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OpenBSD 6.4 released

openbsd.org

21–30 of 179 posts

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#21
post #4

I am so tempted to install this after a 15 year break...

You can try it right now inside virtualbox, and 20 minutes later you realize that it is has all you need. After a few days, you'll notice that you spend most of your time inside the virtual machine, and then it makes sense to turn your setting upside down and work directly on the saner system.

Is there an OCI runtime for one of the BSDs available? I saw some commit messages in the containerd repository mentioning OpenBSD, but afaik running containers on BSD is still not officially supported?

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#22
post #13

Linux is a depressing mess after you've used OpenBSD. Such a high quality system, with stellar documentation. It's unfortunate that Linux has become so popular even though the BSD's are so much better. A bad historical accident. Damn you Linus...

I have been a Linux user for more than a decade - recently switched to OpenBSD and I must say I agree.

Linux has become a chaotic place to be, I agree.

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#23
I used OpenBSD for some time as a platform for a hobby servers around version 4. It is very stable, has low hardware requirements for a base system (I had running WordPress on 32MB RAM and Pentium 200 MMX to my amusement), has very fast and powerfull firewall / packet filter. It is one of the most elegant operating systems I've ever used. Simple in use but has huge functionality. I second that documentation is one of the best. Must try it again maybe on desktop this time.

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#24
post #13

Linux is a depressing mess after you've used OpenBSD. Such a high quality system, with stellar documentation. It's unfortunate that Linux has become so popular even though the BSD's are so much better. A bad historical accident. Damn you Linus...

Is OpenBSD suitable for use on a laptop? I have a Dell Latitute 7370 running KDE Neon, and it runs really well. All hardware is supported, battery life is on-par with Windows, etc. Would OpenBSD work well on this laptop?

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#25
post #24
post #13

Linux is a depressing mess after you've used OpenBSD. Such a high quality system, with stellar documentation. It's unfortunate that Linux has become so popular even though the BSD's are so much better. A bad historical accident. Damn you Linus...

Is OpenBSD suitable for use on a laptop? I have a Dell Latitute 7370 running KDE Neon, and it runs really well. All hardware is supported, battery life is on-par with Windows, etc. Would OpenBSD work well on this laptop?

I'd like to hear about this as well. OpenBSD has been on my list of "to try" for quite awhile but the app/package thing has been a big question mark for me.

I _really_ enjoy being able to apt-get or brew install pretty much any of the applications out there and am a bit worried about how that experience would be on OpenBSD. I guess the best way to find out would be to try it eh? :)

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#26
My biggest turnoff with OpenBSD is the more complicated package management if you want to have new versions and security updates beyond the versions packaged with the release. As far as I know you either have to stay on the bleeding edge with -current, build packages yourself, or trust a third party (M:Tier) to build for you, who last I checked were behind on firefox builds. I'd love to someday run it on my laptop though.

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#27

I run OpenBSD as my border firewall which it handles very well. One thing I wish that OpenBSD devs would change in their philosophy is the --help messages. Many commands simply offer a list of switches, as if that's somehow helpful. Sometimes you need the detail in a man page, but a lot of times you don't and it would save so much time and energy to have a succinct list in the --help message itself. # syspatch --help…

That's a GNUism, so you won't find it in BSD tools.

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try it right now inside virtualbox, and 20 minutes later you realize that it is has all you need. After a few days, you'll notice that you spend most of your time inside the virtual machine, and then it makes sense to turn your setting upside down and work directly on the saner system.

How well does the inverse works - running VMs in OpenBSD to use Windows, Linux? Is it for example possible to run Virtualbox with good performance in OpenBSD? I'm tempted at using OpenBSD as OS, but need to run things like MS Office. A VM is probably the easiest way to do that.

There is an OpenBSD-specific hypervisor (vmm) in recent releases.

I cannot comment on whether it is suitable for running VMs at this time.

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#29
post #13

Linux is a depressing mess after you've used OpenBSD. Such a high quality system, with stellar documentation. It's unfortunate that Linux has become so popular even though the BSD's are so much better. A bad historical accident. Damn you Linus...

"Quality" is a very subjective idea. Yes, docs are easy to keep consistent over long stretches of time if the speed of evolution is slow and a small number of like-minded assiduous gatekeepers can vet every change from a small number of contributors, but since the speed of evolution is slow, OpenBSD for example still has a giant lock protecting most of the kernel -- this despite nearly 2 decades of multicore chips shipping pretty much everywhere.

Any growing project will always suffer from consistency problems -- humans just aren't capable of scaling to the point where a single hierarchy can consistently manage a monstrously large system. Linux doesn't have a 'base system' quite like OpenBSD: coreutils, libc, bash, and 20 other similar packages all come from a large variety of differently minded maintainers across the world.

Viewed from a macro scale, OpenBSD's consistency breaks down immediately upon starting to install stuff from the ports collection - sure the base system makes a great firewall and basic HTTP server, but to use anything popular you pretty much immediately end up with ports. And the quality standards there are identical to Linux land, because it's the same code.

Re: OpenBSD 6.4 released

#30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is OpenBSD suitable for use on a laptop? I have a Dell Latitute 7370 running KDE Neon, and it runs really well. All hardware is supported, battery life is on-par with Windows, etc. Would OpenBSD work well on this laptop?

I'd like to hear about this as well. OpenBSD has been on my list of "to try" for quite awhile but the app/package thing has been a big question mark for me. I _really_ enjoy being able to apt-get or brew install pretty much any of the applications out there and am a bit worried about how that experience would be on OpenBSD. I guess the best way to find out would be to try it eh? :)

There is the core install and then packages that you can add just as easily as apt-get.
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