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FreeNAS vs NexentaStor Community

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This article compares FreeNAS with NextentaStor Community. They are both storage operating systems, FreeNAS being based on FreeBSD.

Original: http://www.freenas.org/freenas-versus-nexenta/

RGB_FreeNAS_Shark_Logo_Onlight_Lg nexenta

High Level Comparison

FreeNAS and NexentaStor Community are Storage Operating Systems that support many of the same features like CIFS, SMB, NFS, and iSCSI protocols. Each system works with OpenZFS (v5000) with feature flags, most virtualization platforms, and have support, training and certification available.

FreeNAS

Started in October 2005 by Olivier Cochard-Labbe, FreeNAS is a free and open-source software network-attached storage (NAS) system based on FreeBSD and the OpenZFS file system and is licensed under the terms of the BSD License. In September 2009, the development team realized that FreeNAS would need to be completely re-written in order to incorporate modern features like a plug-in architecture, updates to the base system, and an up-to-date User Interface. To carry this out, the FreeNAS Team transferred the project over to iXsystems, who moved from a m0n0wall and PHP-based architecture to one based on FreeBSD’s NanoBSD embedded build system, the Python programming language, the Django CMS and the dojo JavaScript toolkit.

NexentaStor Community Edition

Alex Aizman and Dmitry Ysupov created the Nexenta OS project after Sun Microsystems released the bulk of its Solaris operating system under free software licenses as OpenSolaris. NexentaStor is derived from the former Nexenta OS and based on the illumos operating system, utilizing OpenZFS as an underlying filesystem. The software delivers unified file and block storage services to consumers. NexentaStor Community edition is free up to 18TB of raw storage and does not include all the features of the professional version.

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Comparative Introduction To FreeBSD For Linux Users

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FreeBSD user anismaj explains FreeBSD to users of Linux that are looking to make the switch, or try out something new.

Original post: http://www.unixmen.com/comparative-introduction-freebsd-linux-users/

Introduction

BSD was originally derived from UNIX and currently, there are various number of Unix-like operating systems descended from the BSD. While, FreeBSD is the most widely used open source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD distribution). As it is implicitly said it is a free and open source Unix-like-operating system and a public server platform. FreeBSD source code is generally released under a permissive BSD license. It is true that it has similarities with Linux but we cannot deny that they differs in other points.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows: the description of FreeBSD will be treated in our first section.  The similarities between FreeBSD and Linux will be briefly described in the second section. While their differences will be discussed in the third section. And a comparison of their features will be summarized in our last section.

FreeBSD description

History

  • The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993, while its first CD-ROM distributed was FreeBSD1.0 on December 1993. Then, FreeBSD 2.1.0 was released in 1995 which gained the satisfaction of all users. Actually, many IT companies use FreeBSD and are satisfied where we can list those companies: IBM, Nokia, NetApp and Juniper Networks.

License

  • Concerning its license, FreeBSD is released under various source licenses. Its newest code called Kernel is released under the two-clause BSD license, offering the possibility to use and redistribute FreeBSD with absolute freedom. Other codes are released three- and four-clause BSD license and some others are released under GPL and CDDL.

Users

  • One of the important feature of FreeBSD, we can mention the various categories of its users. In fact, it is possible to use FreeBSD as a mail server, web server, FTP server and as a router due to the significant set of server-related software accompanied with it. Furthermore, ARM, PowerPC and MIPS are supported by FreeBSD so it is possible to use x86 and s86-64.

FreeBSD and Linux similarities

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Linux vs. BSD: Which Should You Use?

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Here’s another Linux vs BSD comparison, by user Danny Stieben of MakeUseOf.

At MakeUseOf, we cover Linux quite a bit as the “alternative” to Windows and Mac OS X. However, those aren’t the only three operating systems out there — there’s also the BSD family of Unix-like operating systems, which are technically speaking different from Linux.

In the name of fair competition, it’s time that we gave BSD operating systems some recognition as well. And there’s no better way to do that than to compare them against Linux. What’s different about BSD operating systems, and should you be running it instead of Linux? How does Linux and the best BSD desktop OS, PC-BSD, compare on the desktop?

Find out how the two compare: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-vs-bsd-which-should-you-use/

SECURITY : OPENBSD VS FREEBSD

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This blog post by compares the security capabilities of FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

openBSDOpenBSD and FreeBSD are both great OS that I admire and use. OpenBSD is considered more secure since it is its main goal, but FreeBSD can be tweaked to be pretty well hardened as well. Depending on the forums or to who we ask, we will have different opinions. But what are the facts? Which OS is more secure and why?

I am not asking the question about which one is globally better, as “better” has a different meaning depending on the context and the needs (ISP routers, datafreebsd-logo-largebase servers, home gateway, desktop system, storage server or appliance, etc…). On some enterprises doing a major OS upgrade every 6 months or every year is doable, on others, it’s not possible at all. Also, it depends if one needs performance for streaming (Netflix), or if security is a top priority for a redondant firewall. Everyone needs is different, and both OS are highly useful.

If we strictly focus on security, how FreeBSD compares to OpenBSD security wise? In what follows, we will dig into memory protection, system and network security features, and default “out of the box” security. The purpose is to give unbiased facts, to compare point by point both OS. I am not trying to find the “best” OS and discredit the other, I love and use both :-) Let us try to find out the integrated security features of both OS, the visit continues below!

Check out the full comparison here – http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/2014/12/security-openbsd-vs-freebsd.html

Linux vs FreeBSD – a comprehensive comparison

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bsdnixIn this article by the Brio Team, Linux and FreeBSD are compared in terms of its developers, security, licensing, and compatibility with hardware and software. The author also explains which one may be a better fit for a specific user. In addition, it discusses the UNIX element of each kernel.

For most users, the difference between Linux and FreeBSD is not something significant, as the two operating systems frequently share even the same applications. Both of these Operating Systems are UNIX like, in their form and function; while they are developed mainly for non-commercial interests. However, on taking a closer look one can uncover more differences between the two.

Check out the full article here: http://brioteam.com/linux-versus-freebsd-comprehensive-comparison

PC-BSD vs. Ubuntu

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PC-BSD Logoubuntu_logo_black-orangeThis article by Make Tech Easier discusses the pros and cons of both PC-BSD and Ubuntu as an open-source desktop operating system. The two operating systems are compared by the ease of use as a desktop, starting with the installation process, desktop environment, and ending with application support and installation.

To read the full article with graphics, check out the following link: http://www.maketecheasier.com/pc-bsd-vs-ubuntu/

FreeBSD or CentOS

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FreeBSD or CentOS? FreeBSD or Linux, that is the question.

Well, the answer is: “It depends on what you need the operating system for and what your hardware requirements are”.

What I like about members of the FreeBSD community, they generally acknowledge that their is no perfect operating system and that Linux has some strong points over FreeBSD, and the other way round. Discussions about differences between FreeBSD and Linux are often level headed and based on facts, though not everything is always measurable (sometimes something just feels….)

A good example is a recent discussion (CentOS vs FreeBSD) on the FreeBSD Forums about whether one should use FreeBSD as server or CentOS, a Linux distribution entirely derived entirely from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Some of the strong points in favours of FreeBSD mentioned in the discussion are:

  • Learning UNIX basics
  • Better on older hardware (low overhead)
  • Stable and secure
  • ZFS Snapshots
  • FreeBSD Jails
  • Better memory footprint
  • Preferred for VPS (RootBSD is a leading hoster FreeBSD VPS’s)
  • Can run some Linux apps faster than on Linux itself
  • Better control over software (ports)
  • Updates and upgrades without ending up reinstalling
  • Good documentation
  • etc

Strong points for  CentOS:

  • Experience handy as there are more CentOS related jobs
  • Security updates are easier
  • Beefier hardware preferred
  • Faster install and update times
  • Slow package patch processes
  • No compiling from source (FreeBSD has pkg though)
  • Better hardware support
  • etc

Note, these features were mentioned in thread, you may have different views. Please don’t start a flame here ;-)

Benchmarks: FreeBSD, Oracle Linux, UFS and ZFS

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Some love benchmarks, others hate them, especially when ‘apples’ are compare with ‘pears’, when Linux is benchmarked against FreeBSD.

For what it’s worth there are some new benchmarks on openbenchmarking.org:

When looking at the FreeBSD vs Oracle Linux benchmarks, keep in mind that both operating systems are quite different kernels, FreeBSD 9 is an RC and that it’s easy to tweak some settings in FreeBSD to make it a lot faster.

 

 

FreeBSD or Debian Linux? FreeBSD or Linux?

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This is an often asked question in newsgroups and forums. The reason for this, is that there is no easy answer. If a straight forward answer could be given, it could have been found on Wikipedia. The fact is, that it is not a yes-or-no-answer question.

Often you will see this ‘political’ answer “It depends”. It depends how you’re planning to use the operating system (desktop, server) and where (home, data center, server room, embedded etc).

Both Linux and FreeBSD have their strong and weak points, but overall, they can do almost anything you ask it to do, but when one wants an answer to the question “FreeBSD or (Debian) Linux?” one needs to find an answer to the following questions first to see which operating system suits one’s needs best:

1) Is your current hardware supported? If the purchase of new hardware is planned, is it supported by either/both?

2) Which operating system is supported by the third party commercial applications vendors that you use? If it is not supported, is there an acceptable equivalent available for the operating system your preference goes out to?

3) Are your current networking hardware (and appliances) supported by the O/S?

4) Are any new third party system management and monitoring tools required? If so, are they supported by the “new” OS?

5) Is  your storage hardware and servers supported by your preferred O/S? think of Network Attached Storage, SAN’s RAID, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).

5) Is the IT department capable of maintaining (and further developing) the new system, or is there a need to hire new staff? Or, can you get consulting services and/or third party support for your operating system?

There are plenty more questions that can be asked before deciding whether it’s Linux or FreeBSD that fits your needs best.

Have you been in a (work / home) situation where you had to make the choice? It would be nice to find out about your experience. Please share via the comments.

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