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OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

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Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#11
post #6

Honest question: what is the big deal about syspatch? I see OpenBSD folks talk about it as if it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. How is this different from what many distributions have had for more than a decade in the form of apt or yum?

> what is the big deal about syspatch?

It's not revolutionary, just very convenient. It's automatic, and I think M:Tier offers a similar service.[0]

> How is this different from […] apt or yum?

It's a "utility for security and reliability binary updates to the base system."[1] Syspatch is only for base system, not ported packages.

[0]: https://stable.mtier.org/ [1]: https://www.openbsd.org/61.html [2]: Package Management https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#14
post #3

I saw this last night, plan to order a Pinebook today. Edit: Registered for a Pinebook today, will have look for a board to play with. Any suggestions?

Looking through the Pinebook website and forum a few days ago, there are many reports of hardware problems due to what seem like poor manufacturing and QA. :(

eg keyboards with keys that don't work, the GbE network pork actually only running at 100Mb/s, battery's that don't charge, screens with dead pixels

* https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5046

* https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5025

* https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=4997

Not sure it's really worth the potential hassles at this stage. :(

That being said, if you can put up with the potential issues then it probably wouldn't hurt to try it out. :)

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#15
post #9

Isn't the official term aarch64?

It's the official term from the ARMv8 architecture and also the name adopted by toolchains, but "arm64" was chosen for Linux: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/15/127

Thanks to Linus Torvalds I think.

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#16
post #6

Honest question: what is the big deal about syspatch? I see OpenBSD folks talk about it as if it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. How is this different from what many distributions have had for more than a decade in the form of apt or yum?

Can't use Linux distribution tools like apt/yum unless you package the update contents as rpm/dpkg files and distribute apt/yum with the base system. Neither of those is happening in OpenBSD, or likely any BSD. (I can go into more detail on why if you're curious.)

In some ways, the BSDs are just catching up to Linux in terms of update distribution mechanism. They all have a history of being self-hosting compile-from-source systems, and some greybeards are still pretty attached to that idea.

As someone who discovered Linux first and happily used it for many years before discovering the BSDs, I think there's a lot Linux gets right that BSDs will or should adopt to be relevant. (There are also many things the BSDs get right, of course.) This is a good example of that.

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#17
post #16
post #6

Honest question: what is the big deal about syspatch? I see OpenBSD folks talk about it as if it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. How is this different from what many distributions have had for more than a decade in the form of apt or yum?

Can't use Linux distribution tools like apt/yum unless you package the update contents as rpm/dpkg files and distribute apt/yum with the base system. Neither of those is happening in OpenBSD, or likely any BSD. (I can go into more detail on why if you're curious.) In some ways, the BSDs are just catching up to Linux in terms of update distribution mechanism. They all have a history of being self-hosting compile-from-…

Packaged base is a beta feature in FreeBSD https://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgBase

But IMO there's nothing wrong with freebsd-update.

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#18
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't use Linux distribution tools like apt/yum unless you package the update contents as rpm/dpkg files and distribute apt/yum with the base system. Neither of those is happening in OpenBSD, or likely any BSD. (I can go into more detail on why if you're curious.) In some ways, the BSDs are just catching up to Linux in terms of update distribution mechanism. They all have a history of being self-hosting compile-from-…

Packaged base is a beta feature in FreeBSD https://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgBase But IMO there's nothing wrong with freebsd-update.

Using pkg to update both base and ports with a single tool will be nice. As will updating jails robustly; freebsd-update is not so great in jails in my experience.

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Packaged base is a beta feature in FreeBSD https://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgBase But IMO there's nothing wrong with freebsd-update.

Using pkg to update both base and ports with a single tool will be nice. As will updating jails robustly; freebsd-update is not so great in jails in my experience.

freebsd-update works fine in jails, as long as you use it correctly. Unfortunately there are a few landmines due to versioning issues.

Re: OpenBSD: arm64 platform now officially supported, and has syspatch(8)

#20
post #9

Isn't the official term aarch64?

Yes, but like Debian, OpenBSD is ignoring that. Fedora, openSUSE, Mageia, etc. use the official term. Debian and the BSDs use the informal "arm64" term.

The informal makes more sense, BTW.
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