Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenBSD 5.4 Released

openbsd.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 107 posts

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#51

Post by Mordak »

pimeys wrote: post #34

I'm a big OS geek, I love to install and test all new operating systems. Does anybody use OpenBSD as their main development OS? At least there's ports, and looks like you can compile all the necessary tools (xmonad, vim, firefox, zsh) from the ports system. But is this the ideal use of OpenBSD? Do I gain something if changing from Gentoo?

I use OpenBSD in a development environment. The environment happens to be offline, so the win for OpenBSD here is that it is very easy to work with in places where you don't have internet access. The entire system comes on CDs that you can carry around, and you can easily work offline with a local copy of the package repository when you need to install something. The included man pages are excellent, and are all you really need to consult when configuring the system. I find it is generally more productive to consult the man pages than search the internet when trying to do something.

Aside from being easy to work with when you don't have internet, the other upsides are the small footprint and light resource requirements, built in VMWare support, transparent and simple configuration and system initialization, and overall Just Works factor. The package repository has the things I generally want, and it's easy for me to set up my preferred development environment (xmonad, vim, firefox). As far as actually doing development, it's much like on any other *nix (xterm, vim, ruby, python, etc.).

If you're an OS geek, I don't see why you wouldn't want to have a look. I don't know if you'll prefer it over Gentoo, but you may be pleasantly surprised by the functionality and simplicity of the system. I find it a bit of a breath of fresh air when I get to it after time spent on Linux or OS X.

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#52

Post by weavie »

ams6110 wrote: post #41
pimeys wrote: post #34

I'm a big OS geek, I love to install and test all new operating systems. Does anybody use OpenBSD as their main development OS? At least there's ports, and looks like you can compile all the necessary tools (xmonad, vim, firefox, zsh) from the ports system. But is this the ideal use of OpenBSD? Do I gain something if changing from Gentoo?

I use OpenBSD as my main desktop and dev machine, with Awesome as the window manager (it's a tiling window manager). http://awesome.naquadah.org/ I use Xombrero (formerly called xxxterm) for browsing, or Chromium from packages if I'm working with anything on Google. https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero I use Emacs as my editor and email client, and do pretty much everything else in a terminal.

What do you code?

That awesome looks um.. awesome. Never come across it before. I have an old netbook here that has a broken trackpad. I might be tempted to give it a go with that.

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#53

Post by pimeys »

weavie wrote: post #52
ams6110 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use OpenBSD as my main desktop and dev machine, with Awesome as the window manager (it's a tiling window manager). http://awesome.naquadah.org/ I use Xombrero (formerly called xxxterm) for browsing, or Chromium from packages if I'm working with anything on Google. https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero I use Emacs as my editor and email client, and do pretty much everything else in a terminal.

What do you code? That awesome looks um.. awesome. Never come across it before. I have an old netbook here that has a broken trackpad. I might be tempted to give it a go with that.

Please try out the tiling window managers. Awesome, i3 or Xmonad are all great work environments. The learning curve is maybe a bit tough, but when you get over it, you just can't go back.

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#54

Post by retzkek »

earlz wrote: post #17
csmuk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I've been using it for about 7 years and I didn't know that. I'm not sure that matters either. It's not really a priority and I respect that.

No, and being able to download all the FAQs easily is cool but there are things where it actually impacts me. For instance, I have a netbook without a cdrom drive or floppy disk. So, to install OpenBSD on it, I had to first install OpenBSD onto another PC computer, and then run makeboot and such on my USB drive and copy over the ramdisk. Apparently the cited excuse for why they don't support USB bootable media is bec…

You can cut out one step by directly installing OpenBSD on the USB drive, and then when you boot on the target machine enter "bsd.rd" at the boot prompt.

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#55

Post by dysoco »

mmariani wrote: post #38
dysoco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried luck with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, but just couldn't. Yes, I love both Operating Systems, I love that they are integrated and somewhat less retarded than Linux, I also like their community and development team and OpenBSD's focus on security and code-correctness. But they are not yet "there" for Desktop use, many applications won't work or will be difficult to set up, and driver compatibility is way worse. So may…

Or you could switch to Mavericks which is based on Darwin that was forked from FreeBSD, and desktop ready. ;)

I will if you pay me a Mac :P

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#56

Post by jorgecastillo »

If you haven't tried OpenBSD yet I invite you to try it, you might like it. A long time ago I used OpenBSD as my sole desktop for six months and I fell in love with it. Right now OpenBSD is not a viable solution for my needs, but depending on your use case it might be for you. I definitely hope that one day I can use OpenBSD as my main operating system.

My favorite OpenBSD features:

-Awesome documentation (FAQ & Man Pages)

-Small installation media (amd64/install54.iso - 232MB)

-OpenBSD developers eat their own dog food

-Just works philosophy

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#57

Post by brunoqc »

What is the best hardware for a home router? Soekris was very popular in the past but I'm wondering that maybe there's cool hardware out there.

I also wonder if carpd is usable with a DHCP connection.

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#58

Post by cmccabe »

teddyh wrote: post #40
csmuk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unix manpages are fine. If you've read the GNU awk manual vs BSD awk, you'll understand what I mean. GNU awk manual is hundreds of pages long and serves only to confuse the user. Not only that, half of it is listing differences between GNU awk and other awks which is just mindnumbing. A fine case of cat -v. And don't get me started on glibc. The bit that pisses me off is: man awk (see info awk instead). I think they…

Even the document I cited conceded that there are some very good Unix man pages — BSD Awk may very well be one of many, I have not read it. It follows, logically, that there could be some very bad Info documentation manuals, and the GNU Awk manual may very well be one of many; I have not read it. This does not disprove the point the citation made; namely, that the Unix man page structure is unsuitable for many things…

If I want an introduction to complex topic, I usually won't use man pages. I will open up a web browser and search. That will give me web pages that have pictures, diagrams, and possibly even introductory essays about the topic.

There are many more people who know how to write web pages or forum posts than who know how to write "info" pages. There are also great tools for searching the web, but poor tools for search info pages. "info" pages can't even have diagrams or pictures. Consequently, information obtained via "info" tend to be stale, incomplete, and generally unhelpful.

The real question is why "man" pages are still useful in the era of the internet. The answer is that sometimes, you want a concise, accurate, quick reference to what is installed on your system. "man" fills this function admirably. "info" fills that function awkwardly and poorly.

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#59

Post by mpyne »

teddyh wrote: post #46
nodata wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The official GNU system documentation is in Info There is nobody in the world outside of the GNU foundation who prefers using info pages to man pages.

(You are demonstrably wrong, but I will address your implied point instead of your hyperbole.) I think that the hostility to Info comes from exposure to the standalone Info reader. It is non-intuitive, non-Unix-like, and does, as far as I know, not even support text attributes, so it looks bad even for a text-based UI. It is not very newbie friendly (like GNU nano with its very explicit menus to guide you). Nor is it…

KDE also has an interface to GNU Info pages. "info:foo" in Konqueror/Rekonq/etc. and you get hyperlinks and text.

It's probably not nearly as good as emacs, but it's not nearly as bad as info(1).

Re: OpenBSD 5.4 Released

#60

Post by teddyh »

cmccabe wrote: post #58
teddyh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the document I cited conceded that there are some very good Unix man pages — BSD Awk may very well be one of many, I have not read it. It follows, logically, that there could be some very bad Info documentation manuals, and the GNU Awk manual may very well be one of many; I have not read it. This does not disprove the point the citation made; namely, that the Unix man page structure is unsuitable for many things…

If I want an introduction to complex topic, I usually won't use man pages. I will open up a web browser and search. That will give me web pages that have pictures, diagrams, and possibly even introductory essays about the topic. There are many more people who know how to write web pages or forum posts than who know how to write "info" pages. There are also great tools for searching the web, but poor tools for search…

An internet search will give me many different choices of documentation of unknown provenance, authorship, official status, datedness, accuracy, and comprehensibility. This, to me, is not helpful, since I have no way of knowing which are any good, even after reading them. On the other hand, Info documentation will give me the official, up-to-date, correct, and mostly well-written documentation.

Internet searches certainly have their place if I want forum posts, mailing lists or blog posts, which I sometimes do. But I often want the official documentation corresponding exactly to my installed version of the software, and this is often harder to find using a web search than simply using the Info documentation, because of the above issues. Also, something to keep in mind in these modern times is that web usage is monitored. Local reading of Info documentation is not.

Tools for searching Info pages are built-in to most Info browsers. I use the Emacs Info browser, which has both the usual Emacs way of searching (C-s and C-r searches both in the current node and in the whole document), and the Info Index, which is what I start with when looking up the reference documentation for something.

Also, contrary to what you claim, Info documentation can and do contain images. For example, the HTML GnuTLS documentation here: (http://gnutls.org/manual/html_node/OpenPGP-certificates.html) was generated from Texinfo, and the images are still there when I browse the corresponding Info documentation with the Emacs Info reader. Those images are simple because they are generated from Dia drawings via EPS files, but images can be anything, just like in HTML.

Post reply on HN