Has anyone tried to get Ignition running on FreeBSD (or any BSD for that matter)?
The general rule is that Ignition will work on any OS where you can install Java.
Sounds like Al’s got a nice weekend project shaping up… 
You can probably get it to run, assuming there’s an OpenJDK 8 port for FreeBSD, but you won’t be able to license it.
How right you were Jordan 
It seems to run quite happily, although as Kevin points out you can’t currently license it. For reference, here’s what I did to get it working:
- Install FreeBSD
- Install OpenJDK 8 JRE (see here)
- Configure Linux binary compatibility (see here)
- Download the current 32-bit Ignition Linux zip file - the FreeBSD Linux binary compatibility doesn’t currently support 64-bit linux binaries
- Unzip Ignition into /usr/local/ignition
- Go to /usr/local/ignition and make all the shell scripts executable with
chmod +x *.sh7. Run Ignition using./ignition.sh start
Note that steps 5-7 will require you to be logged in as an admin or use sudo (which you have to install separately).
An interesting exercise and could end up being useful if you don’t like where Linux is heading (cough [size=85]systemd[/size] cough) - if Inductive can be persuaded to work on the licensing
[quote=“AlThePal”]… if you don’t like where Linux is heading (cough [size=85]systemd[/size] cough[/quote]I’ve watched a great deal of the systemd controversy pass by on the kernel mailing list and discussed it in detail with expert acquaintances – I’ve come to the conclusion that in spite of certain developers’ asininity, systemd solves real problems, especially in the embedded space, that traditional init scripts simply cannot do.
{holy war}Plus, the GPLv2 has clearly demonstrated its superiority to any BSD license in the field of OS and kernel components. Although I won’t rule it out its use, I am definitely biased against BSD-style licenses for my own public code, other than trivial stuff.{/holy war}
Anyways, I’ve started testing systemd with some of my own stuff. It has been reasonable so far, and the #1 attraction – blistering fast boot – is as promised.
I’ve nothing against the original aims of systemd - overhauling the init process and speeding up boot times - it’s all the other things it’s subsuming that leave me feeling uneasy. It’s starting to look and feel a lot like Windows… (speaking of which, this is an interesting article).
The growing complexity and consequent difficulty in debugging is also alarming. One of the best comments I’ve seen on this is from an experienced Linux admin, who said he now feels less a master of the software and more like its slave
[quote=“AlThePal”]I’ve nothing against the original aims of systemd - overhauling the init process and speeding up boot times[/quote]and shell dependencies, and space-efficient journaling, and namespace/privilege isolation, and fine-grained resource control, and more.
The shell and journaling features were motivated by storage/processor limited embedded users, but have proven to be big drivers of adoption, but those sorts of efficiencies are valuable at all levels.
[quote=“AlThePal”]it’s all the other things it’s subsuming that leave me feeling uneasy. It’s starting to look and feel a lot like Windows… (speaking of which, this is an interesting article).[/quote]Meh.
Sounds to me like a BSD enthusiast trying to use systemd strawmen to win converts. Systemd doesn’t feel at all like Windows to me. Config is a well-organized collection of text files, with lots of ways to hook shell scripts if you really want to. Only the binary syslog comes close, but it’s fully manipulable in text form.
[quote=“AlThePal”]The growing complexity and consequent difficulty in debugging is also alarming. One of the best comments I’ve seen on this is from an experienced Linux admin, who said he now feels less a master of the software and more like its slave [/quote]I reject this. From what I’ve seen so far, systemd configuration is dramatically simpler. Yes, different, so there’s a learning curve, but simpler. The defaults in the command line tools are well-tailored to supply debugging information with minimal effort, so I expect debugging to also be much simpler in practice.
The developers, consultants, and research supercomputer cluster admins I hang out with who’ve actually used systemd are generally supportive.
Steady on Phil! I only started looking at FreeBSD last Saturday 
I think Linux has done well (particularly on embedded devices) because it's so modular. Concentrating everything into one piece of middleware seems to go directly against this. To my mind, increased complexity and interdependence is a bad thing.
Thankfully people are free to make their own decisions. Time will tell whether systemd was a good idea or a really bad one.
Is Ignition on FreeBSD a viable option now? I just noticed Beckhoff is moving to FreeBSD to replace Windows CE (glad to see the end of that). If Ignition 8 could be run and licensed on these Beckhoff systems, that would open up some interesting options.
It’s not; we don’t produce builds/installers, have various native libraries, nor do we have a Java runtime for any BSD variant.
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Is this post talking about server or client? Are neither supported on FreeBSD?
It applies to both. You might get a client to run using the same shell script to launch + BYO Java approach that is currently floating around for running a Vision client on the RPi in Ignition 8 but there is nothing official.
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Okay, thank you for the clarification!