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I don’t know enough about these domains to know whether there is anything intrinsic to the design of OpenBSD that makes it better or worse in this regard, but I

I don’t know enough about these domains to know whether there is anything intrinsic to the design of OpenBSD that makes it better or worse in this regard, but I suspect that if you are correct, it’s more a function of mindshare and number of people doing the work. I think some of us feel that portions of the Linux world have made some wrong or at least undesirable turns for some things. It seems the choice is to either go along with those choices or improve other paths. Also, not sure what issues you see, but there appear to be a bunch of the standard open source games in OpenBSD as you’d see in Linux. Obviously not the commercial games that have Linux ports, but that strikes me more as an issue of popularity than technical limitations.

fluffything 7y ago
> intrinsic to the design of OpenBSD Design and implementation are two different things. I can imagine an OS perfect for game programming, but I can't use it, because it's not implemented. I tried OpenBSD for 2 months, and went back to MacOSX. First, package repositories were meh (either pay, or recompile from source, or never update). Second, OpenBSD graphic driver support was just very bad - no drivers for GPGPUs. Third, lack of drivers, applications / services for interfacing with the real world and external devices. I come home, open my laptop, click on select monitor, and I see 3 monitors available in the WiFi network (two TVs, and a desktop monitor). I can just click one, and my display is mirrored in real time to them - I can play a video, and it is mirrored perfectly, and with audio. Same at work, want to show a video in the presentation room? Connect to the beamer per wifi with a single click, display mirrored, great. Phone detects wifi, laptop backs it up to network storage, synchronizes media, updates software, Smart watch synchronized, etc. None of that worked with OpenBSD. I had to find a HDMI cable in the basement to connect the laptop to the TV, monitor, beamer,... I had to use a USB cable to connect the phone to the laptop, which I then couldn't back up or synchronize without a gazillion brittle workarounds, etc. Losing support for all modern devices felt like going back to the stone age. Linux isn't really much better, but while I like OpenBSD design, philosophy, and parts of the implementation. The current implementation doesn't work for me.
- peatmoss 7y ago
  Yeah, that was my point: of course the more popular platform is going to have broader support. So the question is whether or not it’s possible to improve the less popular thing. My guess is that, with investment in time, there is nothing that prevents straightforward improvements in support in OpenBSD. Why would OpenBSD be worthy of that expenditure of effort? Because it does some other things very well—perhaps better than Linux (Unix simplicity) and macOS (fully open). Not to mention security. It sounds like you want a feature set that isn’t in OpenBSD. Fine, use macOS if those features are must-haves for you. Or, if OpenBSD’s feature set is compelling to you, start hacking! As I said elsewhere, I think it’s an easier path to make OpenBSD into what I want than it is to make macOS / Windows into what I want. As for hardware support, I selected hardware that is well supported by OpenBSD, and it works great. Is there hardware I wish was better supported? You bet. But I’ve felt that way since I started using Linux and BSDs (and OS/2 and BeOS) in the 90s.
  - fluffything 7y ago
    I encourage you to do that. In todays world of "throw-away" electronics, there are a lot of devices that I just want to "just work". By the time these are supported on OpenBSD (if I were to implement it), I'll probably be owning a different device. This is sad, because while I can select the hardware for my laptop, I can't really select the hardware and devices I need to interface with.

fluffything 7y ago

> intrinsic to the design of OpenBSD Design and implementation are two different things. I can imagine an OS perfect for game programming, but I can't use it, because it's not implemented. I tried OpenBSD for 2 months, and went back to MacOSX. First, package repositories were meh (either pay, or recompile from source, or never update). Second, OpenBSD graphic driver support was just very bad - no drivers for GPGPUs. Third, lack of drivers, applications / services for interfacing with the real world and external devices. I come home, open my laptop, click on select monitor, and I see 3 monitors available in the WiFi network (two TVs, and a desktop monitor). I can just click one, and my display is mirrored in real time to them - I can play a video, and it is mirrored perfectly, and with audio. Same at work, want to show a video in the presentation room? Connect to the beamer per wifi with a single click, display mirrored, great. Phone detects wifi, laptop backs it up to network storage, synchronizes media, updates software, Smart watch synchronized, etc. None of that worked with OpenBSD. I had to find a HDMI cable in the basement to connect the laptop to the TV, monitor, beamer,... I had to use a USB cable to connect the phone to the laptop, which I then couldn't back up or synchronize without a gazillion brittle workarounds, etc. Losing support for all modern devices felt like going back to the stone age. Linux isn't really much better, but while I like OpenBSD design, philosophy, and parts of the implementation. The current implementation doesn't work for me.

peatmoss 7y ago
Yeah, that was my point: of course the more popular platform is going to have broader support. So the question is whether or not it’s possible to improve the less popular thing. My guess is that, with investment in time, there is nothing that prevents straightforward improvements in support in OpenBSD. Why would OpenBSD be worthy of that expenditure of effort? Because it does some other things very well—perhaps better than Linux (Unix simplicity) and macOS (fully open). Not to mention security. It sounds like you want a feature set that isn’t in OpenBSD. Fine, use macOS if those features are must-haves for you. Or, if OpenBSD’s feature set is compelling to you, start hacking! As I said elsewhere, I think it’s an easier path to make OpenBSD into what I want than it is to make macOS / Windows into what I want. As for hardware support, I selected hardware that is well supported by OpenBSD, and it works great. Is there hardware I wish was better supported? You bet. But I’ve felt that way since I started using Linux and BSDs (and OS/2 and BeOS) in the 90s.
- fluffything 7y ago
  I encourage you to do that. In todays world of "throw-away" electronics, there are a lot of devices that I just want to "just work". By the time these are supported on OpenBSD (if I were to implement it), I'll probably be owning a different device. This is sad, because while I can select the hardware for my laptop, I can't really select the hardware and devices I need to interface with.