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Indeed, OpenBSD is great at what it does and like Slackware on the Linux side, it isn't for everyone but it certainly is awesome in its own right. The only tec

Indeed, OpenBSD is great at what it does and like Slackware on the Linux side, it isn't for everyone but it certainly is awesome in its own right. The only technical limitation I've run into as far as using it as a daily driver OS, is that it can be a bit slow even on very fast hardware. It's simply not optimized for desktop use, though it is certainly usable with a few tweaks. It's great for older hardware too, where the speed issue is relative. In fact, I've found it to be a perfect fit for a couple of old laptops in my collection.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
It has many technical limitations that I'm aware of. Large TCB, less fault-tolerance, supports less COTS hardware than Linux, less automation software, less multicore, desktop as you mentioned, weaker in virtualization, no mandatory controls on apps, less integration with cutting-edge security tech (eg CheriBSD, SoftBound)... could be more but that's off top of head. Harder to say whether it's easier to bring OpenBSD to where competition is on these or to bring competition's code to where OpenBSD is, esp as some safety/security tech makes that less relevant. Hard to say... Regardless, it's a high-quality UNIX that's worth having around. I'm glad to see them improving in areas where it's weaker while not throwing away strengths like some projects would.
krylon 11y ago
> In fact, I've found it to be a perfect fit for a couple of old laptops in my collection. I recently inherited an old-ish laptop (I don't know the exact year it was built, but it has a Windows Vista sticker on it, so 2007-2009, I guess) and decided to install OpenBSD on it, mainly because I have always wanted to give it a try on real hardware as opposed to a VM. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the pieces I care about (sound, video, wifi, ethernet, ...) Just Worked(tm). That was nice. More heavyweight applications like Firefox or Clementine slow the system down substantially, but otherwise it runs nicely.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > More heavyweight applications like Firefox or Clementine slow the system down substantially Systems in 2007 had no problem running Firefox. I'm surprised to hear it has a significant impact. Maybe Firefox has become much more resource intensive? That would surprise me because processors haven't gotten much faster, Mozilla has focused on reducing memory consumption and improving responsiveness, and because of the rise of mobile, a resource-constrained environment.
  - krylon 11y ago
    The system has 2GB of RAM, so that should not be a problem. However, the CPU is a Celeron M, which is really, really slow.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

It has many technical limitations that I'm aware of. Large TCB, less fault-tolerance, supports less COTS hardware than Linux, less automation software, less multicore, desktop as you mentioned, weaker in virtualization, no mandatory controls on apps, less integration with cutting-edge security tech (eg CheriBSD, SoftBound)... could be more but that's off top of head. Harder to say whether it's easier to bring OpenBSD to where competition is on these or to bring competition's code to where OpenBSD is, esp as some safety/security tech makes that less relevant. Hard to say... Regardless, it's a high-quality UNIX that's worth having around. I'm glad to see them improving in areas where it's weaker while not throwing away strengths like some projects would.

krylon 11y ago

> In fact, I've found it to be a perfect fit for a couple of old laptops in my collection. I recently inherited an old-ish laptop (I don't know the exact year it was built, but it has a Windows Vista sticker on it, so 2007-2009, I guess) and decided to install OpenBSD on it, mainly because I have always wanted to give it a try on real hardware as opposed to a VM. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the pieces I care about (sound, video, wifi, ethernet, ...) Just Worked(tm). That was nice. More heavyweight applications like Firefox or Clementine slow the system down substantially, but otherwise it runs nicely.

hackuser 11y ago
> More heavyweight applications like Firefox or Clementine slow the system down substantially Systems in 2007 had no problem running Firefox. I'm surprised to hear it has a significant impact. Maybe Firefox has become much more resource intensive? That would surprise me because processors haven't gotten much faster, Mozilla has focused on reducing memory consumption and improving responsiveness, and because of the rise of mobile, a resource-constrained environment.
- krylon 11y ago
  The system has 2GB of RAM, so that should not be a problem. However, the CPU is a Celeron M, which is really, really slow.