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OpenBSD for Linux Users

openbsdhandbook.com

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Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#41

Post by ianai »

nix23 wrote: post #39
ianai wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If a admin comes to me and tells me he understands Linux but is not capable of learning any BSD...kick in the butt and goodbye. Don't search for Linux-Admins but real ones..the one's who are also capable to maintain Windows, and if they have no clue they start to learn.

As that guy where I work, agreed.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#42

Post by lcall »

toyg wrote: post #33
lcall wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only OpenBSD has a track record anything like going since ~1996 with only 2 remotely exploitable security bugs in the default installation. And ongoing, it has far fewer (no?) privilege escalation bugs, etc., which gives some comfort as one installs packages beyond the default installation. So one can weigh security, clean organization & good documentation, vs. some convenience if needed features are missing (bluetoo…

> Only OpenBSD has a track record anything like going since ~1996 with only 2 remotely exploitable security bugs in the default installation. That stat is a bit meaningless, simply because most other OSes ship a default install that tries to do much more than OpenBSD does by default. They've downplayed it a lot over the years. > vs. some convenience if needed features are missing That "some", for everyday application…

I think that instead of meaningless, it gives stability and control which one can lack elsewhere. Trust and local control, with those more things, but based on an explicit decision, not a less-secure default to start with. But to each his own, based on priorities, of course.

Tons of tools fail to compile? My experience about lacking features feels different from what you describe. There are over 10k precompiled packages available, meeting my needs nicely. For example, I use rustc and cargo on obsd without trouble, just a simple install, though I think rustup is absent. I wonder if the rust project is still planning to integrate rustup into cargo sometime though, and how that is going.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#43

Post by LoganDark »

mrweasel wrote: post #11
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…

From what I've been told, the biggest difference imho is that BSDs include the entire operating system, including userspace. Most Linux distros pull from a pool of packages that are supposed to mostly work with tons of different configurations, whereas BSD can be tailor-made for one rock-solid configuration.

System upgrades are also basically atomic for this reason, since user-installed packages and applications are separated from the system level. The base system itself is versioned as a whole.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#44

Post by LoganDark »

Kwpolska wrote: post #29
LoganDark wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Bluetooth. I even use my DualSense controller wired. A true UNIX is hard to beat. I grew up with macOS and was devastated when my Mac broke & couldn't afford a new one. Been despising Windows for the past ~1.5 years. OpenBSD is nothing like macOS, but it is still UNIX.

Did you consider Linux? While it isn't Unix certified, it's still Unix-like, and is quite usable as a desktop (YMMV of course).

I did. I've used Ubuntu, Arch, Alpine and also KISS Linux.

I think KISS Linux is my favorite in terms of control, but it gives me so much control that I was never able to get it working. Its build system is theoretically awesome, but in practice maintaining my own distribution is less fun than it sounds.

Alpine is my favorite in terms of runtime stability since it essentially reimages itself into a tmpfs every boot and packages are completely atomic. But the fact that everything is statically linked means it's a pain to get anything working, and I haven't yet found anything that fills both niches. (I have not tried Silverblue or NixOS yet)

Arch is my favorite in terms of customization because basically everything has an AUR package these days, including the old traditional window managers (i.e. blackbox) that make for a utilitarian UNIX, my favorite kind. (With Wayland that all goes away, which is why I despise Wayland.)

Ubuntu is far too "stable" for my needs, and I commonly find that the newest release is already years out of date on packages. You basically need Linuxbrew to do any sort of bleeding-edge development on an Ubuntu machine.

I'm open to trying more, of course.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#45

Post by LoganDark »

t-3 wrote: post #34
Kwpolska wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider Linux? While it isn't Unix certified, it's still Unix-like, and is quite usable as a desktop (YMMV of course).

Most Linux distros next to OpenBSD don't measure up well in any area except bleeding-edge hardware and software support. For routers and other network appliances, very often only the base system is needed, no packages or anything extra to install. OpenBSD's userland tools are excellent - configuration files and control interfaces are almost all in a standard format, documentation is excellent, and everything has obvi…

> Nvidia

Doesn't Nvidia make first-party drivers for OpenBSD? And they're more likely to work since "OpenBSD" is far more specific than "Linux"?

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#46

Post by t-3 »

LoganDark wrote: post #45
t-3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Linux distros next to OpenBSD don't measure up well in any area except bleeding-edge hardware and software support. For routers and other network appliances, very often only the base system is needed, no packages or anything extra to install. OpenBSD's userland tools are excellent - configuration files and control interfaces are almost all in a standard format, documentation is excellent, and everything has obvi…

> Nvidia Doesn't Nvidia make first-party drivers for OpenBSD? And they're more likely to work since "OpenBSD" is far more specific than "Linux"?

No, not unless something major has changed that neither I nor Google heard about. Nvidia is very anti-open source AFAIK.

Re: OpenBSD for Linux Users

#47

Post by CoolCold »

cylinder714 wrote: post #18
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...

while article is bit old ( 2017 ) at least that guy talks about money and cost of support/fixing things. Interesting reading, thanks!
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