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OpenBSD 7.0

openbsd.org

61–70 of 229 posts

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#61
post #6

Any BSD fans out there wish to persuade a happy Debian desktop user to take a BSD for a spin?

I used open BSD for a little while. It's very simple, clean, and elegantly designed. If you're looking to learn more about Unix, then you'll have a lot of fun with OpenBSD.

If you want to use it as a daily driver, you're probably going to run into some headaches. That being said, if you're willing to put in some time, learn a little bit and forgo some software here and there, you certainly *could* use OpenBSD as a daily driver. One really cool thing about OpenBSD is that the OpenBSD devs use the OS as their daily driver.

You'll likely keep hearing about how good the OpenBSD man pages are. I always thought this was a weird thing to mention and make a big deal about. But holy crap, the OpenBSD documentation is amazing. Reading it has definitely made my own documentation at work significantly better.

The downside? There are a couple. The biggest two are that, 1) you're not going to find a lot of the software you might normally use; and 2) The performance is not great and battery life is not very good.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#62
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux systems are made by dozens of disparate teams, and it shows. Every command has a different syntax - just think about how "help" could be -h, --help, -help, -? etc BSDs are very tightly integrated. The entire OS is very consistent and 'correct', down to the tiny and pedantic details like putting things under /usr that are usually installed in /bin, because that's the way it's supposed to be . (Ex. `/usr/local/bi…

And that would make me switch from Linux why exactly? Don't get me wrong, I was a BSD user for many years (FreeBSD 3.5-5.0) but I don't think that's enough reason to switch.

It made me switch from Linux.

If it doesn't sound compelling to you, that's okay too, Linux is great. But I do think focusing on the consistency of design really is the best high-level summary of the difference between Linux and OpenBSD.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#63
post #39
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux systems are made by dozens of disparate teams, and it shows. Every command has a different syntax - just think about how "help" could be -h, --help, -help, -? etc BSDs are very tightly integrated. The entire OS is very consistent and 'correct', down to the tiny and pedantic details like putting things under /usr that are usually installed in /bin, because that's the way it's supposed to be . (Ex. `/usr/local/bi…

Just to clarify, Bash is installed under /usr/local because it’s from packages and not part of the base system. The base shell, ksh, is at /bin/ksh. You probably know that but I just felt like being pedantic this morning :).

...and that ksh descended from pdksh, and is distributed as the oksh portable project here:

https://github.com/ibara/oksh

The MirBSD Korn Shell also descended from pdksh, and it can be found here:

http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm

I don't know about the feature differences and code quality between these two; they both implement most of ksh88, and a small amount of ksh93.

I prefer mksh when I need something more than a POSIX shell.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#64
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

systemd is configured via simple text files

How are remote updates in Ubuntu configured by text file under systemd?

I don't know, I don't use distributions with imperative state management.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would recommend FreeBSD if you were going to try one of them. The BSD experience a bit like using linux was like 15 years ago. Online DRM for sites like Netflix will not work for example. Specifically in the case of FreeBSD the filesystem is well curated and cohesive, if you feel a file ought to be in a certain location it is usually there. Additionally the manpages and docs are a joy to read. I'm less familiar wit…

I got FreeBSD running on a Raspberry PI. It isn't too hard to install and get up and running. I primarily use FreeBSD on the Pi for ARM assembly programming. All BSDs are great for devs.

ooc why didn't you try NetBSD? Isn't running on every little device kinda their wheelhouse?

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#66
post #30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here Yeah NO. OpenBSD is the opposite of backward compatibility by design. You should have known that before installing at your customers site en masse. That's probably one point why PFsense is based on freebsd and OPNsense on hardenedbsd.

^^ The wording of this response represents exactly why many people don't choose OpenBSD.

Honestly that is a compliment. When it comes to evaluating tech, the best statements are those where you can walk away knowing very clearly that yes, this meets my needs, or no this absolutely does not meet my needs.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#67
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/etc/systemd/network/25-wireless.network https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-networkd#network_fi... But simple i would not call it...compared to bsd ;)

This file does not exist on my rather plain ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I tried finding similarly named files, to no avail. Knowing the notorious ADHD of the systemd developership, I wouldn't be surprised if this file is moved, renamed, and uses a different format every six months.

/lib/systemd/network

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/systemd.netwo...

or

find / -name '*.network'

But yeah, BSD's would have them at one place -> /etc ...linux-distro standardization is a terrible mess.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got FreeBSD running on a Raspberry PI. It isn't too hard to install and get up and running. I primarily use FreeBSD on the Pi for ARM assembly programming. All BSDs are great for devs.

ooc why didn't you try NetBSD? Isn't running on every little device kinda their wheelhouse?

I did try NetBSD first on the Pi but the install wasn't working for me. Getting FreeBSD up and running on the Raspberry Pi was a lot less painful. If I really want to kick around NetBSD I can run an instance of it in GNU Boxes on one of my Linux boxes.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#69
post #6

Any BSD fans out there wish to persuade a happy Debian desktop user to take a BSD for a spin?

Definitely try it in a VM first or at least image your Debian drive before going at it. You are going to miss your perfectly working Debian install

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#70
post #30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here Yeah NO. OpenBSD is the opposite of backward compatibility by design. You should have known that before installing at your customers site en masse. That's probably one point why PFsense is based on freebsd and OPNsense on hardenedbsd.

^^ The wording of this response represents exactly why many people don't choose OpenBSD.

Yes, but you say that as if it was a universally bad thing. OpenBSD is largely made by its developers, for its developers. It has its own unique culture and does not seek mass appeal. To many – such as myself – this is refreshing, in particular when you contrast it to how poor open source developers are scolded on GitHub by entitled users for not putting in more of their free labour to satisfy their requirements. Is it for everyone? No and that is fine. You are always free to fork it or enjoy the fruits of their labour from a distance, such as with OpenSSH, tmux, etc. that work just as well for OSs which may have a culture closer to your taste (and that is also equally fine).
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