One of my serious server OS requirements is that the OS allows for extensibility, that is, adding functionality easily where it didn't previously exist, which, through Windows, is virtually impossible without purchasing additional software. UNIX-based operating systems are fundamentally extensible.Although I agree that Unix makes a better server than Windows (although I much prefer Linux to FreeBSD myself), I have to disagree with this particular point. Most open source tools run on Windows too, these days, and most Unix systems have their own share of commercial proprietary applications.

Your comments on /usr/local/bin do not make a lot of sense. /usr/local/bin is for packages installed by the admin, that are not part of the distribution. So, If I compile some user land software, it's binaries go in /usr/local/bin. If I install user land software from the distribution repositories, it should be in /usr/bin.

Yes, however Windows itself does not use the same messaging paradigm (pipes) that UNIX uses which you will typically see broken down into small functions (grep, awk, sed, cut, sort, uniq, etc...) which allow for simple chaining of commands for complex data manipulation without adding any additional software. That's the UNIX way. You can always build cygwin and run unix utils in Windows but it's not quite the same.

I think you are confusing "Userland" with "User-Installed." Userland simply means 'not provided or required by the core system.' Both applications installed in /usr and /usr/home are userland, but ones in /usr are shared for all users to run (installed by the administrator) vs installed by a user and only intended for that user to run.

I found your comments to be nicely stated in terms of what FreeBSD can do and why you consider it to be the best server operating system for your specific needs. The one thing I did not see is any actual comparison to other servers and why FreeBSD met your needs better than the others.For completeness, I would be interested in seeing that information.Other than that, this still comes down to a matter of preference. For you, FreeBSD works better than the others. No doubt FreeBSD is an excellent server operating system. Other people may take issue and say they like some other server operating system.I do not think either is necessarily right or wrong. What I think is important is to discuss under what circumstances a particular system is especially appropriate for certain tasks.It would be nice if you could discuss that. If not, this was still interesting. Without further information, that's where this falls, in the category of "interesting". Any additional comparisons which highlight what FreeBSD does versus what other systems do would be helpful.Thanks again for your interesting article.Brian

So, If I compile some user land software, it's binaries go in /usr/local/bin. If I install user land software from the distribution repositories, it should be in /usr/bin.No. Ports are installed to /usr/local.Distribution repositories? This is FreeBSD, not Ubuntu.

The one thing I did not see is any actual comparison to other servers and why FreeBSD met your needs better than the others.FWIW, here is a short list of FBSD features that I find invaluable. Each is already available as part of a default installation.

• FreeBSD Jails (easy to maintain/update many different servers on one box; low overhead). This feature alone keeps me with FBSD. I don't have to install virtualization software or heavily modify a kernel for this to work, either.
• Ability to upgrade base system easily, remotely, from the command line. Tried, tested, and true.
• Valuable facilities to secure various types of installations through securelevels (which allows you to truly make files immutable - even to root - among other things).
• Fantastic documentation: the manpages are readable, up-to-date, and useful. The handbook is maintained and provides useful guidance for a large range of issues.
• Flexible software management - ports. You set up options at compile time. When ports break, it's almost invariably a case of PEBKAC.

anomie: While I don't use jails, I forget to list these things because I tend to take some of these features for granted. Thank you for listing them.

I would like to mention here a great distro not because you forgot to mention it but because it deserves more credit. It's called Arch Linux http://www.archlinux.orgThank you

Dear Robert,I've found your arguments quite interesting. My experiences are with the management of Debian GNU/Linux and FreeBSD servers (home and small businesses).Pros for FreeBSD : excellent documentation, impressive stability, lean but complete inital setup, i LOVE rc.conf.Pros for Debian : packages choice, OS upgrades are so smooth with aptitude, OS virtualization with linux-vserver/open-vz is clearly easier to manage than BSD jails.Pros for both environments : gcc support, easy initial installation, robust default filesystem (UFS2 or EXT3), easy installation of packages, easy application of security updates (for default kernels).My conclusion : FreeBSD and Debian/Linux are really fine OS and, for my part, I found it more and more difficult to choose between them. We are blessed to have free access to these OS and their respective communities!

Excellent article! I too would like to hear more of the rest of your choices for using FreeBSD.For me, I find that the biggest drawback of FreeBSD is the monolithic distribution "core" (which is updated via "make world"). In all of the Linux (and UNIX) package-based distributions I know of, the entire system is wrapped in the packages. BSD is not so.This means that upgrading anything in the base system is a pain and may tend to get put off more than others. It also means that the base is untouched - unstripped - not slimmable. If its in the core and you don't want it, you get it anyway.If you "upgrade" to a newer version of whatever via ports, the base system is untouched. Now you have two versions - which is running?As much as I've gone into this, I love FreeBSD. It is unfortunate that companies like Oracle don't certify their products on FreeBSD.

I agree with a lot of the statements in the article, I've been using FreeBSD for quite a while now and it's fantastic.An important point noted is that FreeBSD is disciplined which keeps my sanity in tact.The drawback/headache I find with Linux distros is that there doesn't seem to be any discipline - files are located in different parts of the file system depending on which distro and even which release you're working on.Hop on almost any FreeBSD machine and you'll feel at home, know where the config files are and how to install/modify your apps.Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it gets the job done and is super stable.

FreeBSD has always been OS of my choice. At work I use Linux ( just because of requirement ) but at home I've two PCs running FreeBSD 7. Utilities like portsnap, portaudit and portupgrade works as magic :) . Very easy to update OS kernel and packages as well.Simply ..FreeBSD rocks !

may I have an url for tutorial installation and configuration FreeBSD for server ?thank you

www.freebsd.org