Live data from Hacker News

OpenBSD 7.0

openbsd.org

211–220 of 229 posts

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#211

My main use for OpenBSD is as a firewall/router, and they frequently make breaking changes to the pf rule syntax so I had to abandon it. Last breaking change when I checked was July, but it's been going on for many years. If you have one firewall no big deal, but if you set them up for customers all over the place it's a nightmare. They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here.

Why don't you check NetBSD's npf? It's not yet as featured as pf but will be. And NetBSD is a very stable system.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#212
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend giving OpenBSD a try over the others. It's just... a clean OS, and the base system is extremely well documented; to the point that I think it's the only OS you can learn inside out without ever using Google. OpenBSD might not be the best choice for any given use, but it's so remarkably consistent and understandable that I think everyone interested in alternative OSes should try it out at least once.

I don't want a OS where I have to read man pages and documentation to get around. The whole self documentation excuse is the same reason why Emacs is slowly losing market share. People want software that is intuitive, and failing that, have all answers available on their favorite search engine. Short of baking a chatbot or search engine into OpenBSD, relying purely on self documentation is not sustainable. Though the…

If you used Linux for any amount of time it'll take a couple of days to get familiar with OpenBSD and they you will be more at home with it than Linux.

To me OpenBSD is similar to what Slackware was, as simple as it possibly can be, with the advantage of a BSD being coherent and consistent.

I'm a long time Linux user and only used OpenBSD recently. I often find myself Googling Linux configs. I did use Google for OpenBSD to get started but found after a day I wasn't and relying on the man pages instead for system settings etc. They really are short, concise and complete, everyone says this but until you use them it's hard to understand.

I use Emacs I don't know Emacs. Emacs is a completely different beast to OpenBSD. Emacs is a huge rabbit hole and you spend as much time building your own Emacs as you do using Emacs. OpenBSD i've set up once which was simple as someone never using it before, and then forgot about it. It's been sat ticking away in a corner, no interruptions.

As much as I really like OpenBSD I don't think I can use it as a primary desktop. There's a few compromises on hardware support, no docker for my day job and I've read the desktop experience is slower than Linux just because it hasn't had the money and people Linux has had with drivers etc.

I'd really recommend anyone try OpenBSD for it's simplicity and educational purposes. If you use it as your main OS you will likely be dissapointed with some of the limitations, as a server / secondary educational device you might be pleasantly surprised.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#213
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even close. Each BSD is it's own OS.

Is Debian a different OS from Redhat?

Good question. Depends how you define OS. I consider them different OSes based on the same kernel.

They have too much disparity in terms of configuration to consider them the same OS for management purposes which is my main focusat work. But I can understand if someone with another perspective feels differently.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#214

With a port of Dlang :-)

But no Rust, it seems. (Wouldn't it be nice if the most secure OS was (re)written in the safest language available today?)

IIRC, Theo was (is?) against using rust because rust hasn't seen real world usage and coreutils hasn't been written in rust (according to him). When someone pointed out how there's RedoxOS and uutils, coreutils written in rust, he went on to question their POSIX compliance and whether memory safety was really a thing.

So yeah, I doubt rust is ever coming to OpenBSD. I'm also skeptical about the level of adoption rust will see in the Linux kernel. People are usually resistant to change (sometimes for good reasons).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er44ur7wkXQ&t=2107

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#215
post #70
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^ 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…

> OpenBSD is largely made by its developers, for its developers. It has its own unique culture and does not seek mass appeal.

I wish these kind of caveats were highlighted more often, not only when it comes to OpenBSD but also when it comes to anything regarding Linux. Instead, you have people defending why the way how OpenBSD works is the "right" way.

I'm honestly somewhat surpised at seeing how much people are attached and married to their tools.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#216
post #152
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Openbsd has consistently scored towards the bottom in all performance benchmarks that I've seen in the last few years, when compared to FreeBSD and various linuxen. I would personally never use it for a laptop.

Scores are one thing, using it is another. I ran OpenBSD on a Thinkpad T450 for over a year, but recently switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, not because of lack of speed, but some missing applications and blutooth support. Given I don't run a heavy desktop environment, rather just StumpWM, but still I did not in any way feel OpenBSD was slower than Linux, using the same applications. OpenSUSE is the most solid Linux I…

>Scores are one thing, using it is another.

Indeed but I ran it on my Thinkpad and it was a sluggish mess.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#217
post #207
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While sysupgrade is convenient, there's usually some manual steps. Always read the upgrade guide before upgrading.

For the OpenBSD curious: This release only includes changes related to SNMP, which I imagine are irrelevant to most people, though probably exciting for a subset of OpenBSD users. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade70.html The upgrade guide for 6.9 gives a better flavor for how OpenBSD handles and documents subsystem and configuration changes: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade69.html Notice how succinct and consist…

[deleted]

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#219
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has switched from bash to zsh. I don't know the motivations for this GPLv3 vs BSD or MIT license. I lived zsh anyway, switched some of my BSD shells to it afterwards.

I love zsh but it’s history doesn’t segregate based on the tty and it locks up a lot during autocompletion for me (on Ubuntu.)

I'm using it without any plugins and disabled autocompletion anyway, because it just gets in the way irrespective of the shell. Like not completing tar filenames if it doesn't like the extension (tar axvf) even if the file is there. Modren distributions 'helpfully' enable completion by default.

I don't like the fact that you have no way to clear the history buffer if you've accidentally dropped a password at the prompt. Bash has history -c. I don't have shared history enabled, you could unset that and it'll stop segregating.

Anyway, zsh is a lot more versatile and familiar than tcsh for instance, so it's almost always my go to shell on FreeBSD as /bin/sh is quite limited, but also miles ahead of the Debian shell regarding features.

Re: OpenBSD 7.0

#220
post #6

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

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 find this angle quite interesting. Once a system clears that bar of "it works pretty well and does what I need" stuff like documentation and a well ordered experience is what's matters. Not what's under the hood in terms of code.

This speaks to the need for non-coders taking part in open-source projects.

Post reply on HN