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1. Embed this notice
   Stefano Marinelli (stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 01:33:26 JST Stefano Marinelli

   This morning a colleague told me he tried both FreeBSD and OpenBSD. He said he found them "strange." For example, FreeBSD doesn’t have the bash in the base system, and even after installing it, it’s not in "/bin/bash", "which it should be because all the scripts expect it to be there."

   I explained to him that scripts shouldn’t have hard-coded paths, but unfortunately, they do. He said he gave up and that he might try again later since "the BSDs do things their own way."

   One of the problems for those approaching a new operating system is they should consider it as a standalone entity rather than a "variant" of another. Linux users are often confused because they regard BSDs as just another "distribution." They don’t realize that having a shell doesn’t mean having the same operating system or procedures underneath.

   I’m reminded of the famous saying by Oscar Wilde, that the English and the Americans are two peoples divided by the same language: paradoxically, for a new user, it’s easier to perceive the difference when the two operating systems are extremely different (like Windows and Linux) than when they are seemingly similar (like Linux and the BSDs).

   I will try to have a "four hands" session with my colleague because I believe he would greatly benefit from using BSDs.

   #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #Linux #RunBSD

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 01:44:58 JST feld

     in reply to
     @stefano It's hard to get people to understand that the right way of writing scripts is to do
     
     #!/usr/bin/env bash
     
     or equivalent. So then it works especially when you're needing a custom version of whatever the tool is that has priority in your $PATH
   • Embed this notice
     oxy (oxy@snac.bsd.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 01:45:12 JST oxy

     in reply to
     @stefano@bsd.cafe I’ve encountered versions of this with admins coming from windows to linux as well. Linux (or BSDs/MacOS) exist in their brain as a “free” alternative to Windows. That ecosystems that are radically different exist is completely foreign to them - Windows is Computers is Windows.
     
     Its hilarious that people are now applying the same logic to Linux vs BSDs etc
     
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 02:20:47 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Frank Zimper 🕯️🐘
     @fzimper @stefano /usr/bin/env exists pretty much everywhere though, just like /bin/sh. It's too important to not exist.
     
     MacOS: /usr/bin/env
     FreeBSD: /usr/bin/env
     Debian: /usr/bin/env
     Busybox things like OpenWRT: /usr/bin/env
   • Embed this notice
     Frank Zimper 🕯️🐘 (fzimper@bildung.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 02:20:49 JST Frank Zimper 🕯️🐘

     in reply to

     • feld

     @feld @stefano

     BUT ... you have harcoded /usr/bin/env

   • Embed this notice
     Xenotar (xenotar@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 02:23:06 JST Xenotar

     in reply to

     @stefano For those who migrated from SunOS4 to BSD, things are in the "right place" and the right place for "bash" is /usr/local/bin
     Linux distributions do not tend to use /usr/local as often as BSDs, they are different philosophies

   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Nov-2024 07:54:33 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     @stefano At least BSDs and Linuxes tend to have a lot of similarities even if there's no shared ancestry, weirdest is when people expect Haiku or even Plan9 to be more like Linux.

     And I don't even think /bin/bash works across all Linux distros (and bash in default install is definitely false), although with /usr-merge it'll probably become more and more true.