How much does FreeBSD differ from Linux?

I was trying to setup a NAS box for my ESXi server using linux, I was going to install ZFS and iSCSI and I thought everything was going to be awesome. I was wrong...

ZFS on Linux is not the most amazing thing, it needs work.

So I am curious, FreeBSD supports ZFS correct? What version of ZFS does FreeBSD support for starters and also the more important question. How much does FreeBSD differ from Linux, I am assuming both Linux and FreeBSD would be using BASH as the default shell.

Would it be hard to setup as a NAS box for doing storage with ZFS? The backend would probably be iSCSI for VMware to connect.

Solution 1:

I use FreeBSD quite a bit, and I am very active in the community. FreeBSD is a lot like linux. Almost anything you could want, is in the FreeBSD ports tree. It has bash and zsh for shells. For the most part FreeBSD gives you all the benefits of Gentoo Linux, but it is easier to set up.

As far as ZFS goes, FreeBSD 9.1 supports zfs v28 with deduplication. If you run 9-STABLE, it supports ZFS feature flags as well. FreeBSD HEAD is kept VERY close to in sync with Illumos.

For those who don't know, illumos is for the most part the ZFS reference platform. ZFS is far more stable on FreeBSD than Linux at this point.

Solution 2:

FreeBSD is very similar to Linux. "Same shit, different kernel [and userland]" as I tend to say. Practically all the familiar programs do run under FreeBSD, so yes, you can get your bash and so on for it. The default shell in FreeBSD is (t)csh, but that can be easily changed even during install phase.

FreeBSD's package management system offers both pre-compiled binary packages and source-based packages (ports, Gentoo is similar with its Portage).

Current production version (8.2) of FreeBSD has ZFS v15, the upcoming version (9.0) has ZFS v28.

As you are going to install a NAS box, please also take a look at FreeNAS - it's based on FreeBSD and makes managing your NAS a breeze.