In case you haven't been paying attention. Last week, two new Linux LPE vulnerabilities were discovered and leaked. One only works on machines without AppArmor, the other works on all machines. And this is AFTER the "Copy Fail" vulnerability that came before.

The root cause of these vulnerabilities all seem to be the same: corrupt a cached suid file in memory and execute it. But I think the cause is deeper. All of these vulnerabilities exploit some kind of kernel system for in-place cryptography.

In place cryptography may save a couple of memory transfers, but it comes at a cost of much greater complexity, since now the kernel has to make sure that all user-passed pointers are valid and should be allowed to be written to. And the Linux kernel has failed to handle such complexity in at least three separate cases.

OpenBSD had it right. If you want a secure operating system, you have to sacrifice some micro-optimizations and features for the sake of much reduced complexity. And reduced complexity is the only way to have a truly secure operating system.

I've used FreeBSD since 2013, NetBSD since 2015, and occasionally tried other BSDs here and there. I've used them in production for major websites, worked with them at a job, used them on the desktop (I don't currently, I'll get into it), and programmed for them. I also, once upon a time, maintained some ports before getting banned for "conduct issues" shortly after John Marino left FreeBSD - not going to get into that hot mess because it's not important to the story and points. But suffice to say, I've been around the block.

My doubts have been growing as I've seen the GNU/Linux creep continue, especially in our packaging of things on FreeBSD and NetBSD. This improved very /slightly/ in recent years, but it still is a problem. Hence, I want to bring up a few key problems I notice, and instead of whine about it, engage others here so I can alert them to problems, and explain how they affect us as a system.

1. The BSDs increasing upstream dependence on the Linux kernel. This is exemplified by the OpenZFS project switching its upstream to ZoL. I've spoken about this before and gotten blown off, so I'll be brief. If you don't agree with me, you are certainly free to take your negativity elsewhere. I have no misconceptions on this issue: By the BSDs relying solely on GNU/Linux for graphics drivers, desktop environments, and now one of the most cutting edge filesystems, we have given them enormous control over our future. This is exemplified by the stall of 2011-2015 that saw many AMD cards simply not get support in a timely manner. The ZoL project now being the upstream for OpenZFS is a problem because it gives support to a niche group of devs that are in a hostile relationship with the Linux kernel developers, and giving them control over ZFS leaves potential for hostage situations. The intent to "unify" the versions between illumos, BSD and Linux is probably noble, but I am pessimistic. Performance, as well, when I tested between 12-RELEASE and 13-CURRENT, was poorer as well.

2. Our packages relying on Linuxisms. Not one QT5 app on FreeBSD have I ever managed to run without it needing dbus. GTK3 for years required it, only in 2020 getting a patch to remove the mandated dependency. dbus, outside of the context of GNU/Linux is ridiculous, plain and simple. It even can activate daemons on its own and occupies a privileged sector of the OS. An object model and IPC have nothing to do with each other. UNIX STREAMS + SunRPC or sockets + SunRPC is really not enough for some people. Anyways, the infection of this is spreading, as GNU/Linux does prepare to move to new tech all the time in a never ending treadmill of trying to fix by replacement instead of actually confronting the underlying issues. Other Linuxisms would be consolekit, which barely gets updates and I'm sure by now has little in the way of API compatibility with logind, polkit, gstreamer etc. My point is that the root of our issues is that we have no BSD-native answer to say, GNOME, QT, Firefox etc. We just rely on trying to patch GNU/Linux hand-me-downs up until they are tattered and gross. Self-sufficiency would be nice.

3. Many developers continue to be the kind to not use BSD as a desktop. For years, people made fun of us that NetBSD and FreeBSD devs used macOS. That needs to stop - not here to dictate others choices, but it has caused desktops to languish as nobody other than say GhostBSD nowadays even bothers to keep the desktop alive. If you want to point to OpenBSD, fair enough; but I cannot use OpenBSD for reasons that are tangential. It's a huge reason I switched back to MS Windows for a desktop -- I'd rather use what most of you probably consider the worst OS to converge on, even worse than GNU/Linux, because not only do I not want to pay thousands of dollars for cheap designer status symbol trash that is macOS and its fischer price interface, but because this elitism among developers has led to the desktop being patently ignored by many. Can it be done? Yes. But I had to leave for over a year due to the discontinuation of Palemoon, because I couldn't use Firefox as I wanted to keep my desktop BSD-like, not a worse version of GNU/Linux. Without a stable main browser, what's one to do? Use w3m? If we want BSD to be used as a desktop, we need to get rid of the Apple elitism, and lead by example, take it into account how we would want it and work to try and improve it. I'll be reinstalling BSD as a desktop soonish; just need to figure out what I'll do for an actual desktop though.

4. We need to stay out of the politics of the larger FOSS scene. These codes of conduct, these stupid arguments over what is and isn't acceptable will continue to go on as the CoCs are a solution in search of a problem. We are all adults, we know what is and isn't generally acceptable on the internet. But if everyone got offended and quit a project over someone saying mean 30 years ago, all FOSS would have quickly died out. It's ridiculousness like this that led to John Marino and others leaving the FreeBSD project.

In conclusion: I'm fully expecting that many of you will respond negatively to my criticisms. I'm not in a position to address most of these, when I got removed from the FreeBSD ports project, I was ready to just pull the plug and leave it entirely behind, and I mostly have left the FreeBSD community behind and use it quietly other than the communities I run. I'm not expecting any of you to take me seriously if you don't want to - people are going to either agree with me or completely disagree and want to scream at me for being an idiot -- used to both things haha. In any case, my intention of this post is to be constructive, not destructive, and just give opinions I think aren't idiotic or FUD-based. This is not FUD, these are legitimate concerns mostly rooted in one rhetorical question: Can we trust the GNU/Linux community to be better to us than it has? I think the answer I would give is abundantly clear.

I daily-drive Linux at work and FreeBSD on my personal ThinkPads (T480 & P52 currently). Both laptops and both operating systems, every day. I'm the kind of person who reads freebsd-update output and Phoronix benchmarks in the same hour.

Recently saw the "is FreeBSD really that goated" thread and it brought back the timeline of my own journey. Started with a rough —call it version 0.9 — build that barely had X11 working, evolved through five iterations, landed on something I'd call "production-stable personal desktop" around version 2.0 on FreeBSD 15.0 with a heavily customized MATE, ZFS boot environments, BastilleBSD jails for microservices, WireGuard tunnels and PF.

If I could send a packet back in time to my earlier self, here's what I'd put in the payload:

═══════════════════════════ ON HARDWARE ══════════════════════════════

ThinkPad T480 isn't magic — it's just unusually well-documented in FreeBSD-land. The wiki tells you which kernel modules to load for the trackpoint, which acpi_video tweaks fix backlight, exactly which iwm/iwn driver matches your wifi card. That isn't true for random laptops. Save yourself a year: pick hardware the community has already debugged.

Corollary: a "spare disk" is not enough. Spare TWO disks. One for the OS, one for your /home and data — the classic configuration. ZFS makes this trivial to set up and disaster-proof. When (not if) you brick the OS partition trying something experimental, you reinstall and your data is still there. Took me three re-installs to internalize this.

Actually, I prefer managing one pair of disks for Linux and another pair for FreeBSD — kept entirely separate. No dual-boot tears, no GRUB rescue at 2am, no shared partitions to corrupt. Two systems, four disks, full isolation.

════════════════════════ ON DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS ═══════════════════════

I cycled through Xfce, KDE, GNOME, i3, Hyprland (briefly), and landed back on MATE. The cycle wasn't wasted — it taught me what I actually need vs what looked cool on r/unixporn. MATE is boring, stable, lightweight, and doesn't fight FreeBSD's input stack.

Bonus learning: don't install Wayland compositors on FreeBSD before they're production-ready. X11 + a sensible compositor (or no compositor) outperforms experimental Wayland on this OS today. Maybe in two more releases.

══════════════════════ ON COEXISTING WITH LINUX ══════════════════════════

Running both daily isn't a war. It's two different tools for two different mental modes:

1. Linux when I need bleeding-edge: latest kernel, GPU compute workloads, anything that requires NVIDIA proprietary stack, Steam, things that touch hardware that landed in mainline last month.

2. FreeBSD when I need to think clearly: writing, code review, network experiments, anything where I want the OS to disappear and let me work.

The mental shift isn't a downgrade. It's a context switch. Two hats, two desks.

══════════════════ ON ZFS — THE THING I UNDERRATED ════════════════════════

ZFS boot environments saved me probably 40 hours of reinstall pain over the years.

\bectl create before-experiment``

then break stuff freely.

\bectl activate``

rolled back, reboot, done.

No Linux distro gives me this out of the box with the same simplicity (yes, btrfs exists, yes, NixOS exists, neither feels the same).

If you're starting FreeBSD: learn boot environments in your first week. Not month. Week.

════════════════════════ ON THE COMMUNITY ═════════════════════════════

All FreeBSD-forums and r/freebsd are friendly compared to Linux equivalents. Smaller userbase, higher signal-to-noise. Ask a specific question, you get a specific answer, usually from someone who has shipped production systems.

But: don't ask "should I use FreeBSD". Ask "what are the trade-offs for my specific workload". The former question gets you religion. The latter gets you engineering.

═════════════════════ QUESTION FOR THIS SUB ═════════════════════════════

What's the one thing YOU wish someone had told you in your first year on FreeBSD?

I suspect we'll generate a better FAQ in this thread than the wiki currently has.

I still triple boot with Mint and Windows 11. This is FreeBSD specifically.

I’m not sure how long this has been the case, but the freedesktop.org site has become predominantly a site for Linux (only) desktop development. If you look for information on how to write a display manager, you’ll get a page telling you how to connect an already existing display manager to systemd. If you look for information on how to write a desktop environment, you’ll get a page telling you how to connect an already existing desktop environment to logind. We’re going to need to setup our own development resources (documentation). It’s more than obvious that trying to share with the Linux community doesn’t really work, as their ecosystem’s development is on a continuously divergent path from ours -unless we’re going to pick up systemd.

For reference:

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/writing-display-managers/

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/writing-desktop-environments/

I've been interested of BSD so I've consumed a bit of youtube videos about it and have decided that probably won't be using any of the BSD systems as the main OS basically never because of my needs and practicality. But anyway, some people seem to daily-drive it as their desktop OS, so mainly to those -- why?

Other than just genuinely liking the OS and wanting to learn about it specifically like any other type of software, anyone who uses it for everyday stuff as well.

How about that release graphic?

What's something new or updated/fixed in the release that you'll immediately benefit from? VMM/VMD for me:

• Added MP support for up to 64 VCPUs per guest VM.

Tangential but there was also a Game of Trees(GOT) release on the 14th. ( https://gameoftrees.org/releases/changes.html )

This tidbit is very welcome:

• default to using SHA256 object IDs in newly created repositories