16 ms·

OpenBSD 6.5

288 points by vetelko 7y ago

pimeys 7y ago
Been running 6.5 snapshots in my travel laptop for some weeks and everything just works. The laptop is a ThinkPad X200 which is a bit slow for my needs, but upgrading it to ThinkPad X230 later this week should help. I really enjoy how simple the system is after all these years with Linux. I will always continue using Linux in my main computers, but for surfing, some hobby programming and as a travel OS OpenBSD definitely won me over. And I guess it runs quite nicely in the X250 and T450 tier already, maybe even newer ThinkPads. And when I say runs, I mean runs much nicer than many Linux distributions with their default installation.
- mikece 7y ago
  >I really enjoy how simple the system is after all these years with Linux. I still shake my head when I think back to the 90s and how Linux managed to overtake the BSDs. Good to see they are still very much alive and moving forward.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    The weird thing, though, is that 90s Linux felt a little more like the BSDs than Linux usually does today. I mean, the BSDs were always a bit more coherent, but the default install of a typical Linux distro felt a lot less "heavy" in the past. You can switch from Linux to one of the *BSDs and feel like you are bringing back the glory days. Maybe this is a complaint about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd.
    - CameronNemo 7y ago
      You may like a distro such as Void or Alpine.
    - smhenderson 7y ago
      I tend to agree. I started with Slackware when I first used Linux and it is heavily inspired by BSD. It remains so today so I've switched back to using it for day to day work and on a few servers I manage. All other servers are using OpenBSD so it looks like I've got some upgrades to get to!
    - ColanR 7y ago
      I just switched from ubuntu to OpenBSD, realized that it's not optimized for desktop usage, and have been happy with Void for a while now.
      - asveikau 7y ago
        I would disagree. In my experience OpenBSD is pretty good on a desktop or laptop. I've had fewer driver issues with it than FreeBSD for example (mostly wifi and graphics). But "optimized for desktop usage" is a very vague term with different meanings for everybody. My tastes are geared towards a light X workstation that doesn't add any extra whistles unless you ask for them. In the Linux world the closest I've seen to this is Arch. I also used debian for a long time (starting with netinst and no GUI, and adding things only as I need them).
        ColanR 7y ago
        Sorry I was vague. I don't know the reasons for the difference, but on my X230 OpenBSD seemed to have higher latencies in starting programs, and ran big programs like chromium slower than ubuntu and void did. Driver support is great, I agree. And the network management is far simpler. It just felt slow.
    - nine_k 7y ago
      > about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd Looks like it. I'm running Void Linux without all these, and it feels simple and lightweight. Also fast. (OTOH when I have to work with BSD userland utilities that are part of macOS, I often miss the GNU extensions, e.g. to `date` or to `awk`.)
      - blandflakes 7y ago
        If you're using some kind of window manager or desktop environment, do you mind me asking which one?
        nine_k 7y ago
        Xfce, with its WM.
    - rnd0 7y ago
      >Maybe this is a complaint about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd. In the 90's Linux was pretty well aimed at the techy crowd. you were expected to know or learn administration (including the location of and editing of etc files) and not be afraid of './configure && make && make install' Then the focus changed and while your Gentoos and Arches never went away, a larger portion of the focus was on either being user friendly and/or providing an enterprise desktop experience. This is something the BSDs (with the exception of TrueOS) never did -and certainly not OpenBSD. It's worth pointing out (and folks in this thread already have) that if you want the hacker's experience, it's still out there. It just has almost nothing to do with mainstream Linux (which is a shame).
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      Not coincidentally, the oldest extant distro (Slackware) is also the one most often praised for being the most "BSD-like".
  - btilly 7y ago
    Yeah, a good lawsuit at the wrong time will do that to you. For those who don't know what I am talking about, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc._v._Berkeley_Software_Design,_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc..... For what this has to do with Linux adoption, read http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/att_lawsuit_as_a_launcher_for_linux.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/a... about how the uncertainty around all of the BSD distributions lead to people jumping onto the Linux bandwagon. This got Linux ahead and it never looked back.
    - zokula 7y ago
      The lawsuit myth needs to die! Remember when SCO was trying to sue everybody over Linux? Why didn't the *BSDs become more popular then? Linux being more popular then the BSDs had nothing to do with anything Legal outside of Linux being GPL.
      - btilly 7y ago
        On what basis are you saying that it is a myth? During the BSD lawsuit, free software was not widely understood, the company doing the suing (AT&T) was one of the biggest in the world, and the one being sued (BSDI) was a nobody by comparison. It was clear that AT&T had grounds for a real case. Everyone I know that was there says that there was real fear of the outcome. And I've known a lot who were there. By contrast when the SCO lawsuit happened, open source was far better understood, it was a small company (SCO) doing the suing, and the companies being sued were the biggest in the world (starting with IBM). This threat was far less credible, and if it failed, everyone assumed that they would get lost in the shuffle. It didn't hurt for the latter case that groklaw stepped up and there were endless well-informed people who said that the case was groundless. And no, I don't just mean nerds who read slashdot. But also most of the tech media, various interested lawyers, and so on.
- sdfsdfsdfsdf3 7y ago
  Odd that you put this on a the travel laptop and not the desktop, I imagine most OS polygot its the inverse for things like battery life, touchpad drivers, webcam driver. Am curious why not make the switch on desktop? Same semantics? Same dotfiles? Do you use the same window manager across both linux and openbsd? Also what's the "much nicer" you refer to.. Please sell me
  - pimeys 7y ago
    Oh, I need Docker a lot. And our target platforms are Linux and OSX, so I just want to have some kind of standard OS on Desktop. Also stuff like Signal, Spotify etc. I still haven't been able to get running on OpenBSD, maybe some day... Nicer in a way that setting up the wifi, suspend et. al. just works. And is very easy.
    - sdfsdfsdfsdf3 7y ago
      Ah okay, Docker would be a sticking point for me too. Thanks for sharing
    - fulafel 7y ago
      All the OS X users seem to be content running Docker in a Linux VM. It's more secure that way too, fitting with OpenBSD mentality :) Doesn't help with the desktop OS part though.
      - pimeys 7y ago
        OpenBSD does not yet have kvm support, so you can run qemu, but it'll be very slow.
        gbrown_ 7y ago
        OpenBSD has its own hypervisor these days https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html
        7y ago
- MuffinFlavored 7y ago
  > but for surfing, some hobby programming and as a travel OS OpenBSD definitely won me over. Mac OS X has won me (and many others) over when it comes to these topics. I'm curious why BSD would be your choice. It sounds painful?
  - pimeys 7y ago
    I like simplicity. I use i3, Firefox with enough privacy extensions, Emacs and terminal. And I love to be able to have a great keyboard, where sadly the ThinkPads are the only choice nowadays. Using Mac OS X or Windows will give me a headache. I just don't like their user interface. And I've used both of them a lot; I had my G4 iMac with 10.0.0 back in the days, and kind of liked 10.3.0 until Linux won me over again.
    - pimeys 7y ago
      (P.S. why every OS thread in HN always turns into discussion about Apple?)
      - snazz 7y ago
        People are very change-resistant when it comes to OS and text editor choice and don’t understand how the other side lives without $feature_of_choice.
      - MuffinFlavored 7y ago
        I'm just amazed that you are calling an interface you need to set up yourself / configure / tweak a bunch of things to get working is "simple" in your eyes compared to Mac OS X, which is simple to lots of people (which would explain why they sell so many MacBooks, in my eyes?)
        pimeys 7y ago
        I'm just a different crowd! I live in UNIX and for me editing a few text files is much simpler than having a bloated OS. And why I said the thing about Apple originally is that it seems to be almost a meme that every single thread about Linux or *BSD gets a discussion about Apple products. It's so weird :)
- makz 7y ago
  I’m curious about what you consider a “travel OS” and how is that different from regular OS.
  - pimeys 7y ago
    Travel OS, so I basically browse the Internet, watch some videos, listen to some music and do some hobby projects. Also it's nice to have a not so expensive laptop for travels, so it's not such a big deal if it gets stolen. And of course the travel machine uses full disk encryption. Size is important here: I prefer 12" for travels and 14" for work, when I want to view multiple files at the same time. OpenBSD has hard time using even 4 gigabytes of RAM with Firefox having multiple tabs open. My Arch installations easily take over 8 gigabytes, if I'm not compiling anything. If I need a backup machine for work, I kind of want a Linux with all the Docker, Spotify, Signal etc. easily available.
    - ivanbakel 7y ago
      That sounds like a hefty OS. My Arch install is currently using 4Gb, and this is a full desktop.
- fmajid 7y ago
  I love the simplicity of OpenBSD as well, but not all Linuxes are bloated, Alpine for instance is quite reasonable. The main benefits of Linux are ZFS and Docker, as well as wider hardware support.
  - fapjacks 7y ago
    You have listed ZFS as a benefit of Linux in contrast to BSD, but BSD has better support of ZFS than Linux, so I'm curious why you listed ZFS in this way?
alecco 7y ago
> ROP mitigations in clang(1) have been improved, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of polymorphic ROP gadgets in binaries on i386/amd64. Does anybody know if there's a writeup somewhere? Or what are the commits to look at.
- colinhb 7y ago
  I haven’t followed this work but Todd Mortimer’s slides[1] from last year stuck with me as a good introduction. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2018-rop.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2018-rop.pdf
- nprescott 7y ago
  In addition to Todd Mortimer's slides, linked in the sibling comment, there is this video of the same, which I enjoyed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvSSHtRv5Mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvSSHtRv5Mg
- brynet 7y ago
  Todd's given an update at AsiaBSDcon 2019, unfortunately video is not up for that yet. Slides: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-slides.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-slides.pdf Paper: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-paper.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-paper.pdf
bigato 7y ago
> Xorg(1), the X window server, is no longer installed setuid. xenodm(1) should be used to start X. That is really great!
- snazz 7y ago
  Does this mean that I can’t startx on a machine that I rarely use X on? Is a display manager now required for running X? From a security standpoint this makes sense, of course, but how are you supposed to deal with a half-desktop-half-server system?
  - mises 7y ago
    You can still do this, just through the command mentioned above. SUID binaries are a serious risk; good on the openbsd folks for trying to remove one.
  - crest 7y ago
    No. It just means that startx no longer requires root to start X. It removes setuid root from one more executable.
    - snazz 7y ago
      Even better. Then it’s a win-win.
      - snazz 7y ago
        I was incorrect: It appears that you do in fact need root to run startx now: (quoting the faq page for upgrade65): Xorg(1). The Xorg binary is no longer installed setuid, so startx(1) can no longer be used by non-root users. The xenodm(1) display manager has to be used instead.
    - zmyrgel 7y ago
      I thought it means exactly that for X you need to run xenodm. But if you don't want to run it by default you can use "doas rcctl start -f xenodm" to start display manager when needed.
doodpants 7y ago
> Released May 1, 2019 Woah, it's from the future!
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  I have done this before. Marked a release in the changelog set to two weeks in the future, then installed from master and made sure nothing broke during those two weeks.
mugwort13 7y ago
This is a better link. https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=155611207805565&w=3 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=155611207805565&w=3
justinsaccount 7y ago
> First release of unwind(8), a validating, recursive nameserver for 127.0.0.1. It is particularly suitable for laptops moving between networks. When systemd-resolvd was first released it was the biggest mistake ever to write a new recursive resolver instead of using unbound or dnsmasq. Also since DNS ".. wasn't broken, so it did not need fixing". I wonder if unwind will be received with the same hostility.
- snazz 7y ago
  Seems to be well-received: https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321 https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321
- moviuro 7y ago
  See https://man.openbsd.org/unwind.8 https://man.openbsd.org/unwind.8 And also in general, I'm far less concerned about software released by a well-established security-minded team than I am about whatever Lennart wants to ship...
  - busterarm 7y ago
    literally, "whatever Lennart wants to ship"
    - fmajid 7y ago
      s/p/t/g
- mises 7y ago
  People are probably less upset because it doesn't take the "systemd all the things" approach of getting rid of huge chunks of old stuff for what is ostensibly an init system. I don't have much of an issue with systemd (except binary logging; I hate that) and just put up with it, but the reasons for which people objected to systemd don't seem to extend to this.
  - 7y ago
ixtli 7y ago
Of all of the places a Bee and Puppycat fan might expect to find Natasha Allegri's work ... release art (?!) for OpenBSD 6.5 is perhaps the last I would have expected.
- cpach 7y ago
  I love it when software projects does whimsical artwork like this :)
  - ixtli 7y ago
    It's pretty great. As someone said below: I'd buy a tshirt.
    - neilv 7y ago
      There's a funny story by Linda Branagan, of an earlier BSD T-shirt: https://www.astro.umd.edu/~avondale/extra/Humor/ComputerHumor/Daemons.html https://www.astro.umd.edu/~avondale/extra/Humor/ComputerHumo...
      - ixtli 7y ago
        This confirms a whole host of my baseless presuppositions about things. Mostly Texas.
        neilv 7y ago
        The story is written so well, I'm not sure it's not a bit embellished. :) Anyway, there's all kinds of people, everywhere, and I don't think those two characters are representative of Texas as a whole. Texas has a lot of diversity, a lot of good work comes out of there, and people are generally decent and not like the extremes that sometimes percolate to the TV news. Also, to the extent that Texans overall might tend to have qualities like, e.g., valuing principles and individual responsibility, I think that's good input to have, in a diverse marketplace of ideas (even though it might not be quite my own current thinking). (Please pardon the straight response, on a humor tangent, but I felt a little bad when I realized I'd invoked a stereotype, and I felt I should clarify.)
rooam-dev 7y ago
Sorry for noob question, but why would one use OpenBSD instead of FreeBSD? I like latter, but also hear good things about former, although there are some limitations (e.g. no ZFS). Thank you in advance.
- pimeys 7y ago
  Works really well out of the box with certain laptops. Excellent man pages. A good amount of software and a good track record with security. FreeBSD is nice for a file server, OpenBSD for a laptop.
- bigato 7y ago
  Simplicity, correctness and security before features.
- peatmoss 7y ago
  Simplicity. I have a long love for FreeBSD, but the project has different aims than OpenBSD. Linux and FreeBSD are novels. OpenBSD strives to be a short poem. Linux and FreeBSD push really hard to add cutting-edge features, but OpenBSD pushes hard to see what can be removed and still retain essential functionality. OpenBSD packs a remarkable amount of functionality into a code footprint that doesn’t feel like it has grown appreciably since I first ran it in the late 90s. At the same time, this flensing process has allowed OpenBSD to move quickly on some innovations like “doas” instead of sudo. They also maintain cononical implementations of their other products like OpenSSH and were able to move quickly to their cleaned-up OpenSSL implementation LibreSSL. As for laptop support, I wouldn’t say their hardware support compares to Linux. That is, they don’t support everything. Rather, for supported laptop (and desktop!) hardware, that suppport is excellent. Put another way: that which is supported is supported very well.
- chousuke 7y ago
  I run OpenBSD on my router. t's very compact and simple and you don't need Google to solve problems because the base system is thoroughly documented. It has everything I need, and nothing more. OpenBSD isn't suitable for every use case because rarely used features tend to get removed instead of falling into disrepair from lack of maintenance, but when it does work, it works predictably and reliably. I was able to run OpenBSD on my desktop and have everything work flawlessly out-of-the-box, whereas with FreeBSD I encountered frequent crashes when using dual monitors. I suppose my configuration isn't something that the FreeBSD developers use, so while it "works", it doesn't work. In the end I returned to Linux because I sometimes play games using Steam and Wine, neither of which is likely to ever be supported on OpenBSD, but if OpenBSD provides everything you need, it's certainly worth trying it out.
crehn 7y ago
I know it's often mentioned, but I love the simplicity of OpenBSD. Thank you all for the great work.
- arendtio 7y ago
  Well, simplicity is one thing, but I was shocked to learn that it doesn't even come with the complete POSIX toolbox (e.g. out of the box awk is missing). And finding out that `ftp` also handles http and https was a bit weird too. To some extent, I like that simplicity too (especially security wise) but I wonder if they are taking it too far.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    How did you manage to get an OpenBSD install that didn't include awk?
    - arendtio 7y ago
      I downloaded install64.iso started it and entered the shell. Next, I entered 'awk' and got the response: sh: awk: not found Maybe their live cd doesn't include the whole 'base' set?
      - tedunangst 7y ago
        The installer is not a live CD. It's only enough tooling to install openbsd.
        arendtio 7y ago
        Okay thanks, unexpected but good to know (at >340MB I would have expected a complete base system at least). Do you know if there is some up to date OpenBSD live CD somewhere?
        tedunangst 7y ago
mtron_ 7y ago
> MariaDB 10.0.38 Can anyone share some insight why OpenBSD does not provide a more recent MariaDB Version ?
- sigzero 7y ago
  It could be a lack of resources or they are just very conservative in upgrading.
- mtron_ 7y ago
  ok, found it. http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Update-MariaDB-from-10-0-33-to-10-2-10-td330155.html#a330318 http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Update-MariaDB-fro... 10.2 is a no go for us as the new client library requires atomic ops killing the client library on a handful of archs.
eb0la 7y ago
What!? They don't have OpenBSD t-shirts anymore !?!?!?!?! My old OpenBSD 2.3 tshirt (the wireframe daemon) will die soon and I need a replacement!
- ixtli 7y ago
  Someone should really fix this, because clearly they're connected to Natasha Allegri now who'd make a killer design.
- moviuro 7y ago
  https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html > [...] This artwork emblazoned CDs and posters up until version 6.0, after which we stopped producing product and only release software on the internet. See also [0]; you should be able to make your own t-shirt with official logos, and donate as usual [1,2,3] [0] https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=155439809001096&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=155439809001096&w=2 [1] https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html [2] https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2019.html https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2019.html [3] https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html
  - kbenson 7y ago
    What with the artwork thumbnails for the first row of the "CD-Rom era" (6.0 - 5.2) not matching the artwork shown at the top of the linked page when you click it? Some of those look really interesting, but you get something entirely different when you try to find a larger version.
quotemstr 7y ago
Still no unified buffer cache. :-( The lack of coherence and memory reuse between mmap(2) and read(2) is my single biggest beef with OpenBSD right now. It's a great system in terms of robustness, documentation, and philosophical unification. It's a shame its kernel still thinks Ronald Reagan is president.
- _wldu 7y ago
  That's a feature.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    Is it?
- DblPlusUngood 7y ago
  What coherence is lacking? OpenBSD supports msync(2), which is the only POSIX mechanism I know of for ensuring coherency between read(2) and shared file mappings. Otherwise relying on unspecified behavior sounds dangerous.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    Oh, come on. Every other system in common use is fully coherent. POSIX allowing OpenBSD's behavior doesn't make that behavior a good idea or a quality implementation.
    - DblPlusUngood 7y ago
      OpenBSD's choice is arguably reasonable, given their prioritization of security, since it reduces opportunities for user programs to corrupt kernel memory. What is the problem with OpenBSD's plan for coherency? Why is the burden of explicitly calling msync(2) too much?
      - quotemstr 7y ago
        > reduces opportunities for user programs to corrupt kernel memory I don't see how it could. Kernel data structures don't go on pagecache pages. > OpenBSD's choice is arguably reasonable At a human level, the OpenBSD people have spent way too much time coming up with rationalizations for their obsolete VM design to back down now. Whether OpenBSD's VM subsystem is good or not, their pride will force them to keep claiming that it's good, practically forever.
ptidhomme 7y ago
Just to say I also love this OS, although I'm very far from a hardcore hacker. It just worked out of the box on that generic unbranded laptop I retrieved (no touchpad though). I use Xfce wich is well integrated, and the package manager is plain simple and easy. Definately better experience than my previous Linux ones. Some penalty on performance though. PS : I've put it on my Raspberry Pi too.
cpach 7y ago
The pvclock driver seems neat. https://www.mail-archive.com/tech@openbsd.org/msg49128.html https://www.mail-archive.com/tech@openbsd.org/msg49128.html Does anyone know if that driver eliminates the need for doing NTP sync in the guest VM?
- JdeBP 7y ago
  On Linux, for information, the systemd people aim for guest services that synchronize to the host clock to prevent the use of (S)NTP clients. * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/467632/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/467632/5132
fstephany 7y ago
This is some serious OpenBSD artwork. I would love that they reconsider the 'no product' policy. I understand the logistical nightmare of pressed CDs though...
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  Well, at this point it'd be pressed dual layer blu rays though, i downloaded the entire version and just the amd64 directories are around 45GB in size. I do not understand why they feel the need to associate OS versions with 3rd party packages though, why have an OpenBSD 6.5 version of -say- the 0ad game instead of an OpenBSD version of it that you say it needs at least OpenBSD 6.5 (or whatever) version to run? (same question about Linux distros in general, FWIW... i just do not see the point of packaging so much stuff for a single OS version, it is like if Windows did the same thing - ignoring licensing - Windows 10 would include Photoshop, Steam, DOOM, Visual Studio, Maya, 3ds max and pretty much every other program with a bit of popularity ever made) Well, at least a single arch version still fits on a single disk medium, last time i checked Debian needed several DL BDs (although perhaps a single BDXL disk, once they become available, will work... assuming we also ever burners for those).
  - brohee 7y ago
    Packages are dependant on certain version of system librairies, and binary compatibility isn't a huge concern from version to version.
    - badsectoracula 7y ago
      Hence the "needs at least" part, or does OpenBSD break backwards compatibility in every version for every package?
      - yellowapple 7y ago
        OpenBSD is particularly aggressive about breaking backward-compatibility, yes. For example: the switch to a 64-bit time_t on 32-bit systems to stay ahead of the Year 2038 problem.
dcbadacd 7y ago
Why doesn't OpenBSD do KASLR?
- ixtli 7y ago
  You'd be shocked to know how long after this was shown academically to be a Good Idea™ it took to get it into operating systems like Windows. The reason back then was because application programmers depended (incorrectly!) on sequential allocations so when you started randomizing things you'd break stuff. Idk if that's the case here but its been a big reason historically. I know OpenBSD doesn't prioritize new features but KASLR is a pretty significant security improvement, right?
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    Application programmers should not care about the address of the kernel.
- bigato 7y ago
  It does KARL though: "The difference between the two is that KARL loads a different kernel binary in the same place, while KASLR loads the same binary in random locations. Same goal, different paths." https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/openbsd-will-get-unique-kernels-on-each-reboot-do-you-hear-that-linux-windows/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/openbsd-will-...
- tedunangst 7y ago
  The typical approach of sliding the kernel around only offers limited benefit. One leaked address and you're done. The current approach, called KARL, relinks the kernel so that while it may load at the same address, symbols internally do not have the same offset. Learning the address of printf will not reveal the address of malloc and so forth. In the context of kernel defense, I would argue this is more effective. Also, simply as a practical matter, the bootloader and kernel are tightly coupled in ways that make altering the load address a nontrivial endeavor.
  - 7y ago
brobdingnagians 7y ago
Good to see another version of OpenBSD out. I love it for servers, the easy setup, solid package management, and security are first rate. The only reason I can't switch to it for desktop is that the Jetbrains IDEs have some issues due to no OpenBSD support Pty libraries, so debugging doesn't work, otherwise I'd be a full convert.
ernst_klim 7y ago
>HOWTO upgrade >Remove files no longer included in the current release of perl(1): Do they consider this a production-grade operating system or a toy one? Why couldn't it be done with a package manager?
- brynet 7y ago
  Because perl is part of the base system, and not a package, harmless files are typically not removed by the OpenBSD Installer. You don't have to remove those files, the upgrade guide simply indicates they're no longer required.
  - ernst_klim 7y ago
    Sure, but manual upgrades with `tar'ring userspace, copying kernel and removing files seems abysmally error-prone to me.
    - eb0la 7y ago
      In the past problems could happen if your kernel ended beyond cylinder 1024 on the disk (i386 problem) You should have a disklabel with partitioning for at least /, /usr, /usr/lib, /var, and /home (with / fully behind cylinder 1024 for i386 Bios to be able to load the kernel via int13h )
    - brynet 7y ago
      You're reading the manual upgrade guide, for remote systems where you would otherwise cannot boot the ramdisk kernel to upgrade, which handles all of that for you. If you have console access to the machine, serial or glass. Things are far easier.
      - tedunangst 7y ago
        More evidence the hard way instructions should simply be deleted.
        7y ago
notananthem 7y ago
Haven't OpenBSD'd since high school, gonna give it a spin.
bitmadness 7y ago
I don't think it has been actually released yet... The main page is still pointing to OpenBSD 6.4, and the 6.5 page says it will be released on May 1.
Accacin 7y ago
As a long time Linux user, I keep thinking about trying a BSD variant, but I get hung up on two things. 1) Which do I pick? NetBSD? OpenBSD? 2) Hardware? I'm thinking about an old ThinkPad for programming, and it looks like OpenBSD at least should run fine on that. What's hardware support like overall?
- geff82 7y ago
  An Thinkpad up to the 4-Series (x240,t440,t540) can run any BSD, but after that, OpenBSD is your best bet. NetBSD (the one I learned about Unix with) has fallen a bit behind in features and hardware support, it is rarely used for production any more (makes me sad, but that is how it is). FreeBSD has a giant set of features and has the most current and largest software library, yet it does not run perfect on newer Laptops. OpenBSD ist more conservative and very pure, is used in some production environments, is actively developed but has the smallest and least up-to-date software library. So you can choose which disadvantage you can live most with. NetBSD is said to run on the largest number of platforms, but I'd argue that in practice Linux took its place long ago.
  - sogubsys 7y ago
    I think there's a bit of a difference in that NetBSD project itself (kernel and userland) run on all the platforms/architectures, and Linux (the kernel) supports a lot of platforms/architectures itself, you need to find userland that matches... usually finding a distro that is well supported. NetBSD supports all architectures as part of itself as a whole, no need for distro searching. One of the cool things about BSD is that kernel and userland are bundled/tightly-coupled together as one single unit. With Linux, you need to find the appropriate distro to help you outside of the few major platforms. Apples and oranges comparison. http://netbsd.org/about/portability.html http://netbsd.org/about/portability.html
- pimeys 7y ago
  I just got a ThinkPad X230 with an IPS screen and an i7 CPU for 180 euros. It's the last one with a non-ULV CPU, which means it's still quite fast. And it all works perfectly, except maybe the bluetooth and fingerprint reader. With a 9-cell battery you'll get easily enough hours of usage, with apmd I'm clocking around 5-6 hours, which is fine for my use.
gfiorav 7y ago
I know this is pretty much a blanket question I could make about any distro but: Can anyone here share their "switch to BSD" story and what advantages it offered over their departing distro?
- ben_bai 7y ago
  https://runbsd.info/ https://runbsd.info/
reacharavindh 7y ago
I use OpenBSD as firewall appliance, router, SSH bastion, even a general purpose terminal server that takes care of a few cron automated bash scripts. For the typical workstation - being able to run Linux VMs, Docker/Containers are a blocker for me to use OpenBSD. The closest I have got to the OpenBSD experience is with Void linux. No Systemd, No frills minimal Linux. It is as safe/bloated/feature rich as you configure it to be.
jancsika 7y ago
Oh my, what is the story behind the piece of artwork in this release? The buzz around OpenBSD always led me to believe it's developed by mole people who subsist on cryptographically secure random donations of soda crackers and water. Yet here on their release page is a big beautiful image that precedes technical release desiderata. Can more projects do more beautiful artwork like this? Also, can I support OpenBSD by buying a tshirt with this artwork on it? Edit: Just noticed that the stem of the "p" in "OpenBSD" is not obscured by the underline (at least in Chrome). That, along with the italic "Open" with non-italic "BSD" is quite aesthetically pleasing. Is this due to a design whiz who got interested in BSD, or is this just HTML5 doing its thing?
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  > Edit: Just noticed that the stem of the "p" in "OpenBSD" is not obscured by the underline (at least in Chrome). That, along with the italic "Open" with non-italic "BSD" is quite aesthetically pleasing. Is this due to a design whiz who got interested in BSD, or is this just HTML5 doing its thing? This is just Chrome's default rendering of underlines, which occurs even with no explicit styling: data:text/html,<u>upu In my opinion, it's a cute stylistic effect which looks nice in headers &c., but feels inappropriate in running text. An odd default.
xyproto 7y ago
The list of available applications look promising! I think I would miss Sway and perhaps even Docker, though. I am impressed that OpenBSD comes with Go 1.12.
- jedisct1 7y ago
  OpenBSD ports are always very up to date. In snapshots, packages are frequently updated before most Linux distributions, including Arch.
Paianni 7y ago
The artwork makes me think of MIKA's 'Lollipop' mv.
3xblah 7y ago
Up until now (see rdsetroot), OpenBSD never had an equivalent to mdsetroot (NetBSD)?
- brynet 7y ago
  It did, it was just not installed by default, it was originally only available at build-time (as eflrdsetroot). This just promoted it to a regular base utility, and also it was rewritten using libelf(3).
oil25 7y ago
Replying from the latest -current snapshot on my desktop (AMD Ryzen 7 / B450 chipset / ECC RAM) and have nothing but good things to say about OpenBSD. As others have iterated, this operating system is extremely reliable, secure by default, very well documented, and I have not found performance to be an issue whatsoever. Definitely recommend everyone, especially Linux users, to check it out!
BasicObject 7y ago
Can anyone share if Surface Go support has improved with this release?
dhqdx 7y ago
No songs now?

288 points by vetelko 7y ago

Been running 6.5 snapshots in my travel laptop for some weeks and everything just works. The laptop is a ThinkPad X200 which is a bit slow for my needs, but upgrading it to ThinkPad X230 later this week should help. I really enjoy how simple the system is after all these years with Linux. I will always continue using Linux in my main computers, but for surfing, some hobby programming and as a travel OS OpenBSD definitely won me over. And I guess it runs quite nicely in the X250 and T450 tier already, maybe even newer ThinkPads. And when I say runs, I mean runs much nicer than many Linux distributions with their default installation.

mikece 7y ago
>I really enjoy how simple the system is after all these years with Linux. I still shake my head when I think back to the 90s and how Linux managed to overtake the BSDs. Good to see they are still very much alive and moving forward.
- asveikau 7y ago
  The weird thing, though, is that 90s Linux felt a little more like the BSDs than Linux usually does today. I mean, the BSDs were always a bit more coherent, but the default install of a typical Linux distro felt a lot less "heavy" in the past. You can switch from Linux to one of the *BSDs and feel like you are bringing back the glory days. Maybe this is a complaint about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd.
  - CameronNemo 7y ago
    You may like a distro such as Void or Alpine.
  - smhenderson 7y ago
    I tend to agree. I started with Slackware when I first used Linux and it is heavily inspired by BSD. It remains so today so I've switched back to using it for day to day work and on a few servers I manage. All other servers are using OpenBSD so it looks like I've got some upgrades to get to!
  - ColanR 7y ago
    I just switched from ubuntu to OpenBSD, realized that it's not optimized for desktop usage, and have been happy with Void for a while now.
    - asveikau 7y ago
      I would disagree. In my experience OpenBSD is pretty good on a desktop or laptop. I've had fewer driver issues with it than FreeBSD for example (mostly wifi and graphics). But "optimized for desktop usage" is a very vague term with different meanings for everybody. My tastes are geared towards a light X workstation that doesn't add any extra whistles unless you ask for them. In the Linux world the closest I've seen to this is Arch. I also used debian for a long time (starting with netinst and no GUI, and adding things only as I need them).
      - ColanR 7y ago
        Sorry I was vague. I don't know the reasons for the difference, but on my X230 OpenBSD seemed to have higher latencies in starting programs, and ran big programs like chromium slower than ubuntu and void did. Driver support is great, I agree. And the network management is far simpler. It just felt slow.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    > about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd Looks like it. I'm running Void Linux without all these, and it feels simple and lightweight. Also fast. (OTOH when I have to work with BSD userland utilities that are part of macOS, I often miss the GNU extensions, e.g. to `date` or to `awk`.)
    - blandflakes 7y ago
      If you're using some kind of window manager or desktop environment, do you mind me asking which one?
      - nine_k 7y ago
        Xfce, with its WM.
  - rnd0 7y ago
    >Maybe this is a complaint about Ubuntu, or gnome, or systemd. In the 90's Linux was pretty well aimed at the techy crowd. you were expected to know or learn administration (including the location of and editing of etc files) and not be afraid of './configure && make && make install' Then the focus changed and while your Gentoos and Arches never went away, a larger portion of the focus was on either being user friendly and/or providing an enterprise desktop experience. This is something the BSDs (with the exception of TrueOS) never did -and certainly not OpenBSD. It's worth pointing out (and folks in this thread already have) that if you want the hacker's experience, it's still out there. It just has almost nothing to do with mainstream Linux (which is a shame).
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    Not coincidentally, the oldest extant distro (Slackware) is also the one most often praised for being the most "BSD-like".
- btilly 7y ago
  Yeah, a good lawsuit at the wrong time will do that to you. For those who don't know what I am talking about, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc._v._Berkeley_Software_Design,_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc..... For what this has to do with Linux adoption, read http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/att_lawsuit_as_a_launcher_for_linux.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/a... about how the uncertainty around all of the BSD distributions lead to people jumping onto the Linux bandwagon. This got Linux ahead and it never looked back.
  - zokula 7y ago
    The lawsuit myth needs to die! Remember when SCO was trying to sue everybody over Linux? Why didn't the *BSDs become more popular then? Linux being more popular then the BSDs had nothing to do with anything Legal outside of Linux being GPL.
    - btilly 7y ago
      On what basis are you saying that it is a myth? During the BSD lawsuit, free software was not widely understood, the company doing the suing (AT&T) was one of the biggest in the world, and the one being sued (BSDI) was a nobody by comparison. It was clear that AT&T had grounds for a real case. Everyone I know that was there says that there was real fear of the outcome. And I've known a lot who were there. By contrast when the SCO lawsuit happened, open source was far better understood, it was a small company (SCO) doing the suing, and the companies being sued were the biggest in the world (starting with IBM). This threat was far less credible, and if it failed, everyone assumed that they would get lost in the shuffle. It didn't hurt for the latter case that groklaw stepped up and there were endless well-informed people who said that the case was groundless. And no, I don't just mean nerds who read slashdot. But also most of the tech media, various interested lawyers, and so on.
sdfsdfsdfsdf3 7y ago
Odd that you put this on a the travel laptop and not the desktop, I imagine most OS polygot its the inverse for things like battery life, touchpad drivers, webcam driver. Am curious why not make the switch on desktop? Same semantics? Same dotfiles? Do you use the same window manager across both linux and openbsd? Also what's the "much nicer" you refer to.. Please sell me
- pimeys 7y ago
  Oh, I need Docker a lot. And our target platforms are Linux and OSX, so I just want to have some kind of standard OS on Desktop. Also stuff like Signal, Spotify etc. I still haven't been able to get running on OpenBSD, maybe some day... Nicer in a way that setting up the wifi, suspend et. al. just works. And is very easy.
  - sdfsdfsdfsdf3 7y ago
    Ah okay, Docker would be a sticking point for me too. Thanks for sharing
  - fulafel 7y ago
    All the OS X users seem to be content running Docker in a Linux VM. It's more secure that way too, fitting with OpenBSD mentality :) Doesn't help with the desktop OS part though.
    - pimeys 7y ago
      OpenBSD does not yet have kvm support, so you can run qemu, but it'll be very slow.
      - gbrown_ 7y ago
        OpenBSD has its own hypervisor these days https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html
        7y ago
MuffinFlavored 7y ago
> but for surfing, some hobby programming and as a travel OS OpenBSD definitely won me over. Mac OS X has won me (and many others) over when it comes to these topics. I'm curious why BSD would be your choice. It sounds painful?
- pimeys 7y ago
  I like simplicity. I use i3, Firefox with enough privacy extensions, Emacs and terminal. And I love to be able to have a great keyboard, where sadly the ThinkPads are the only choice nowadays. Using Mac OS X or Windows will give me a headache. I just don't like their user interface. And I've used both of them a lot; I had my G4 iMac with 10.0.0 back in the days, and kind of liked 10.3.0 until Linux won me over again.
  - pimeys 7y ago
    (P.S. why every OS thread in HN always turns into discussion about Apple?)
    - snazz 7y ago
      People are very change-resistant when it comes to OS and text editor choice and don’t understand how the other side lives without $feature_of_choice.
    - MuffinFlavored 7y ago
      I'm just amazed that you are calling an interface you need to set up yourself / configure / tweak a bunch of things to get working is "simple" in your eyes compared to Mac OS X, which is simple to lots of people (which would explain why they sell so many MacBooks, in my eyes?)
      - pimeys 7y ago
        I'm just a different crowd! I live in UNIX and for me editing a few text files is much simpler than having a bloated OS. And why I said the thing about Apple originally is that it seems to be almost a meme that every single thread about Linux or *BSD gets a discussion about Apple products. It's so weird :)
makz 7y ago
I’m curious about what you consider a “travel OS” and how is that different from regular OS.
- pimeys 7y ago
  Travel OS, so I basically browse the Internet, watch some videos, listen to some music and do some hobby projects. Also it's nice to have a not so expensive laptop for travels, so it's not such a big deal if it gets stolen. And of course the travel machine uses full disk encryption. Size is important here: I prefer 12" for travels and 14" for work, when I want to view multiple files at the same time. OpenBSD has hard time using even 4 gigabytes of RAM with Firefox having multiple tabs open. My Arch installations easily take over 8 gigabytes, if I'm not compiling anything. If I need a backup machine for work, I kind of want a Linux with all the Docker, Spotify, Signal etc. easily available.
  - ivanbakel 7y ago
    That sounds like a hefty OS. My Arch install is currently using 4Gb, and this is a full desktop.
fmajid 7y ago
I love the simplicity of OpenBSD as well, but not all Linuxes are bloated, Alpine for instance is quite reasonable. The main benefits of Linux are ZFS and Docker, as well as wider hardware support.
- fapjacks 7y ago
  You have listed ZFS as a benefit of Linux in contrast to BSD, but BSD has better support of ZFS than Linux, so I'm curious why you listed ZFS in this way?

alecco 7y ago

> ROP mitigations in clang(1) have been improved, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of polymorphic ROP gadgets in binaries on i386/amd64. Does anybody know if there's a writeup somewhere? Or what are the commits to look at.

colinhb 7y ago
I haven’t followed this work but Todd Mortimer’s slides[1] from last year stuck with me as a good introduction. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2018-rop.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2018-rop.pdf
nprescott 7y ago
In addition to Todd Mortimer's slides, linked in the sibling comment, there is this video of the same, which I enjoyed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvSSHtRv5Mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvSSHtRv5Mg
brynet 7y ago
Todd's given an update at AsiaBSDcon 2019, unfortunately video is not up for that yet. Slides: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-slides.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-slides.pdf Paper: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-paper.pdf https://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2019-rop-paper.pdf

bigato 7y ago

> Xorg(1), the X window server, is no longer installed setuid. xenodm(1) should be used to start X. That is really great!

snazz 7y ago
Does this mean that I can’t startx on a machine that I rarely use X on? Is a display manager now required for running X? From a security standpoint this makes sense, of course, but how are you supposed to deal with a half-desktop-half-server system?
- mises 7y ago
  You can still do this, just through the command mentioned above. SUID binaries are a serious risk; good on the openbsd folks for trying to remove one.
- crest 7y ago
  No. It just means that startx no longer requires root to start X. It removes setuid root from one more executable.
  - snazz 7y ago
    Even better. Then it’s a win-win.
    - snazz 7y ago
      I was incorrect: It appears that you do in fact need root to run startx now: (quoting the faq page for upgrade65): Xorg(1). The Xorg binary is no longer installed setuid, so startx(1) can no longer be used by non-root users. The xenodm(1) display manager has to be used instead.
  - zmyrgel 7y ago
    I thought it means exactly that for X you need to run xenodm. But if you don't want to run it by default you can use "doas rcctl start -f xenodm" to start display manager when needed.

doodpants 7y ago

> Released May 1, 2019 Woah, it's from the future!

CameronNemo 7y ago
I have done this before. Marked a release in the changelog set to two weeks in the future, then installed from master and made sure nothing broke during those two weeks.

mugwort13 7y ago

This is a better link. https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=155611207805565&w=3 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=155611207805565&w=3

justinsaccount 7y ago

> First release of unwind(8), a validating, recursive nameserver for 127.0.0.1. It is particularly suitable for laptops moving between networks. When systemd-resolvd was first released it was the biggest mistake ever to write a new recursive resolver instead of using unbound or dnsmasq. Also since DNS ".. wasn't broken, so it did not need fixing". I wonder if unwind will be received with the same hostility.

snazz 7y ago
Seems to be well-received: https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321 https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190128061321
moviuro 7y ago
See https://man.openbsd.org/unwind.8 https://man.openbsd.org/unwind.8 And also in general, I'm far less concerned about software released by a well-established security-minded team than I am about whatever Lennart wants to ship...
- busterarm 7y ago
  literally, "whatever Lennart wants to ship"
  - fmajid 7y ago
    s/p/t/g
mises 7y ago
People are probably less upset because it doesn't take the "systemd all the things" approach of getting rid of huge chunks of old stuff for what is ostensibly an init system. I don't have much of an issue with systemd (except binary logging; I hate that) and just put up with it, but the reasons for which people objected to systemd don't seem to extend to this.
- 7y ago

ixtli 7y ago

Of all of the places a Bee and Puppycat fan might expect to find Natasha Allegri's work ... release art (?!) for OpenBSD 6.5 is perhaps the last I would have expected.

cpach 7y ago
I love it when software projects does whimsical artwork like this :)
- ixtli 7y ago
  It's pretty great. As someone said below: I'd buy a tshirt.
  - neilv 7y ago
    There's a funny story by Linda Branagan, of an earlier BSD T-shirt: https://www.astro.umd.edu/~avondale/extra/Humor/ComputerHumor/Daemons.html https://www.astro.umd.edu/~avondale/extra/Humor/ComputerHumo...
    - ixtli 7y ago
      This confirms a whole host of my baseless presuppositions about things. Mostly Texas.
      - neilv 7y ago
        The story is written so well, I'm not sure it's not a bit embellished. :) Anyway, there's all kinds of people, everywhere, and I don't think those two characters are representative of Texas as a whole. Texas has a lot of diversity, a lot of good work comes out of there, and people are generally decent and not like the extremes that sometimes percolate to the TV news. Also, to the extent that Texans overall might tend to have qualities like, e.g., valuing principles and individual responsibility, I think that's good input to have, in a diverse marketplace of ideas (even though it might not be quite my own current thinking). (Please pardon the straight response, on a humor tangent, but I felt a little bad when I realized I'd invoked a stereotype, and I felt I should clarify.)

rooam-dev 7y ago

Sorry for noob question, but why would one use OpenBSD instead of FreeBSD? I like latter, but also hear good things about former, although there are some limitations (e.g. no ZFS). Thank you in advance.

pimeys 7y ago
Works really well out of the box with certain laptops. Excellent man pages. A good amount of software and a good track record with security. FreeBSD is nice for a file server, OpenBSD for a laptop.
bigato 7y ago
Simplicity, correctness and security before features.
peatmoss 7y ago
Simplicity. I have a long love for FreeBSD, but the project has different aims than OpenBSD. Linux and FreeBSD are novels. OpenBSD strives to be a short poem. Linux and FreeBSD push really hard to add cutting-edge features, but OpenBSD pushes hard to see what can be removed and still retain essential functionality. OpenBSD packs a remarkable amount of functionality into a code footprint that doesn’t feel like it has grown appreciably since I first ran it in the late 90s. At the same time, this flensing process has allowed OpenBSD to move quickly on some innovations like “doas” instead of sudo. They also maintain cononical implementations of their other products like OpenSSH and were able to move quickly to their cleaned-up OpenSSL implementation LibreSSL. As for laptop support, I wouldn’t say their hardware support compares to Linux. That is, they don’t support everything. Rather, for supported laptop (and desktop!) hardware, that suppport is excellent. Put another way: that which is supported is supported very well.
chousuke 7y ago
I run OpenBSD on my router. t's very compact and simple and you don't need Google to solve problems because the base system is thoroughly documented. It has everything I need, and nothing more. OpenBSD isn't suitable for every use case because rarely used features tend to get removed instead of falling into disrepair from lack of maintenance, but when it does work, it works predictably and reliably. I was able to run OpenBSD on my desktop and have everything work flawlessly out-of-the-box, whereas with FreeBSD I encountered frequent crashes when using dual monitors. I suppose my configuration isn't something that the FreeBSD developers use, so while it "works", it doesn't work. In the end I returned to Linux because I sometimes play games using Steam and Wine, neither of which is likely to ever be supported on OpenBSD, but if OpenBSD provides everything you need, it's certainly worth trying it out.

crehn 7y ago

I know it's often mentioned, but I love the simplicity of OpenBSD. Thank you all for the great work.

arendtio 7y ago
Well, simplicity is one thing, but I was shocked to learn that it doesn't even come with the complete POSIX toolbox (e.g. out of the box awk is missing). And finding out that `ftp` also handles http and https was a bit weird too. To some extent, I like that simplicity too (especially security wise) but I wonder if they are taking it too far.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  How did you manage to get an OpenBSD install that didn't include awk?
  - arendtio 7y ago
    I downloaded install64.iso started it and entered the shell. Next, I entered 'awk' and got the response: sh: awk: not found Maybe their live cd doesn't include the whole 'base' set?
    - tedunangst 7y ago
      The installer is not a live CD. It's only enough tooling to install openbsd.
      - arendtio 7y ago
        Okay thanks, unexpected but good to know (at >340MB I would have expected a complete base system at least). Do you know if there is some up to date OpenBSD live CD somewhere?
        tedunangst 7y ago

mtron_ 7y ago

> MariaDB 10.0.38 Can anyone share some insight why OpenBSD does not provide a more recent MariaDB Version ?

sigzero 7y ago
It could be a lack of resources or they are just very conservative in upgrading.
mtron_ 7y ago
ok, found it. http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Update-MariaDB-from-10-0-33-to-10-2-10-td330155.html#a330318 http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Update-MariaDB-fro... 10.2 is a no go for us as the new client library requires atomic ops killing the client library on a handful of archs.

eb0la 7y ago

What!? They don't have OpenBSD t-shirts anymore !?!?!?!?! My old OpenBSD 2.3 tshirt (the wireframe daemon) will die soon and I need a replacement!

ixtli 7y ago
Someone should really fix this, because clearly they're connected to Natasha Allegri now who'd make a killer design.
moviuro 7y ago
https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html > [...] This artwork emblazoned CDs and posters up until version 6.0, after which we stopped producing product and only release software on the internet. See also [0]; you should be able to make your own t-shirt with official logos, and donate as usual [1,2,3] [0] https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=155439809001096&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=155439809001096&w=2 [1] https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html [2] https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2019.html https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2019.html [3] https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html
- kbenson 7y ago
  What with the artwork thumbnails for the first row of the "CD-Rom era" (6.0 - 5.2) not matching the artwork shown at the top of the linked page when you click it? Some of those look really interesting, but you get something entirely different when you try to find a larger version.

quotemstr 7y ago

Still no unified buffer cache. :-( The lack of coherence and memory reuse between mmap(2) and read(2) is my single biggest beef with OpenBSD right now. It's a great system in terms of robustness, documentation, and philosophical unification. It's a shame its kernel still thinks Ronald Reagan is president.

_wldu 7y ago
That's a feature.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Is it?
DblPlusUngood 7y ago
What coherence is lacking? OpenBSD supports msync(2), which is the only POSIX mechanism I know of for ensuring coherency between read(2) and shared file mappings. Otherwise relying on unspecified behavior sounds dangerous.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Oh, come on. Every other system in common use is fully coherent. POSIX allowing OpenBSD's behavior doesn't make that behavior a good idea or a quality implementation.
  - DblPlusUngood 7y ago
    OpenBSD's choice is arguably reasonable, given their prioritization of security, since it reduces opportunities for user programs to corrupt kernel memory. What is the problem with OpenBSD's plan for coherency? Why is the burden of explicitly calling msync(2) too much?
    - quotemstr 7y ago
      > reduces opportunities for user programs to corrupt kernel memory I don't see how it could. Kernel data structures don't go on pagecache pages. > OpenBSD's choice is arguably reasonable At a human level, the OpenBSD people have spent way too much time coming up with rationalizations for their obsolete VM design to back down now. Whether OpenBSD's VM subsystem is good or not, their pride will force them to keep claiming that it's good, practically forever.

ptidhomme 7y ago

Just to say I also love this OS, although I'm very far from a hardcore hacker. It just worked out of the box on that generic unbranded laptop I retrieved (no touchpad though). I use Xfce wich is well integrated, and the package manager is plain simple and easy. Definately better experience than my previous Linux ones. Some penalty on performance though. PS : I've put it on my Raspberry Pi too.

cpach 7y ago

The pvclock driver seems neat. https://www.mail-archive.com/tech@openbsd.org/msg49128.html https://www.mail-archive.com/tech@openbsd.org/msg49128.html Does anyone know if that driver eliminates the need for doing NTP sync in the guest VM?

JdeBP 7y ago
On Linux, for information, the systemd people aim for guest services that synchronize to the host clock to prevent the use of (S)NTP clients. * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/467632/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/467632/5132

fstephany 7y ago

This is some serious OpenBSD artwork. I would love that they reconsider the 'no product' policy. I understand the logistical nightmare of pressed CDs though...

badsectoracula 7y ago
Well, at this point it'd be pressed dual layer blu rays though, i downloaded the entire version and just the amd64 directories are around 45GB in size. I do not understand why they feel the need to associate OS versions with 3rd party packages though, why have an OpenBSD 6.5 version of -say- the 0ad game instead of an OpenBSD version of it that you say it needs at least OpenBSD 6.5 (or whatever) version to run? (same question about Linux distros in general, FWIW... i just do not see the point of packaging so much stuff for a single OS version, it is like if Windows did the same thing - ignoring licensing - Windows 10 would include Photoshop, Steam, DOOM, Visual Studio, Maya, 3ds max and pretty much every other program with a bit of popularity ever made) Well, at least a single arch version still fits on a single disk medium, last time i checked Debian needed several DL BDs (although perhaps a single BDXL disk, once they become available, will work... assuming we also ever burners for those).
- brohee 7y ago
  Packages are dependant on certain version of system librairies, and binary compatibility isn't a huge concern from version to version.
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    Hence the "needs at least" part, or does OpenBSD break backwards compatibility in every version for every package?
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      OpenBSD is particularly aggressive about breaking backward-compatibility, yes. For example: the switch to a 64-bit time_t on 32-bit systems to stay ahead of the Year 2038 problem.

dcbadacd 7y ago

Why doesn't OpenBSD do KASLR?

ixtli 7y ago
You'd be shocked to know how long after this was shown academically to be a Good Idea™ it took to get it into operating systems like Windows. The reason back then was because application programmers depended (incorrectly!) on sequential allocations so when you started randomizing things you'd break stuff. Idk if that's the case here but its been a big reason historically. I know OpenBSD doesn't prioritize new features but KASLR is a pretty significant security improvement, right?
- tedunangst 7y ago
  Application programmers should not care about the address of the kernel.
bigato 7y ago
It does KARL though: "The difference between the two is that KARL loads a different kernel binary in the same place, while KASLR loads the same binary in random locations. Same goal, different paths." https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/openbsd-will-get-unique-kernels-on-each-reboot-do-you-hear-that-linux-windows/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/openbsd-will-...
tedunangst 7y ago
The typical approach of sliding the kernel around only offers limited benefit. One leaked address and you're done. The current approach, called KARL, relinks the kernel so that while it may load at the same address, symbols internally do not have the same offset. Learning the address of printf will not reveal the address of malloc and so forth. In the context of kernel defense, I would argue this is more effective. Also, simply as a practical matter, the bootloader and kernel are tightly coupled in ways that make altering the load address a nontrivial endeavor.
- 7y ago

brobdingnagians 7y ago

Good to see another version of OpenBSD out. I love it for servers, the easy setup, solid package management, and security are first rate. The only reason I can't switch to it for desktop is that the Jetbrains IDEs have some issues due to no OpenBSD support Pty libraries, so debugging doesn't work, otherwise I'd be a full convert.

ernst_klim 7y ago

>HOWTO upgrade >Remove files no longer included in the current release of perl(1): Do they consider this a production-grade operating system or a toy one? Why couldn't it be done with a package manager?

brynet 7y ago
Because perl is part of the base system, and not a package, harmless files are typically not removed by the OpenBSD Installer. You don't have to remove those files, the upgrade guide simply indicates they're no longer required.
- ernst_klim 7y ago
  Sure, but manual upgrades with `tar'ring userspace, copying kernel and removing files seems abysmally error-prone to me.
  - eb0la 7y ago
    In the past problems could happen if your kernel ended beyond cylinder 1024 on the disk (i386 problem) You should have a disklabel with partitioning for at least /, /usr, /usr/lib, /var, and /home (with / fully behind cylinder 1024 for i386 Bios to be able to load the kernel via int13h )
  - brynet 7y ago
    You're reading the manual upgrade guide, for remote systems where you would otherwise cannot boot the ramdisk kernel to upgrade, which handles all of that for you. If you have console access to the machine, serial or glass. Things are far easier.
    - tedunangst 7y ago
      More evidence the hard way instructions should simply be deleted.
      - 7y ago

notananthem 7y ago

Haven't OpenBSD'd since high school, gonna give it a spin.

bitmadness 7y ago

I don't think it has been actually released yet... The main page is still pointing to OpenBSD 6.4, and the 6.5 page says it will be released on May 1.

Accacin 7y ago

As a long time Linux user, I keep thinking about trying a BSD variant, but I get hung up on two things. 1) Which do I pick? NetBSD? OpenBSD? 2) Hardware? I'm thinking about an old ThinkPad for programming, and it looks like OpenBSD at least should run fine on that. What's hardware support like overall?

geff82 7y ago
An Thinkpad up to the 4-Series (x240,t440,t540) can run any BSD, but after that, OpenBSD is your best bet. NetBSD (the one I learned about Unix with) has fallen a bit behind in features and hardware support, it is rarely used for production any more (makes me sad, but that is how it is). FreeBSD has a giant set of features and has the most current and largest software library, yet it does not run perfect on newer Laptops. OpenBSD ist more conservative and very pure, is used in some production environments, is actively developed but has the smallest and least up-to-date software library. So you can choose which disadvantage you can live most with. NetBSD is said to run on the largest number of platforms, but I'd argue that in practice Linux took its place long ago.
- sogubsys 7y ago
  I think there's a bit of a difference in that NetBSD project itself (kernel and userland) run on all the platforms/architectures, and Linux (the kernel) supports a lot of platforms/architectures itself, you need to find userland that matches... usually finding a distro that is well supported. NetBSD supports all architectures as part of itself as a whole, no need for distro searching. One of the cool things about BSD is that kernel and userland are bundled/tightly-coupled together as one single unit. With Linux, you need to find the appropriate distro to help you outside of the few major platforms. Apples and oranges comparison. http://netbsd.org/about/portability.html http://netbsd.org/about/portability.html
pimeys 7y ago
I just got a ThinkPad X230 with an IPS screen and an i7 CPU for 180 euros. It's the last one with a non-ULV CPU, which means it's still quite fast. And it all works perfectly, except maybe the bluetooth and fingerprint reader. With a 9-cell battery you'll get easily enough hours of usage, with apmd I'm clocking around 5-6 hours, which is fine for my use.

gfiorav 7y ago

I know this is pretty much a blanket question I could make about any distro but: Can anyone here share their "switch to BSD" story and what advantages it offered over their departing distro?

ben_bai 7y ago
https://runbsd.info/ https://runbsd.info/

reacharavindh 7y ago

I use OpenBSD as firewall appliance, router, SSH bastion, even a general purpose terminal server that takes care of a few cron automated bash scripts. For the typical workstation - being able to run Linux VMs, Docker/Containers are a blocker for me to use OpenBSD. The closest I have got to the OpenBSD experience is with Void linux. No Systemd, No frills minimal Linux. It is as safe/bloated/feature rich as you configure it to be.

jancsika 7y ago

Oh my, what is the story behind the piece of artwork in this release? The buzz around OpenBSD always led me to believe it's developed by mole people who subsist on cryptographically secure random donations of soda crackers and water. Yet here on their release page is a big beautiful image that precedes technical release desiderata. Can more projects do more beautiful artwork like this? Also, can I support OpenBSD by buying a tshirt with this artwork on it? Edit: Just noticed that the stem of the "p" in "OpenBSD" is not obscured by the underline (at least in Chrome). That, along with the italic "Open" with non-italic "BSD" is quite aesthetically pleasing. Is this due to a design whiz who got interested in BSD, or is this just HTML5 doing its thing?

naniwaduni 7y ago
> Edit: Just noticed that the stem of the "p" in "OpenBSD" is not obscured by the underline (at least in Chrome). That, along with the italic "Open" with non-italic "BSD" is quite aesthetically pleasing. Is this due to a design whiz who got interested in BSD, or is this just HTML5 doing its thing? This is just Chrome's default rendering of underlines, which occurs even with no explicit styling: data:text/html,<u>upu In my opinion, it's a cute stylistic effect which looks nice in headers &c., but feels inappropriate in running text. An odd default.

xyproto 7y ago

The list of available applications look promising! I think I would miss Sway and perhaps even Docker, though. I am impressed that OpenBSD comes with Go 1.12.

jedisct1 7y ago
OpenBSD ports are always very up to date. In snapshots, packages are frequently updated before most Linux distributions, including Arch.

Paianni 7y ago

The artwork makes me think of MIKA's 'Lollipop' mv.

3xblah 7y ago

Up until now (see rdsetroot), OpenBSD never had an equivalent to mdsetroot (NetBSD)?

brynet 7y ago
It did, it was just not installed by default, it was originally only available at build-time (as eflrdsetroot). This just promoted it to a regular base utility, and also it was rewritten using libelf(3).

oil25 7y ago

Replying from the latest -current snapshot on my desktop (AMD Ryzen 7 / B450 chipset / ECC RAM) and have nothing but good things to say about OpenBSD. As others have iterated, this operating system is extremely reliable, secure by default, very well documented, and I have not found performance to be an issue whatsoever. Definitely recommend everyone, especially Linux users, to check it out!

BasicObject 7y ago

Can anyone share if Surface Go support has improved with this release?

dhqdx 7y ago

No songs now?