Netflix and Whatsapp and Juniper Networks are on FreeBSD. Netflix and FreeBSD alone run 40% of all internet traffic at a minimum. Now who's laughing at whom? Tell your little technical school kids who claim to be IT to come here and say that. It's obvious they are clueless.
So if you are having issues installing the same software I just did, it's not with FreeBSD, its ports or packages.
Following your argued on this statement allow me say also:
FBI use windows, so windows is the best OS...
If the fail in the statement (Netflix / Whatsapp / Juniper / etc...) is not clear try study about syllogism...
As far as your broad, sweeping declaration of problems with ports and packages, we can't help you cause:
1) Your statements are false.
2) You give no specific, detailed issue.
The professionals here have countless server installations humming along for decades without issue running the very software you say has problems, including myself.
Note: I just installed Apache, PHP and Laravel for one small client just last week on a brand new machine in his office. It came up within an hour, maybe half an hour, and he's happily writing code on it as we speak.
Mostly of posts here on FreeBSD forum do the assumption the user have some "basic" (what is basic for someone can not be basic for another one) knowledge, you can confirm this studying the answers, usually as:
Do this...
Do that...
But never with an step by step showing the commands for example...
What I have did?
I have say about install an fresh FreeBSD and have did the updates, so if you wanna blame for follow the usual practice from forum here some steps:
1 - Make a boot using FreeBSD ISO
2 - Hit Enter accepting the defaults and install the OS
3 - Log as root
4 - Do base update with the command
freebsd-update fetch update install
5 - Update the ports with the command
portsnap fetch update
6 - Install portmaster with
cd /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portmaster and
make config-recursive install clean
7 - Run portmaster with the command
portmaster -afdb
8 - Install the desired software after this
This is basic or advanced?
Once more time, for some people would be advanced, for others basic...
You argued about have did an successful installation one week ago...
The first problem is about you does not read the situation and do the assumption my post is an offense, instead an share for avoid similar situations... Because if you have payed attention, I have say about did the test YESTERDAY, and not one week ago, the ports you have used one week would be free of issues, but the ports I have used from lastest version was not.
What specific detailed stuff you need more?
Is hard install an Virtual Machine and test the ports from yesterday?
Is more easy say someone is liar?
I think there no more to discuss with you...
You have to do your homework in advance and not go flying blind like you did there, FreeBSD can be unforgiving because with the flexibility it offers there is also the danger of getting some details wrong or coming across an unexpected snafu.
But that is the beautiful about the FreeBSD, the flexibility it offers.
I was think my homework was made after update all my FreeBSD Virtual Machines on end week (for example you can read it on the part where I say about mariadb installer bugged), but seems not.
Never leave anything to chance with a demo, practice the steps beforehand, many times. During the demo use known sources, don't pull down the latest.
This post does remind me of a friend just a couple of weeks ago. I was visiting him and had my laptop running FreeBSD-CURRENT, something had upset Xfce so I was using i3 as a window manager. After I asked for his WiFi password, he saw me editing /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and he inquired if FreeBSD was a "hobby OS". After showing him the FreeBSD Foundation page on who uses FreeBSD, he immediately took back what he had intimated!
I think the closestyou could get to having the previous version of a port is to checkout a specific revision of the ports tree via svn?
I have argued with my teacher about the problem with old packages from Debian, while o FreeBSD is possible use almost (ever think the ports was full tested before released but seems not) the latest version, many computers on my university use Debian, and because the old packages we does not have for example sublime and other tools available, because those tools need packages more updated not available on Debian...
So for proof my point of view the only way was on use latest update what unfortunately failed.
The lesson here is stay with the default packages from ISO since those seems be fully tested.
I does not know about the possibility of an rollback from ports using the svn, thanks for the hint, I will check it.
You can also go for one of the quarterly branches of the ports tree or the release tags (both in SVN). No guarantees that every port is good in those snapshots, but you have less of a moving target. Beware, however, of open security issues which would be fixed by using head.
Something like the following should probably do the trick (testing and polishing of this is left as an exercise for the reader):
Code:
cd /usr/ports/foo/bar
svn log | less # and figure out which revision you want
svn update -r 123456
If it works, you have not just the previous version, but all versions over time (assuming the sources are still available at their expected URLs). The further you go back, the deeper you are getting into untested territory, as the common use case is all ports being from a vaguely similar age of the tree, so a port from years ago might not work so well with the current versions of its dependencies or dependents, or could have issues with the current versions of the ports build system.
That assumes that you have the ports tree as a SVN working copy in the first place. Don't mix and match SVN with other methods of fetching and updating the ports tree.
Overall, packages are promoted as the trouble free way of installing things. Directly building ports has never been suggested to be entirely trouble free, and the user is expected to deal with occasional breakage and/or build issues. Personally, I use ports exclusively, and build my own base system as well, but I've been building Unix stuff for multiple decades so dealing with occasional breakage is no big deal to me (I actually sometimes quite enjoy it when it breaks, as it gives me something to keep my skills sharpened).
My installations is all using ports, when I am setup an new server, usually is on VMware ESXI or Xen, and then on those platform before every update I do an snapshot, so I can rollback for fix some things.
The situation I have shared I was not using virtualization, was on an bare desktop, in the demonstration was with 2 desktop using same hardware, in one was the IT guy from university installing Debian on an fresh install, and on the other one me installing FreeBSD, the objective of the demonstration was validate the flexibility of have mostly web software running on FreeBSD because the latest version of programs an with better speed.
Both I am pretty sure able because my daily use of FreeBSD, that is what make me get out of Debian years ago...
Thanks for the info about how to get old tree from ports, I will practice that!!!
Frankly, an ISP who blindly relies on randomly deploying the head of the ports tree into critical production without proper testing is highly irresponsible, and deserves to suffer embarrassing outages (for some, it's the only way they learn). The same goes for an enterprise. Even for smaller deployments, the latest packages/ports can be fairly easily deployed for testing in a jail, VM, or on a spare/old machine; before throwing them into production. The need to do that is not something specific to FreeBSD or the ports tree, it's something that is needed with even the best of commercial software.
Even the packages should not be thrown into production without testing, as the usual BSD warranty / disclaimer applies, they should just be a little less risky than SVN head of ports.
I not mean about blind deploy, what I tried say is about not be able to apply an security fix.
Lets suppose some people have found an security breach on bind, mostly of enterprises will update they bind for avoid that issue, but, if the ports is bugged, they will not be able to apply that in regular way.
I know I can download the patch / source and compile by myself also, but, mostly places I have read say to do not do that.
Only one for n available situations.
I'd guess that it was a typo of you and your.
Regardless, as has been said, plan your demos carefully, and, in my humble opinion, overselling is probably as bad as anything else, since it raises expectation.
To me, saying WOW, IT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN LINUX!!! isn't going to do much more than aggravate Linux lovers, and probably just amuse the rest of the people who don't really care what O/S they're using. Not to knock enthusiasm, which is important, but if someone likes Linux and you say, it stinks compared to a BSD, you've already put them on the defensive. Saying, Linux is nice, but I prefer FreeBSD because (your reasons here) is more likely to get someone interested enough to look into it themselves. Or making it a challenge.
Here, it will work on your laptop, but I haven't gotten synaptics working, if you do, let me know what you did, might get someone to show they're better at it than you are.
Anyway, sorry your demo went badly. On the bright side, it showed you why one has to prepare for it, so next time will be much better.
I was not overselling, is an public university and they will not promote me neither give me a badge
We was discussing about what we use on clients in daily work, I have say about FreeBSD and my teacher says be surprise on enterprises pay for use FreeBSD because is not widely used, there no many professionals available, etc...
In the end, my teacher asked me for show in production the use of FreeBSD and do some tests, ever if it be successful, not mean the entire university will change from one day to another from Debian to FreeBSD...
The probably situation is my teacher install on his laptop to do an deep study...
On clients I argued about the possibility (when is possible) of reuse they old hardware, since linux is getting every time more heavy, and its enough to they accept use FreeBSD (no expenses with new server).
