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Why is boards hosted on FreeBSD?

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  • 19-10-2011 3:03am
    #1
    TheyKnowMyIP
    Closed Accounts Posts: 568 ✭✭✭


    Just curious I guess. You hear alot of noise about Linux these days, but FreeBSD does not seem to get as much attention. I am thinking that the decision was made due to the rock solid stability of the system.

    Does FreeBSD scale perfectly for your needs, or have you ever intended to move to another OS? Why not host the site on Windows Server/NT/Linux?

    :)
    Post edited by Shield on


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    #2
    TouchingVirus
    Registered Users Posts: 8,584 ✭✭✭TouchingVirus


    Lol at the suggestion of running boards on Windows Server/NT - no!


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    #3
    Orion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,807 ✭✭✭✭Orion


    Windows NT4 ftw!


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    #4
    pickarooney
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 35,468 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    At a guess I would say they're more interested in doing useful stuff than completely pointless stuff.


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    #5
    Conor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,479 ✭✭✭Conor


    If we were ever to change OS it would probably be to some Linux distro. Probably Debian or Ubuntu Server since they're in use elsewhere in the group.

    FreeBSD has been in use since before I joined. There were two old installs of Linux when I got here but they've since been upgraded to up-to-date versions of FreeBSD to simplify maintenance. If it had been 2 FreeBSD boxes and the rest on Linux it would have gone the other way. We're not religious about FreeBSD.

    There isn't any real advantage for us to move OS at the moment. It would be a bit of a pain in the arse to rewrite all the configs (even taking into account the fact we use Puppet to manage them) so unless there was a serious advantage to switch OS we're not going to.

    As for Windows... well, the only reason you'd run Windows to serve a website is if you use the .NET stack. If you run a website using PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby/etc in production on a Windows machine you're only wasting money and causing yourself unnecessary pain.


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    #6
    TheyKnowMyIP
    Closed Accounts Posts: 568 ✭✭✭TheyKnowMyIP


    Thanks for the feedback. Interesting all the same. Windows does not appear to be a very popular choice as you said unless it's for a specific Microsoft Application such as an Exchange server. Makes sense I guess. Scripting on Windows is a PITA, I will agree with that much. Powershell is a joke.

    Have to say though, it's impressive this site is maintained in such a professional manner despite the massive size of the site. Keep it up devs:)


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