Lost in a tangled web...

[diortem]

Greetings, fellow computer users. My name is Diortem, and I am in a state of woe.

After a long and celebratory career in the USAF, I am now a disabled veteran. Due to my spinal injuries, I cannot do much, but I can't sit around and do nothing. I have to stay busy. I am a geek. I love fooling around with hardware and software. Unfortunately, as I aged in the USAF I was unable to dabble as much as I liked, but I did become an adept self-taught Windows and Linux user. I also went to school last year and got my Linux Administrator certification as well as A+. I love the hardware side, but I have always wanted to get into the software side.

I have been bouncing from Linux distro after Linux distro for the past five years. I have tried many of them. And this past few days, I took a swing at FreeBSD. Unfortunately, I was unable to get my internet, even tethering my phone, working. So I tried FreeBSD. It installed fine, but now that I have it installed, it is not showing in the grub. I guess I need to put a grub file within it or something, not too sure.

Anyway, what I want to do is learn dev-ops. I don't want to be the latest, greatest in the field, but I will push myself as far as I can considering my limitations. I can't sit in a chair all day, but I can bounce to and fro throughout the day (unless it's a bad day, then I'm out) and focus on learning and get things done.

I have spent the past year and a half on Fedora. It's truly amazing. But is it the best for developer learning? Maybe. It's really good, no doubt. But is it the best?

I have been watching RoboNuggie videos and that guy has me highly intrigued in the FreeBSD community and what the software as a whole offers. But I have also been looking at the licensing between Linux vs BSD. Eventually, as I learn, I want my code to help others, but at what expense? I don't want to build code or help others, then a company takes this code and monetizes it. Looking at BSD licensing anyone can put my code to use? Even corporations? And charge for it? Am I reading this right?

I don't know, but even that isn't a deal-breaker, it is unlikely I will ever write software that will change the world; you never know though. I know I can't game on BSD, no big deal, I have Windows. It was free back when they were giving away free updates to Windows 10. Yes, I still have the same laptop and desktop from then. I'm lame. *snicker*

Can I be an adept and successful developer using BSD? If so, why would one choose OpenBSD to FreeBSD when FreeBSD has a security-focused way about things, too? Before I start this dev-ops journey, I want to put myself in a position where I am happy and will continue to stay happy. RoboNuggie, that man is amazing, I love his approach to simplicity, too. I'm starting to think that BSD may be a better place for me. But how do I know for sure? What would you suggest?

Sidebar: I live out in the country. Way out in the country. I have a Mi-Fi that I cannot hardwire into. I am stuck with wireless networking. If I require hardwire, I usually tether my phone, I have 10GB a month this way, so it works out as I use this sparingly. I am also limited from anywhere in the 400Kbps - 4Mbps. Getting things up and running for me are harder as it is, but I am not afraid to battle these limitations. I will do what needs to be done and when. I am not afraid of learning. But I want you to know my internet limitations up-front... they are limiting more than I'd like, trust me.

Cheers,

_diortem

[J65nko]

Hi and welcome to the forum ;-)

• FreeBSD and grub
  
  See How do I configure Grub2 to boot FreeBSD 11.1
  
  
• BSD license
  
  Yes, a company can use BSD licensed code, incorporate it in their product and charge for it. But AFAIK that also applies to GNU licensed code ;-)
  Several scripts I posted here have a BSD style license.
  
• Free Windows 10 upgrade
  
  Last March I upgraded my wife's computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free.
  AFAIK you still can upgrade for free. See Here's how you can still get a free Windows 10 upgrade
  
• BSD development
  
  I would recommend to work on OpenBSD.The OS is smaller (important when don't have broadband internet access) and if you are willing to do you homework, the OBSD developer community are quite friendly.
  There are several OpenBSD ports that need to be upgraded
  You can read about the OpenBSD ports at OpenBSD Porter's Handbook
  

[jggimi]

Hello, and welcome! I can't address FreeBSD issues, as I have no experience with the OS, but I can attempt to answer some other questions.

Originally Posted by diortem

Anyway, what I want to do is learn dev-ops.

In my opinion it doesn't matter what OS you pick; choose your DevOps tools and install them on any OS they support that you're already familiar and comfortable with. DevOps is an outgrowth of Agile Development and is much more a social and procedural transition than technical for any businesses which adopt it.

It alters a business's processes, communications, and governance. It also alters personnel roles and responsibilities for application development, deployment, and operations, and formal education and certification will do more for any DevOps-related career than learning any new OS.

Looking at BSD licensing anyone can put my code to use? Even corporations? And charge for it? Am I reading this right?

Yes you are. To quote from a discussion of licensing policy at the OpenBSD Project:

The original Berkeley copyright poses no restrictions on private or commercial use of the software and imposes only simple and uniform requirements for maintaining copyright notices in redistributed versions and crediting the originator of the material only in advertising....Berkeley rescinded the 3rd term (the advertising term) on 22 July 1999. Verbatim copies of the Berkeley license in the OpenBSD tree have that term removed. In addition, many 3rd-party BSD-style licenses consist solely of the first two terms.

The OpenBSD web page cited above may be of further help, as it discusses copyright classifications and summarizes a wide variety of different licenses used in open source works. Keep in mind that you can select any type of source or operational license you want for any software you develop as an original work, regardless what OS it runs on. But if you want to integrate your work with others' work in any fashion, you'll need to adopt their licensing with their work.

....why would one choose OpenBSD to FreeBSD when FreeBSD has a security-focused way about things, too?

These two OS projects are both BSD-based, but they have been on separate development paths for the last 28 years. There is some cross-adaptation of code between them now and then, but each project has its own goals and its own priorities.

It may help to consider that they are each completely separate cohesive operating systems. BSD is entirely unlike Linux in this way, as Linux has many distributions but each shares a common kernel.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by J65nko

• BSD license
  
  Yes, a company can use BSD licensed code, incorporate it in their product and charge for it. But AFAIK that also applies to GNU licensed code ;-)

The difference with the GPL is that if a company uses the code and makes changes or additions then they have to share the changes and additions that are made. This is not the case for the BSD style licences.

See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html for more on this.

[diortem]

I did more deep diving in the CoC and licensing section, I understand now, definitely a little different from the Linux way of life. Dev-ops is a long way off, I have decided to start with web development, for that I am sure BSD will suffice. I am going to work on the grub link sent earlier and see if I can get it booting (via grub).

Looking at the two differences of Free vs Open, I would feel happier with Free for web development purposes, but if I ever dabble in cybersecurity then OpenBSD would be a nice approach for sure.

I love Linux, especially Fedora. It is far more stable and ahead of the other distributions, but sometimes the insane amount of packages and myriad user options can be disheartening. Especially when I spend hours on a package that runs 100% on Arch, then fails to run on Fedora (dwm for instance) in the same way it runs on the other distros. There are a few programs I used in Mint then Ubuntu that I never got to work in Fedora, but they still worked on Mint/Ubuntu. However, I have found better packages than those now and wouldn't go back if they did work. Minder, for instance, works really well on Fedora, it is a great app for the mind mappers out there.

If I get Open running I will try it out, but I will likely try Free again. Is there a secondary install guide to theirs, that walks through the dual/triple boot scenario? I will be triple-booting, Windows on [SSD] sda, File Storage on [7200rpm, platter HDD] sdb, Fedora on [SSD] sdc, and BSD on [SSD] sdd.

Thanks again for the advice. I truly appreciate it. I will keep booting into BSD, see how it works with my workflow for this boot camp I am starting.

Cheers,

_diortem

Edit: I already have OpenBSD booting, just not via grub. Corrected above.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by diortem

Is there a secondary install guide to theirs, that walks through the dual/triple boot scenario? I will be triple-booting, Windows on [SSD] sda, File Storage on [7200rpm, platter HDD] sdb, Fedora on [SSD] sdc, and BSD on [SSD] sdd.

The FAQ used to have a section pertaining to GRUB but it's been removed.

Try this stanza in /boot/grub/custom.cfg in your Fedora system:

menuentry 'OpenBSD' {
   set root=(hd3,1)
   chainloader +1
}

https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ma...in_002dloading

That presumes a non-UEFI system with OpenBSD installed to /dev/sdd1

For a UEFI system use this instead:

menuentry 'OpenBSD' {
   set root=(hdX,Y)
   chainloader /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi
}

Replace X & Y with the correct identifiers for the EFI system partition.

It might be best to use the UUID rather than the block device, to do that replace the set root= line with

search --fs-uuid $uuid --set=root

Replace $uuid with the actual UUID of the target partition.

If you have any problems then it's probably best to start a new thread because this is off-topic here.