6 ms·

I have been interested in using openBSD beyond in my router. Is it usable as a daily driver?

by aborsy 6y ago

dbtc 6y ago
Yes definitely, with supported hardware. This blog was useful for me: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#multimedia https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#multimedia and https://www.openbsd.org/faq/ https://www.openbsd.org/faq/
- amself 6y ago
  I tried setting it up a few times and gave up after having to swap hard drives twice for BIOS to load (?!). Maybe I will try again after reading these. Thanks! I also ran FreeBSD for some time but I couldn't get graphics to work right on my OPTIMUS laptop.
arp242 6y ago
Depends on your usage. The biggest problem for me is the lack of Widevine and inability to play DRM media. There are also some other things that aren't easily available such as Docker or Vagrant; I don't really use these things myself, but sometimes it's handy to be able to run them for various reasons from time to time (for example I've seen projects where the test suite assumes Docker availability, and replicating that outside of Docker for just one patch isn't really a good time investment: easier to just run Docker).
fogihujy 6y ago
It's quite doable, but it does have a tendency to require more tinkering than your average Linux desktop, and it does set some specific requirements in regards to hardware. If you have some spare time and a spare laptop, I say go for it.
- fluffything 6y ago
  Can you do screen sharing ?
  - aruggirello 6y ago
    I don't know if Teamviewer or Anydesk support *BSD, but you can always use xpra - though they say "All BSD variants should work, but are not regularly tested." so you might find a couple hiccups maybe. I've found xpra --shadow to be almost on par with Anydesk on Linux - even passing through an ssh proxy. But obviously that might depend on GPU encoding which might not always be available on BSD.
    - fluffything 6y ago
      I meant screen sharing on Teams, webex, zoom, etc
- ptidhomme 6y ago
  I disagree about the tinkering, I've found it very straightforward to get a decent desktop experience. The only drawback is that it's perceptibly slower than Linux.
  - fogihujy 6y ago
    Your mileage may vary, depending on what you compare with. It's definitely not hard, but setting up OpenBSD does require more work compared to setting up something like Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
lmm 6y ago
On a desktop it works-ish. Last time I looked there wasn't much in the way of accelerated graphics drivers, so multimedia use wasn't very practical.
mrweasel 6y ago
That very much depends on what you do. All the basics is not an issue, web browsing, email and so on is perfectly fine. All of the development tools I need are in the ports tree, but it may depend on the languages you want. There's currently no .Net port for instance. If you want to do 3D animation or AI related work, then you're going to have a bad time. I found OpenBSD to be a slower than Linux, but on modern hardware, that might not be as much of an issue as on my crappy old laptop.
- morganvachon 6y ago
  > I found OpenBSD to be a slower than Linux, but on modern hardware, that might not be as much of an issue as on my crappy old laptop. In my experience over the years, this is a bit of a reverse bell curve. For very very old hardware (Pentium III era and first/second gen Intel Atom machines) OpenBSD is actually faster than Linux. I currently have a Atom N450 based netbook and OpenBSD is the only OS that is usable on it, even including its originally shipped Windows 7. Anything from the early Core2 days up through the second and third generation Core i-series (Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge) tends to run much slower in OpenBSD vs Linux. After that, the curve swings upward again; I've noticed practically no difference in day to day tasks between the two OSes on modern (Skylake+ and AMD Ryzen) hardware, to the point that running Xfce on both OSes on a Ryzen 5 3600 based system were pretty much indistinguishable. Of course there are obvious outliers; some tasks are heavily driver dependent and OpenBSD's drivers always lag behind Linux and Windows as there is no commercial interest in OpenBSD as a major OS.

I have been interested in using openBSD beyond in my router. Is it usable as a daily driver?

by aborsy 6y ago

I have been interested in using openBSD beyond in my router. Is it usable as a daily driver?

dbtc 6y ago

Yes definitely, with supported hardware. This blog was useful for me: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#multimedia https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#multimedia and https://www.openbsd.org/faq/ https://www.openbsd.org/faq/

amself 6y ago
I tried setting it up a few times and gave up after having to swap hard drives twice for BIOS to load (?!). Maybe I will try again after reading these. Thanks! I also ran FreeBSD for some time but I couldn't get graphics to work right on my OPTIMUS laptop.

arp242 6y ago

Depends on your usage. The biggest problem for me is the lack of Widevine and inability to play DRM media. There are also some other things that aren't easily available such as Docker or Vagrant; I don't really use these things myself, but sometimes it's handy to be able to run them for various reasons from time to time (for example I've seen projects where the test suite assumes Docker availability, and replicating that outside of Docker for just one patch isn't really a good time investment: easier to just run Docker).

fogihujy 6y ago

It's quite doable, but it does have a tendency to require more tinkering than your average Linux desktop, and it does set some specific requirements in regards to hardware. If you have some spare time and a spare laptop, I say go for it.

fluffything 6y ago
Can you do screen sharing ?
- aruggirello 6y ago
  I don't know if Teamviewer or Anydesk support *BSD, but you can always use xpra - though they say "All BSD variants should work, but are not regularly tested." so you might find a couple hiccups maybe. I've found xpra --shadow to be almost on par with Anydesk on Linux - even passing through an ssh proxy. But obviously that might depend on GPU encoding which might not always be available on BSD.
  - fluffything 6y ago
    I meant screen sharing on Teams, webex, zoom, etc
ptidhomme 6y ago
I disagree about the tinkering, I've found it very straightforward to get a decent desktop experience. The only drawback is that it's perceptibly slower than Linux.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  Your mileage may vary, depending on what you compare with. It's definitely not hard, but setting up OpenBSD does require more work compared to setting up something like Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

lmm 6y ago

On a desktop it works-ish. Last time I looked there wasn't much in the way of accelerated graphics drivers, so multimedia use wasn't very practical.

mrweasel 6y ago

That very much depends on what you do. All the basics is not an issue, web browsing, email and so on is perfectly fine. All of the development tools I need are in the ports tree, but it may depend on the languages you want. There's currently no .Net port for instance. If you want to do 3D animation or AI related work, then you're going to have a bad time. I found OpenBSD to be a slower than Linux, but on modern hardware, that might not be as much of an issue as on my crappy old laptop.

morganvachon 6y ago
> I found OpenBSD to be a slower than Linux, but on modern hardware, that might not be as much of an issue as on my crappy old laptop. In my experience over the years, this is a bit of a reverse bell curve. For very very old hardware (Pentium III era and first/second gen Intel Atom machines) OpenBSD is actually faster than Linux. I currently have a Atom N450 based netbook and OpenBSD is the only OS that is usable on it, even including its originally shipped Windows 7. Anything from the early Core2 days up through the second and third generation Core i-series (Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge) tends to run much slower in OpenBSD vs Linux. After that, the curve swings upward again; I've noticed practically no difference in day to day tasks between the two OSes on modern (Skylake+ and AMD Ryzen) hardware, to the point that running Xfce on both OSes on a Ryzen 5 3600 based system were pretty much indistinguishable. Of course there are obvious outliers; some tasks are heavily driver dependent and OpenBSD's drivers always lag behind Linux and Windows as there is no commercial interest in OpenBSD as a major OS.