Kernel_Killer
July 28th, 2011, 03:30
Of course, I had to run KfreeBSD through the mill before really considering it. So, for those of you with some interest in this distribution.....

First thing is first; the kernel and it's ability. Compiling was not exactly the same, and even so, missing a few things. The MAC modules were there, PF was there, but IPSEC was not. Normally, I would write this off, and still love the setup, but when getting the best of both worlds; I want everything I can get.

To add to the kernel, there is a Linux kernel that runs with it. I guess this was their solution to getting it working in harmony. This can be a bit confusing once you think about it, but it allows for easy Linux setup, including nVidia drivers, ALSA, etc.

On the FreeBSD userland, many things are still missing. Some binaries for the MAC modules, "jail" of all things, "jls", but the added tools, like jailer are in the repositories. Of course, there is a lot more missing, but this is expected since the OS actually works now.

While it seems to work out fairly well, I have to say, what people would use it for; it doesn't really cater to them. While many would ask what you would use a setup like this for; many would use it as a [virtual] stand-alone black box setup. Many places run their vhosts on Xen, which is just now getting support for FreeBSD, but can use KfreeBSD with more stability. In other words, instead of having to setup an external firewall to have good security, you can use PF, but still have all of the Linux apps you could want, on top of FreeBSD apps. With the lack of full jail support, this is still in it's infancy. The question is, will Xen get full FreeBSD support before KFreeBSD can mature?