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0 pointsisatty8y ago0 comments

I'm using FreeBSD for servers and thankfully Gentoo remains on OpenRC. If they switch I'll move my home computers to FreeBSD too.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

xenophonf8y ago· 4 in thread

Except FreeBSD is considering moving to something like launchd or systemd itself, because honestly a SMF isn't a bad idea compared to init scripts, which are rather bare bones.

digi_owl8y ago

No they are not. The former head of Launchd development at Apple was pushing to have FreeBSD adopt Launchd, but got rebuffed. So instead he has forked FreeBSD into NextBSD.

Mordak8y ago

And looking at the commit logs for NextBSD [0] it is dead now too.

[0] https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD

1 more reply

hedora8y ago

SMF runs circles around systemd. I used it recently, and realized it is what systemd is trying to clone.

It was kind of like learning Unix after coming from a DOS background.

If FreeBSD switches to systemd, I'll stick with OpenBSD. OpenBSD is as likely to switch as they are to rewrite the kernel in rust and go.

X86BSD8y ago

FreeBSD will never, ever adopt systemd. That I am certain of. Even if the license wasn't an issue, and you could easily yank out all the non portable Linux code, and adopt it into BSD, the code quality, and the engineering of it would not meet BSD standards for adoption.

TrueOS just started using OpenRC and seem happy with it so far.

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peatmoss8y ago

I hope systemd doesn't taint us all for more intelligent init systems. RC scripts do have their drawbacks.

If I were choosing a "most interesting alternative to systemd and classic init" award, it'd go to GNU Shepherd which is the init system of GUIX as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guix_System_Distribution

All the talk about BSD and launchd has me thinking Shepherd might be on to something. Launchd is XMLed up from here to Sunday, whereas Shepherd can have all the benefits of Scheme's S-EXPRs being tree structures while also having a great scripting language (Scheme) at your disposal.

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