5 ms·

CVS works for them, so they keep using it. The devil you know, etc.

bluejekyll 9y ago
SVN is a relatively painless migration, and is better simply because of a single changlist number to track like perforce. Personally I advocate for Git, in leu of that, mercurial. CVS was so painful, it's just hard for me to imagine that people aren't actively figuring out a way off of it. It's literally one step above RCS...
- ams6110 9y ago
  When all your tooling is built around source repository X, and you understand how it all works, and you understand its quirks and how to avoid them, and you have demonstrated repeatedly the ability to hit release target dates consistently year after year, what then is the sound rationale to switch to source repository Y, and spend the considerable effort to change everything, just so you can keep doing what you are doing now?
  - bluejekyll 9y ago
    I'm impressed that they are able to do that. I'm not going to enumerate all the advantages of Git like tools over CVS here. I do know the pain of migration. I've done it at multiple companies, and am currently figuring it out for an extremely large codebase to get off of Perforce and onto Git. There are significant productivity gains with Git across organizations that make it a worthwhile investment.
- X86BSD 9y ago
  I personally prefer Fossil. It's a really nice little SCM with all sorts of neat features like built in wiki and great documentation.
azinman2 9y ago
It's interesting to me to see this project be both so innovative in security domains, yet so backwards in usability. I was trying to install openbsd on a new router this week, and I had a hell of a time trying to repartition the disk such that it didn't pre-allocate partitions for X11 (which I had no use for). I could delete partitions but then I got empty spaces and seemingly no good way to resize via the primitive CLI. I googled around and found this thread [1], where someone suggested a GUI installer to help novice users install it, which got this reply: "Uh no. The OpenBSD installation routine is perfect as is. I would not want to see a GUI installer on my favourite BSD." Really, perfect? Could not be possibly improved? And because you don't want a GUI, no one should have one? All the rest of the replies were similar to boot. I went back to Linux as I can only imagine what the rest of running it is like. Sometimes old stubborn cranks can really get in the way of progress. [1] http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=8580 http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=8580
- ams6110 9y ago
  OpenBSD "partitioning" is actually a disklabel, and the TUI for it is not bad. I almost always tweak the default partitions a bit when I install, because I like a larger /usr. You maybe missed option R: R [part] Resize a partition in an automatically allocated label, compacting unused space between partitions with a higher offset. The last partition will be shrunk if necessary. Works only for automatically allocated labels with no spoofed partitions. In OpenBSD, for any question first consult the man pages before "googling around". Their man pages are really good.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    Disk setup https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html With the actual installation instructions https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html And how it does the auto https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION
- milcron 9y ago
  I am a newer OpenBSD user, so I encounter roadblocks/papercuts quite frequently. What I like about the OS is that the problems are all easy in retrospect. I never struggle with the same issue twice. For instance, the first time I booted OpenBSD, I was met with the following prompt: boot> What am I supposed to do here? Does it require some weird incantation in order to load the kernel? It turns out you just have to hit enter. The OpenBSD install script really is quite simple. I'm not sure I would call it easy (simple ain't easy), but it's certainly straightforward and setup is usually just hitting enter a bunch of times. You only encountered trouble because you tried to fiddle with it and got frustrated. Another huge benefit of OpenBSD compared to Linux is the incredible quality of documentation. Missing or outdated docs are considered a serious bug. To address your issue, let's look at the docs: https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION It looks as though if the installation target is smaller than 8GB, it won't create a separate partition for X11. That's useful to know. Additionally, you can specify your own partition template using the -T option. It might be cool to see a graphical project like GhostBSD built on top of OpenBSD, but I have to agree with the curmudgeons that the text-based installer is pretty fantastic as-is.
flukus 9y ago
It can't be good for attracting new contributors.
- DominikD 9y ago
  I don't see how this is a barrier for anyone who could contribute to OpenBSD (or any other OS). OS source code complexity isn't in maintaining branches, moving files and managing dozens of dependencies - it's about improving the code and not jinxing stuff in the process.

SVN is a relatively painless migration, and is better simply because of a single changlist number to track like perforce. Personally I advocate for Git, in leu of that, mercurial. CVS was so painful, it's just hard for me to imagine that people aren't actively figuring out a way off of it. It's literally one step above RCS...

ams6110 9y ago
When all your tooling is built around source repository X, and you understand how it all works, and you understand its quirks and how to avoid them, and you have demonstrated repeatedly the ability to hit release target dates consistently year after year, what then is the sound rationale to switch to source repository Y, and spend the considerable effort to change everything, just so you can keep doing what you are doing now?
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  I'm impressed that they are able to do that. I'm not going to enumerate all the advantages of Git like tools over CVS here. I do know the pain of migration. I've done it at multiple companies, and am currently figuring it out for an extremely large codebase to get off of Perforce and onto Git. There are significant productivity gains with Git across organizations that make it a worthwhile investment.
X86BSD 9y ago
I personally prefer Fossil. It's a really nice little SCM with all sorts of neat features like built in wiki and great documentation.

azinman2 9y ago

It's interesting to me to see this project be both so innovative in security domains, yet so backwards in usability. I was trying to install openbsd on a new router this week, and I had a hell of a time trying to repartition the disk such that it didn't pre-allocate partitions for X11 (which I had no use for). I could delete partitions but then I got empty spaces and seemingly no good way to resize via the primitive CLI. I googled around and found this thread [1], where someone suggested a GUI installer to help novice users install it, which got this reply: "Uh no. The OpenBSD installation routine is perfect as is. I would not want to see a GUI installer on my favourite BSD." Really, perfect? Could not be possibly improved? And because you don't want a GUI, no one should have one? All the rest of the replies were similar to boot. I went back to Linux as I can only imagine what the rest of running it is like. Sometimes old stubborn cranks can really get in the way of progress. [1] http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=8580 http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=8580

ams6110 9y ago
OpenBSD "partitioning" is actually a disklabel, and the TUI for it is not bad. I almost always tweak the default partitions a bit when I install, because I like a larger /usr. You maybe missed option R: R [part] Resize a partition in an automatically allocated label, compacting unused space between partitions with a higher offset. The last partition will be shrunk if necessary. Works only for automatically allocated labels with no spoofed partitions. In OpenBSD, for any question first consult the man pages before "googling around". Their man pages are really good.
- protomyth 9y ago
  Disk setup https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html With the actual installation instructions https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html And how it does the auto https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION
milcron 9y ago
I am a newer OpenBSD user, so I encounter roadblocks/papercuts quite frequently. What I like about the OS is that the problems are all easy in retrospect. I never struggle with the same issue twice. For instance, the first time I booted OpenBSD, I was met with the following prompt: boot> What am I supposed to do here? Does it require some weird incantation in order to load the kernel? It turns out you just have to hit enter. The OpenBSD install script really is quite simple. I'm not sure I would call it easy (simple ain't easy), but it's certainly straightforward and setup is usually just hitting enter a bunch of times. You only encountered trouble because you tried to fiddle with it and got frustrated. Another huge benefit of OpenBSD compared to Linux is the incredible quality of documentation. Missing or outdated docs are considered a serious bug. To address your issue, let's look at the docs: https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION https://man.openbsd.org/disklabel#AUTOMATIC_DISK_ALLOCATION It looks as though if the installation target is smaller than 8GB, it won't create a separate partition for X11. That's useful to know. Additionally, you can specify your own partition template using the -T option. It might be cool to see a graphical project like GhostBSD built on top of OpenBSD, but I have to agree with the curmudgeons that the text-based installer is pretty fantastic as-is.

flukus 9y ago

It can't be good for attracting new contributors.

DominikD 9y ago
I don't see how this is a barrier for anyone who could contribute to OpenBSD (or any other OS). OS source code complexity isn't in maintaining branches, moving files and managing dozens of dependencies - it's about improving the code and not jinxing stuff in the process.