Y'know what? As an #opensource #advocate and #tech enthusiast, it's genuinely awesome to see increased mainstream coverage of #Linux and #FreeBSD. Unfortunately, a lot of these articles are riddled with mistakes, misinformation, clickbait, and overall low quality. A few minutes ago, while catching up on tech news I came across one #ZDNet author's frequent posts on Linux and FreeBSD.
To emphasize my point, I am only going to focus on one article titled, "After decades on Linux, FreeBSD finally gave me a reason to switch operating systems."
The following passages stuck out like sore thumb:
1.) "FreeBSD is more challenging than Linux."
-But is it really? Subjective, particularly if coming from a GUI-driven Linux distribution. Frankly I find FreeBSD easier because of the excellent documentation and coherent design.
2.) "FreeBSD is Unix-like" but further down he states, "Essentially, FreeBSD is Unix, where Linux is based on Unix."
-Contradictory, incorrect, and confusing for newcomers. FreeBSD is Unix. Linux (neither the kernel nor OS) is based on Unix.
3.) "Think of FreeBSD as a more challenging version of Linux. This operating system doesn't hold your hand, so you might learn a thing or two as you install it and the software you require. Even for a seasoned Linux veteran like me, FreeBSD can often be a head-scratcher."
-Challenging because it's *different than Linux*? FreeBSD doesn't hold your hand? What about #Debian, #Gentoo, #Arch, heck even #RHEL? Since the author didn't mention it, I'm going to assume he did not check the FreeBSD Handbook and his "seasoned Linux" experience has been using a Linux desktop for a couple years. Also, head-scratcher?! Being an experienced Debian user, I'd be scratching my head too if I just decided to use Gentoo on a whim. The trauma of hand-configuring the xorg.conf file was real.
Finally, contrary to the article's title, the author ended up not switching to FreeBSD.
-Clickbait.
I am all for more people exploring FreeBSD and Linux. They are great OSes but it is critical the information being reported is both accurate and consistent. For reference the article is linked below.
