OpenBSD for Linux Users • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#11

Post by mrweasel » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 3:49 PM UTC

LoganDark wrote: post #4

It looks like this page isn't quite finished yet, but it looks promising! I may want to try OpenBSD one of these days. I have at least one friend who loves it and constantly tells me about how cool it is compared to Linux.

> how cool it is compared to Linux.

It a matter of preferences. Linux is hard to beat, but so is macOS. OpenBSD is cool in its own little ways. For me it's the consistency and ever present documentation. FreeBSD fans will say: "FreeBSD has a the handbook, and it consistent", but it is not the same, it's not like OpenBSD. In terms of consistent feel (command line, documentation and system configuration) FreeBSD feels very much like someone made an effort, OpenBSD feels like they succeeded.

While OpenBSD can be a great desktop, even if it does require at little more tweaking than I care for. It's almost there, like an older version of Slackware.

For me personally, it's macOS desktops and OpenBSD servers, if possible.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#12

Post by toyg » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #6

unixhero wrote: post #2

If only I had a use case. I boot it up on exotic and obsolete architectures, as they still do builds for eg. PPC64 (Apple Mac G5). The white framebuffer is kind of beautiful.

It’d probably help if it had a company like Red Hat offering enterprise support and contributing back to it. Knowledge certification helps a ton too. It’s all fun and games until the SME leaves and a company finds out how hard it is to hire another person with skills in that OS.

It'd probably help also if they could find a killer-app role.

Currently it's a decent OS only for low-level devices like routers and firewalls, which are a fairly small part of the computing ecosystem (and even there, it has lost a lot of ground to OSes that exploit multithreading better, hence giving faster throughput).

As an application-development platform there are roadblocks at every turn and no real use-case. The community is even hostile to not-C developers. It's a shame, because the simplicity and security are great.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#13

Post by lizknope » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

unixhero wrote: post #2

If only I had a use case. I boot it up on exotic and obsolete architectures, as they still do builds for eg. PPC64 (Apple Mac G5). The white framebuffer is kind of beautiful.

I miss seeing Sun SPARCstations boot. The Sun logo and the black text on white screen was always cool to me.

https://pcmuseum.tripod.com/sparcboot.jpg

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#14

Post by brynet » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

The vast majority of this sites content is copied directly from other sources, such as the official OpenBSD FAQ[0], without credit.

[0] https://www.openbsd.org/faq/

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#15

Post by extendedrm » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

This website uses a misleading domain name and has nothing to do with OpenBSD officially. There is no "OpenBSD handbook" (although the FAQ is basically that).

It's run by a Danish guy who goes by the username "iio7". He also runs unixsheikh.com, which seems to have quite a negative reputation on HN.

A lot of the content on this site was directly copied from official OpenBSD pages with very minor rewordings.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#16

Post by fsckwtfsck » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

Hopefully it covers the weird questions about inodes and links the kernel asks you when doing a dirty reboot after a crash (OpenBSD does not have a journaling file system, so you better get ready for those questions asking if inode 1823791277 in /var does this or that, or perhaps just press 'y' repeatedly and pray).

It's perhaps a positive point if you're a boomer and miss the excitement of 1980s UNIX.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#17

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

fsckwtfsck wrote: post #16

Hopefully it covers the weird questions about inodes and links the kernel asks you when doing a dirty reboot after a crash (OpenBSD does not have a journaling file system, so you better get ready for those questions asking if inode 1823791277 in /var does this or that, or perhaps just press 'y' repeatedly and pray). It's perhaps a positive point if you're a boomer and miss the excitement of 1980s UNIX.

[deleted]

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#18

Post by cylinder714 » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #3

For those that truly cannot abide systemd, OpenBSD seems a great alternative.

ungleich, a hosting company in Switzerland, is a big supporter of Devuan, a systemd-free fork of Debian: https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2017/12/10/the-importance...

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#19

Post by the-printer » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:50 PM UTC

As a newcomer to OpenBSD myself, I strongly advise anyone to ignore any online resources that are not the official FAQ or at the least https://romanzolotarev.com/openbsd/ for clear and concise guides on how to do specific tasks that a user may be interested in.

I’ve found that most “I installed OpenBSD on X hardware” blog posts are good mainly for seeing how the installation process fared (what should I disable in BIOS?; what hardware works, what doesn’t?) or what their subsequent configuration process was like after installation.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#20

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

lizknope wrote: post #13

unixhero wrote: post #2

If only I had a use case. I boot it up on exotic and obsolete architectures, as they still do builds for eg. PPC64 (Apple Mac G5). The white framebuffer is kind of beautiful.

I miss seeing Sun SPARCstations boot. The Sun logo and the black text on white screen was always cool to me. https://pcmuseum.tripod.com/sparcboot.jpg

That link doesn't work for me, it looks like they prevent hot linking images