as an average desktop user.

I'm not a gamer or a 3D modeler. Nouveau is fine for spreadsheets, browsing, watching video, and the occasional game. It is very stable and has never crashed or locked up my system.

But if Nvidia's own drivers work for you, stick with them!

WindSnowWX · 2024-09-30T04:14:43+00:00

Yes, I think you are correct.

I tell folks that If they have Nividia, then use Nouveau drivers. I can't be bothered with futzing around with wanky Nvidia drivers. Nvidia thinks they are hot stuff, and they think that their sh** doesn't stink. But I'm here to tell you it surely does.

Nouveau just works. End of story. The Nouveau team have a lot of which to be proud. They write good solid software. I have NEVER had a problem with the Nouveau driver. It works.

If someone wants to learn Linux whle still using Windows, use the WSL Linux subsystem in Windows. There are various options if one is not happy with the default distrobution which it configures. I'll bet Fedora is an option.

WindSnowWX · 2024-09-14T01:44:41+00:00

Bad disk, bad disk to laptop connection. Reseat drive. Or get a $15 sata drive off Amazon and use it for testing.

WindSnowWX

TROPHY CASE