I use FreeBSD for my home server and I have for years. For me, the biggest reason is just the stability from a user perspective. I don't mean system stability, although it has been rock solid, I mean the stability in terms of administration - the tools don't change frequently.
`ifconfig` just works, like it has worked for 20 years. On my linux servers, it's all swallowed into `ip addr` now. I don't mind that, I certainly understand why these things change, but when I update an Ubuntu server I always worry that next time I log in a tool I am used to will be broken or removed.
I simply don't have those concerns on FreeBSD.
This is one of the reasons I run FreeBSD as well, I wanted to get away from the ever-changing Docker, docker-compose, docker compose and all that stuff.
The jail system has it's warts and at times can seem a little unpolished, but alt least I know that the workarounds and automation I have set up for my home server is mostly "done".
Linux still has ifconfig, it doesn't support all the new features but maybe this use case doesn't need them.
(Also the "ip" command from iproute2 came around in the last millenium, no?)
It "still has" ifconfig in the sense that you can install the 'net-tools' package which contains it and then use it, yes. However ifconfig is not included in base ubuntu installs and hasn't been since 18.04. It's marked as deprecated now.
There isn't anything specific that ifconfig can do that "ip" doesn't -- except I have 20 years of muscle memory for ifconfig and zero for "ip". That's my frustration. When I'm at home, just trying to set up Plex or debug a networking issue, and all I need to do is get my current IP address, the last thing I want to do is spend time learning a new interface that isn't necessary.
Again, this isn't really a complaint about the tools - I'm sure that "ip" is great and has more features and etc. But hosting on Linux feels like this about everything. Logs, services, networking, user configuration - the management tools for all these things have been changing quite fast, and in ways that can be hard to follow.
I'm not on the Kernel or Debian mailing lists and I don't think I should need to be to understand how to configure the network on ubuntu 20.04 vs 18.04. When I need to look up user management on BSD, I just look at the handbook. It's up-to-date and informative. Meanwhile in the Linux world these things change so fast that wiki articles from 2 years ago are often useless.
> like it has worked for 20 years
.. almost forty years
man you're making me feel old. those kids on my lawn are pissing me off tho...