20 ms·

OpenBSD 7.0

345 points by nix23 5y ago

nanna 5y ago
Any BSD fans out there wish to persuade a happy Debian desktop user to take a BSD for a spin?
- drewpc 5y ago
  Be curious; learn it. Figure out pros/cons for yourself. You'll have more breadth of knowledge, more depth in specific areas, and will likely make better architecture choices in the future because of it.
- nix23 5y ago
  No why? If your happy an you know it, clap your hands. But if you want to try out something else, clap your hand and start installing, why? https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/ https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/
- Koshkin 5y ago
  Coherency, security, stability, ZFS... Perfect on a server (e.g. a VPS), may not be as good as a desktop or as something to run on a laptop (depending on hardware).
  - pastrami_panda 5y ago
    > Coherency What does this refer to in this context?
    - tbrock 5y ago
      Things are where you’d expect, patterns and conventions cary on throughout the system, etc… Vs the disjoint feeling linux has.
      - JoshTriplett 5y ago
        Part of the job of a Linux distribution is to provide policy, conventions, and similar consistency. If you install everything from sources directly, or directly from upstream vendors, you may get inconsistencies, but if you install everything from your Linux distribution, you should get reasonable consistency, just as if you install everything from your BSD distribution.
        agumonkey 5y ago
        even in a distro, you'll get various syntax variations for instance
        JoshTriplett 5y ago
        Syntax of what?
        agumonkey 5y ago
        cli programs, they all have different ways to handle arguments, options, help ps: another instance, albeit not a BSD strength either, would be data format, every output is different, I, like a few people too wanted some json as pivot representation to cut the thousands of papercuts, that kind of uniformity is what I expect from "system"
        evh 5y ago
        Lots (just some? most? I haven't really used it much) of FreeBSD system utilities are using libxo for output, so you can use e.g. ps --libxo json and get json output, or xml/html
        agumonkey 5y ago
        I didn't know bsd already adopted it, only heard a few passing mentions. That's great, though, and note that I mostly meant that about linux.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    > ZFS NB: Not on OpenBSD.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    > Coherency, security, stability, ZFS... My only sort of complaint in regards to FreeBSD is actually ZFS. Not that it's not fantastic, or that it shouldn't be there. ZFS does however clearly comes from Solaris, and there have been no effort to make the ZFS command line tools feel more BSD like. Changing the tooling around ZFS probably isn't a great idea, but coherency has clearly taken a backseat to features in this case.
    - gtirloni 5y ago
      It's coherent with the other ZFS implementations in Linux and Solaris.
      - nrr 5y ago
        Likewise, apropos storage systems that handle logical volume management, Linux's LVM tools are extremely reminiscent of those from HP-UX[0], and NetBSD's LVM guide explicitly calls out their tooling being built from Linux's lvm2tools[1]. There's a modest amount of precedent for this kind of thing. 0: lvcreate(1M) from HP-UX 11i https://nixdoc.net/man-pages/HP-UX/man1/lvcreate.1m.html https://nixdoc.net/man-pages/HP-UX/man1/lvcreate.1m.html 1: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-lvm.html http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-lvm.html
    - MisterTea 5y ago
      > Changing the tooling around ZFS probably isn't a great idea, but coherency has clearly taken a backseat to features in this case. Right, because ZFS is a foreign piece of software that runs on other operating systems. At that point you are better off keeping those tools coherent with other ZFS implementations. This is a good compromise.
- yung_steezy 5y ago
  I would recommend FreeBSD if you were going to try one of them. The BSD experience a bit like using linux was like 15 years ago. Online DRM for sites like Netflix will not work for example. Specifically in the case of FreeBSD the filesystem is well curated and cohesive, if you feel a file ought to be in a certain location it is usually there. Additionally the manpages and docs are a joy to read. I'm less familiar with OpenBSD but it is similar in terms of prioritising being a cohesive operating system and docs. Some design choices the team have made for reasons such as security make the system feel sluggish by modern standards, even compared to other BSDs. You might get a lot of mileage out of it if you enjoy old school C programming and reading the source code for coreutils libraries.
  - ToddWBurgess 5y ago
    I got FreeBSD running on a Raspberry PI. It isn't too hard to install and get up and running. I primarily use FreeBSD on the Pi for ARM assembly programming. All BSDs are great for devs.
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      ooc why didn't you try NetBSD? Isn't running on every little device kinda their wheelhouse?
      - ToddWBurgess 5y ago
        I did try NetBSD first on the Pi but the install wasn't working for me. Getting FreeBSD up and running on the Raspberry Pi was a lot less painful. If I really want to kick around NetBSD I can run an instance of it in GNU Boxes on one of my Linux boxes.
  - deltarholamda 5y ago
    >prioritising being a cohesive operating system and docs This is one of the areas where OpenBSD really shines. Their documentation is really good. FreeBSD is also quite good, but I've been consistently impressed with OpenBSD's docs since 2.5. Linux distros can't reach the same level of quality due to being less cohesive at the base, though they do make up for it with quantity. You can search for most Linux issues and find an answer.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  I love OpenBSD because it is as close to "just works" as it gets in an ideal world. I love using it for my personal website because it is very easy to get a proper overview over the OS as a whole and because it comes with some of my favourite pieces of software and all I need for a personal website is part of the system: httpd, pf etc. Also OpenBSD has some of the best docs out there, I rarely need to websearch anything. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world, so I rarely get to spin up OpenBSD outside of that due to a number of reasons like a lack of filesystems for interoperability (USB media) and firmware drivers (got to be specific in the hardware you buy for it).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- m4r35n357 5y ago
  I use Debian and love OpenBSD.
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    This has a rather deep philosophical basis.
  - hda111 5y ago
    Savaged by systemd
- waynesonfire 5y ago
  Im a life long linux user and decided to use FreeBSD as a platform for my most recent hobby project. It was surpising how enlightening it was to use a different tool. It does somethings the same way, somethings different, what was most pleasant was discovering the things it did better. I don't think you can read about it, really worth experiencing this.
- gigatexal 5y ago
  This link is for OpenBSD but I have the most experience with FreeBSD. Reasons to try out a BSD, even FreeBSD: 1. ZFS -- by far and away the best filesystem there is. (A hella partisan take but try it out and you'll likely fall in love like the rest of us did) 2. The handbook. The handbook is gold. It's up there with some of the best documentation available. 3. Less fragmentation. The BSDs have 3 main derivatives: NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD. (There are others but these are the main) 4. If you like LXD then you'll love Jails. 5. The BSD license. (If being the most free means something to you. I kind of like it but maybe this isn't a selling point.) 6. Can be rolling or used in an LTS fashion. It's rather easy to track -current all the time or just stick with a stable release and do periodic binary package updates.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- yrui 5y ago
  I've been running OpenBSD more than 15 years, and it does have a learning curve. One area to consider as a happy Debian desktop user is using OpenBSD as a router OS. PC Engines (I have no affiliation to them) makes a very nice router called "Alix" and OpenBSD works well on it. Previously, people were installing it on Soekris routers before they went out of business. OpenBSD's firewall pf is by far my favorite, and it and OpenBSD have a lot of nice networking features and tools to tinker with. It's free of blobs (in the default install), free of known bugs (in the default install--but generally your router will work well with only the default install), and configured to be reasonably secure by default. The documentation is also frequently praised. How many other modern, full-fledged, well-maintained and open code OSes run in 32 Mb of RAM?
  - thijsvandien 5y ago
    ALIX is EOL. Nowadays you'll want to use their APU (excellent too).
- upofadown 5y ago
  I don't care that much about the security claims but I have to acknowledge that they are probably true to some extent. I value OpenBSD most for its minimalism. The OpenBSD project seems to have managed to avoid the feature bloat that other systems are now suffering from. You have to learn it, but there is not a lot there to learn. Once you figure out how to set it up then the audio just works. That is a killer feature compared to the situation I had to deal with when I was doing Debian on the desktop.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  You’re obviously curious and want to try it, or you wouldn’t have posted that, so why not go for it? You have nothing to lose. For me the coolest thing about OpenBSD is it’s the simplest OS that is still of practical use (i.e., not counting ones that are purely for research or education). So if you’re curious about how any part of the system works, it’s easy to just dive into /usr/src and figure it out. It’s also entirely configured via simple text files rather than some opaque systemd monstrosity.
  - tazjin 5y ago
    systemd is configured via simple text files
    - School-Cotton 5y ago
      What simple text file is, for example, the list of WiFi SSIDs to try to connect to stored in?
      - nix23 5y ago
        /etc/systemd/network/25-wireless.network https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-networkd#network_files https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-networkd#network_fi... But simple i would not call it...compared to bsd ;)
        enriquto 5y ago
        This file does not exist on my rather plain ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I tried finding similarly named files, to no avail. Knowing the notorious ADHD of the systemd developership, I wouldn't be surprised if this file is moved, renamed, and uses a different format every six months.
        nix23 5y ago
        /lib/systemd/network http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/systemd.network.5.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/systemd.netwo... or find / -name '*.network' But yeah, BSD's would have them at one place -> /etc ...linux-distro standardization is a terrible mess.
- yabones 5y ago
  Linux systems are made by dozens of disparate teams, and it shows. Every command has a different syntax - just think about how "help" could be -h, --help, -help, -? etc BSDs are very tightly integrated. The entire OS is very consistent and 'correct', down to the tiny and pedantic details like putting things under /usr that are usually installed in /bin, because that's the way it's supposed to be. (Ex. `/usr/local/bin/bash`) Think of it like reading Wikipedia, no matter which page you read it seems like it was written by the same person. That's the kind of consistency that OpenBSD intends to create.
  - adamrt 5y ago
    Just to clarify, Bash is installed under /usr/local because it’s from packages and not part of the base system. The base shell, ksh, is at /bin/ksh. You probably know that but I just felt like being pedantic this morning :).
    - chasil 5y ago
      ...and that ksh descended from pdksh, and is distributed as the oksh portable project here: https://github.com/ibara/oksh https://github.com/ibara/oksh The MirBSD Korn Shell also descended from pdksh, and it can be found here: http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm I don't know about the feature differences and code quality between these two; they both implement most of ksh88, and a small amount of ksh93. I prefer mksh when I need something more than a POSIX shell.
    - yabones 5y ago
      Yes, absolutely true. The idea is that `ksh` is good enough, and the extra features of bash are extraneous or unnecessary, making it an add-on rather than a core feature. It's an interesting idea, and while I feel bash is absolutely 'good enough' to be part of the base system, I wouldn't want zsh or fish part of my base system - so it's then a matter of opinion whose shell is bloat and whose is essential. So I respect their decision to not include bash in the base image - it's meant to be uncompromisingly lean and simple.
      - 5y ago
- tharne 5y ago
  I used open BSD for a little while. It's very simple, clean, and elegantly designed. If you're looking to learn more about Unix, then you'll have a lot of fun with OpenBSD. If you want to use it as a daily driver, you're probably going to run into some headaches. That being said, if you're willing to put in some time, learn a little bit and forgo some software here and there, you certainly *could* use OpenBSD as a daily driver. One really cool thing about OpenBSD is that the OpenBSD devs use the OS as their daily driver. You'll likely keep hearing about how good the OpenBSD man pages are. I always thought this was a weird thing to mention and make a big deal about. But holy crap, the OpenBSD documentation is amazing. Reading it has definitely made my own documentation at work significantly better. The downside? There are a couple. The biggest two are that, 1) you're not going to find a lot of the software you might normally use; and 2) The performance is not great and battery life is not very good.
  - 35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
    > If you want to use it as a daily driver, you're probably going to run into some headaches This all depends on the hardware you bring to the table. A random Acer laptop with a questionable ACPI table is probably going to have problems, but a previous-gen Thinkpad X1 should be great because that's what the devs use. > you're not going to find a lot of the software you might normally use This really depends on your use cases – I can do most of the development I want on my OpenBSD laptop. But there are some gaps, absolutely. > The performance is not great and battery life is not very good. Harder to argue this one. It's getting better release by release, though :)
- fbhabbed 5y ago
  Definitely try it in a VM first or at least image your Debian drive before going at it. You are going to miss your perfectly working Debian install
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I recently built my latest server in FreeBSD just to get some hard experience with it... ...and I love it! Documentation is generally excellent, readable, and centralized. There are only a dozen or two processes running on a fresh system without much of anything installed, and idle CPU usage is the zeroyist zero I've ever seen for a server OS. The directory structure in `man hier` is actually used, and it feels like the surface area of what I have to learn to be proficient is sooooooooooo much smaller. It's not perfect (home and end keys don't work consistently) but definitely a breath of fresh air. Plus, many programs (ezjail, for example) integrate tightly with ZFS, which is also awesome. I know linux finally got quality ZFS support but BSD (along with solaris) are OG Plus, now I am learning a great deal about how MacOS is built. Funny enough, I have a DJ controller (Pioneer XDJ-XZ) that uses BSD for its operating system. So it seems to be a great embedded audio OS as well!
- UI_at_80x24 5y ago
  Easy: text log files, text config files, no systemd.
- puffyn 5y ago
  I can only comment on OpenBSD. It’s a minimal unix system. I like the minimalism. OpenBSD is mainly a router/server/firewall system but you can use OpenBSD on a desktop. If your hardware is supported everything works out of the box. Firefox/Chromium have pledge/unveil security which prevent them from accessing your file system. Something like apparmor but works put of the box. However it’s not designed as a desktop system (installing a browser introduces many security risks). They have some additional security features like encrypted swap and others. In terms of security, the OpenBSD kernel is a lot smaller than the linux kernel. Can’t have holes in code that doesn’t exist. All together it’s just a minimal small unix system. If you want to use it on the desktop, you can use it for basic surfing or 90s video games. I’m using it for fun mainly. There is no jails / docker / virtualbox so I don’t use it for coding. OpenBSD isn’t really a desktop OS, desktop users typically use FreeBSD because there are many more packages. FreeBSD is a completely different OS.
  - anthk 5y ago
    >If you want to use it on the desktop, you can use it for basic surfing or 90s video games Why? You have PPSSPP, Dolphin, maybe some current-gen emulators, and lots of sourc ports. And fnaify for Mono games. https://playonbsd.com/shopping_guide/ https://playonbsd.com/shopping_guide/
  - amatecha 5y ago
    There is virtualization with vmm: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html
  - snvzz 5y ago
    >basic surfing With recent versions of chrome/firefox and 3d acceleration on amd/intel graphics, you're not limited to "basic surfing". The only reason I can think of that you would say that is that perhaps you do e.g. have an NVIDIA card (why...) and thus you're stuck with no accelerated graphics.
  - lcall 5y ago
    After learning some things (see my umask comment etc, elsewhere here on this page, and my way around the FAQs etc), I have found it very useful for my desktop and am happy with it. Even before I learned things like tmux and fvwm, xfce etc worked nicely. (Having said that, my needs might be atypical.) Edit/ps: last I knew, it had something like 10_000 binary packages available, in addition to the base system.
- eacafdcbac 5y ago
  Playing with OpenBSD will be a learning experience. For me, that's usually enough to install something on a non-daily driver machine. Are you a software engineer or CS student? If so, I'd say that OpenBSD really shines in code simplicity, clarity, and consistency. This is also a matter of taste. What drew me in initially was the quality and consistency of the kernel source code, consistent high standards in documentation, and the design of system interfaces and libraries. I like being able to answer my own questions and I find that easier in OpenBSD than in Linux. Sometimes I sit for hours and simply flip back and forth between documentation and code exploring how things work. I feel that this level of consistency and availability of information within the system feed creative urges on my part. I like to write code and I feel like I have an easier time doing that in OpenBSD than Linux (again, a matter of tastes.) This is in large part because my workflow tends to happen at the terminal. I would be surprised to find that VSCode, Slack, Discord, and other electron-y applications can be made to work in OpenBSD at all... maybe they do, but I've never felt the need to try, so if they don't I'm fine with that. I think OpenBSD is well adapted to a specific kind of user and a specific kind of problems. If you're paranoid, or a developer, or just like the terminal window, or prefer design consistency over broad compatibility and feature variety, you might find that you really enjoy using OpenBSD. By all means, give it a spin if for no other reason than to learn about a thing that's out there that a bunch of people enjoy. If OpenBSD is not for you, that's okay too. I don't think that the user base, developers, or community have ever been looking run campaigns aimed at growing the popularity of the system. For me that's a good thing, the developers seem less prone to chasing the next thing that will expand their share in a market, and are more focused on making a thing they want to use - which translates well for me. YMMV.
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ptidhomme 5y ago
Not yet as it seems.
- nix23 5y ago
  Released Oct 14, 2021. (51st OpenBSD release) https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.0/amd64/ https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.0/amd64/
  - ptidhomme 5y ago
    I'm well aware, but still not official (no artwork released for example)
    - nix23 5y ago
      But the "Style Hymn" :) https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#70 https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#70 But hey, if the Artwork is the release point for you, that's fine with me ;)
      - zephyr9 5y ago
        Also the homepage is a bit of a giveaway: > The current release is OpenBSD 6.9, released May 1, 2021.
        nix23 5y ago
        Press the Download button and be amazed ;) But no release for you, until homepage is.
- zephyr9 5y ago
  Exactly, everyone knows it's not official until the artwork is out.
  - nix23 5y ago
    The song is the important stuff, if there is no song you should jump that release.
jmclnx 5y ago
Just see this: https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html But if your video is Nvidia, you are out of luck until they open their drivers.
- xvilka 5y ago
  Everyone is out of luck until NVIDIA open their drivers. I am sure their proprietary ones are complete garbage, for compatibility and application-specific tweaks. I wish more open source systems and progress tell them the same thing that Linus did.
- ksec 5y ago
  From https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html >Be as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit. Someone has the wisdom to put this in nearly 20 years ago.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    OpenBSD split from NetBSD years ago for political reasons. So it isn't a surprise that 20 years ago politics and the issues thereof were high on everyone's mind.
    - ksec 5y ago
      >OpenBSD split from NetBSD years ago for political reasons. I was naive in thinking it was always about the focus on priorities, as in Security vs NetBSD's portability. So I decided to read up on it [1]. Since Wiki seems to be purposely quiet / unclear on the incident. Turns out Open Source Politics isn't that much different 25 years later. [1] https://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html https://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html
      - zokula 5y ago
        That would assume that OpenBSD is secure the first place.
user3939382 5y ago
My main use for OpenBSD is as a firewall/router, and they frequently make breaking changes to the pf rule syntax so I had to abandon it. Last breaking change when I checked was July, but it's been going on for many years. If you have one firewall no big deal, but if you set them up for customers all over the place it's a nightmare. They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here.
- binkHN 5y ago
  Frequently is very subjective. Sometimes you have to make way for progress. I’ve been using pf since 3.0 and the syntax changes have been minimal and, I’d say, always for the better and to make a drastic improvement.
- nix23 5y ago
  >They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here Yeah NO. OpenBSD is the opposite of backward compatibility by design. You should have known that before installing at your customers site en masse. That's probably one point why PFsense is based on freebsd and OPNsense on hardenedbsd.
  - noja 5y ago
    ^^ The wording of this response represents exactly why many people don't choose OpenBSD.
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      Honestly that is a compliment. When it comes to evaluating tech, the best statements are those where you can walk away knowing very clearly that yes, this meets my needs, or no this absolutely does not meet my needs.
    - nix23 5y ago
      Let that not hear Linus and his wording.
    - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
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brynet 5y ago
Link to announcement: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=163422237101753&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=163422237101753&w=2
- deleted 5y ago
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xbar 5y ago
OpenBSD WireGuard VPN servers make me happy.
mirekrusin 5y ago
I'd love to try but I'm experiencing hardcore option paralysis every time I start thinking about it. FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD – _that_ is the question. Wait, maybe DragonFly actually? illumos? ...wait, I mean OpenIndiana, I think... wait, what's OmniOS? Is Darwin a thing, like I could just have BSD and macOS for free or something?
- chousuke 5y ago
  I recommend giving OpenBSD a try over the others. It's just... a clean OS, and the base system is extremely well documented; to the point that I think it's the only OS you can learn inside out without ever using Google. OpenBSD might not be the best choice for any given use, but it's so remarkably consistent and understandable that I think everyone interested in alternative OSes should try it out at least once.
  - kazen44 5y ago
    OpenBSD has been the OS with the lowest amount of maintenance in my opinion. used it as a webserver and VPN appliance for a couple of years now. only thing in terms of maintenance is the following when a new release is released. pkg_add -u ( i usually update extra packages every 6 months, which is mainly lets encrypt). syspatch sysupgrade reboot: after reboot sysmerge to see if i need to do a config diff. Has been rocksolid and very future rich in base aswell.
    - snvzz 5y ago
      While sysupgrade is convenient, there's usually some manual steps. Always read the upgrade guide before upgrading.
      - wahern 5y ago
        For the OpenBSD curious: This release only includes changes related to SNMP, which I imagine are irrelevant to most people, though probably exciting for a subset of OpenBSD users. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade70.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade70.html The upgrade guide for 6.9 gives a better flavor for how OpenBSD handles and documents subsystem and configuration changes: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade69.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade69.html Notice how succinct and consistent (across decades!) are the upgrade guides. The above have the same basic format and content as this one from 2004: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade35.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade35.html I've been doing remote upgrades of OpenBSD and Linux (mostly Debian, but also occasionally Red Hat derivatives) for over 20 years. While I've fortunately only rarely encountered significant problems with any of them, OpenBSD upgrades are the only ones where I can have any confidence in understanding and tracking how the system evolves across upgrades. Follow the upgrade guide and delete outdated files (much easier since sysclean(8)), and a 10-year-old OpenBSD box can have a filesystem as pristine as a freshly installed system. I'm not one of those people who wants pristine for the sake of pristine. But pristine is important when you care about security, and maintenance burden is a huge component of security, as are simplicity and transparency.
fithisux 5y ago
With a port of Dlang :-)
- Koshkin 5y ago
  But no Rust, it seems. (Wouldn't it be nice if the most secure OS was (re)written in the safest language available today?)
  - gnubison 5y ago
    The OpenBSD people value both security and simplicity — I doubt that they would adopt Rust system-wide.
  - ayushnix 5y ago
    IIRC, Theo was (is?) against using rust because rust hasn't seen real world usage and coreutils hasn't been written in rust (according to him). When someone pointed out how there's RedoxOS and uutils, coreutils written in rust, he went on to question their POSIX compliance and whether memory safety was really a thing. So yeah, I doubt rust is ever coming to OpenBSD. I'm also skeptical about the level of adoption rust will see in the Linux kernel. People are usually resistant to change (sometimes for good reasons). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er44ur7wkXQ&t=2107 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er44ur7wkXQ&t=2107
Panino 5y ago
Since timeout(1) was imported I can pkg_delete coreutils, nice. Lots of other goodies too.
- e12e 5y ago
  Where/how do you use it? The description is pretty straightforward: https://man.openbsd.org/timeout.1 https://man.openbsd.org/timeout.1 But it's not something I'd miss - unless it's used in some scripts I'm unaware of..
gigatexal 5y ago
Super impressed with all the work going on in BSD to support and make it work on M1 macs. I can’t believe this is free. Glad I support the BSDs with the pittance every month that I can but wow amazing work.
GordonS 5y ago
I used to use CentOS for all my Linux servers, but that's no longer an option of course. I've been using Vmware PhotonOS for Docker host VMs, and I'm pretty happy with it. For everything else though... I'm thinking Ubuntu, but I'm not sure. Might a *BSD be a good option? Does it have any real advantages over Linux? Or any drawbacks for that matter?
- jadbox 5y ago
  "that's no longer an option of course." why?
  - GordonS 5y ago
    On account of CentOS, in "standard" Linux form, being dead. I don't want to run CentOS Stream.
    - hnarn 5y ago
      So run Rocky or Alma? They're both binary compatible versions of RHEL8. If you're already used to the Enterprise Linux ecosystem, there's no point in switching away from it entirely just because of CentOS stream, unless you're just interested in trying something new.
- dralley 5y ago
  CentOS Stream is a perfectly fine option and the practical differences from classic CentOS are insignificant for most users, especially people who are just running a homelab. But if it makes you uncomfortable there's always Rocky or Alma Linux.
- chasil 5y ago
  Major drawbacks are closed-source applications intended for RedHat. These might work with some kind of binary emulation, but the vendor will never support it. My focus would be database. Microsoft's binary ODBC libraries and Oracle Instant Client are Linux binaries. FreeTDS and Oracle SQLcl/JDBC are options on a BSD, but there are drawbacks, as there likely would be with any binary packages. I know that both RedHat and Oracle will migrate an installed CentOS to their platforms (RedHat does it more violently, by replacing every installed package). Alma & Rocky might also be migration options.
GordonS 5y ago
What init system do the *BSDs use? Is systemd an option?
- chasil 5y ago
  *YES*, systemd is an option. It is not the default. https://lobste.rs/s/jx3cr6/initware_systemd_fork_runs_on_openbsd_for https://lobste.rs/s/jx3cr6/initware_systemd_fork_runs_on_ope...
  - hnarn 5y ago
    I'm the first to admit that I'm ignorant of the facts here, but seeing that a systemd fork ran on OpenBSD for the first time two months ago does not give me confidence that it's "an option" in the sense that you can trust it to work well. And to be pedantic (this is an OpenBSD thread, after all), it's not "systemd", it's a fork of systemd called "InitWare", and the GitHub repo describes it as "alpha software". Someone also pointed out in the discussion you linked that it doesn't seem to include journald. Here's a relevant PR: https://github.com/InitWare/InitWare/pull/27 https://github.com/InitWare/InitWare/pull/27
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      Pretty much this. SystemD was inspired by LaunchD on MacOS and was written as a clean room implementation of something in the spirit of LaunchD. InitWare is essentially an init system inspired by SystemD.
- branzo 5y ago
  definitely not.
- snvzz 5y ago
  systemd doesn't support anything but Linux, as it is designed around Linux-specific APIs.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  They all borrow one from Slackware Linux.
NexRebular 5y ago
Time to upgrade the T-series SPARCs. Nice to have a free modern OS to keep that amazing hardware still in usable state.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
Can anyone comment on how hardware support is these days? The last BSD I tried (4.4) wasn't that great with my laptop at the time
jzer0cool 5y ago
For learning I used FreeBSD at my university to do some work with the kernel. I would be interested to hear more about someone's experience if having used all three, Ubuntu, OpenBSD, FreeBSD. 1) For VM Desktop Usage on a laptop 2) Server only.

OpenBSD 7.0

345 points by nix23 5y ago

nanna 5y ago

Any BSD fans out there wish to persuade a happy Debian desktop user to take a BSD for a spin?

drewpc 5y ago
Be curious; learn it. Figure out pros/cons for yourself. You'll have more breadth of knowledge, more depth in specific areas, and will likely make better architecture choices in the future because of it.
nix23 5y ago
No why? If your happy an you know it, clap your hands. But if you want to try out something else, clap your hand and start installing, why? https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/ https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/
Koshkin 5y ago
Coherency, security, stability, ZFS... Perfect on a server (e.g. a VPS), may not be as good as a desktop or as something to run on a laptop (depending on hardware).
- pastrami_panda 5y ago
  > Coherency What does this refer to in this context?
  - tbrock 5y ago
    Things are where you’d expect, patterns and conventions cary on throughout the system, etc… Vs the disjoint feeling linux has.
    - JoshTriplett 5y ago
      Part of the job of a Linux distribution is to provide policy, conventions, and similar consistency. If you install everything from sources directly, or directly from upstream vendors, you may get inconsistencies, but if you install everything from your Linux distribution, you should get reasonable consistency, just as if you install everything from your BSD distribution.
      - agumonkey 5y ago
        even in a distro, you'll get various syntax variations for instance
        JoshTriplett 5y ago
        Syntax of what?
        agumonkey 5y ago
        cli programs, they all have different ways to handle arguments, options, help ps: another instance, albeit not a BSD strength either, would be data format, every output is different, I, like a few people too wanted some json as pivot representation to cut the thousands of papercuts, that kind of uniformity is what I expect from "system"
        evh 5y ago
        Lots (just some? most? I haven't really used it much) of FreeBSD system utilities are using libxo for output, so you can use e.g. ps --libxo json and get json output, or xml/html
        agumonkey 5y ago
        I didn't know bsd already adopted it, only heard a few passing mentions. That's great, though, and note that I mostly meant that about linux.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  > ZFS NB: Not on OpenBSD.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  > Coherency, security, stability, ZFS... My only sort of complaint in regards to FreeBSD is actually ZFS. Not that it's not fantastic, or that it shouldn't be there. ZFS does however clearly comes from Solaris, and there have been no effort to make the ZFS command line tools feel more BSD like. Changing the tooling around ZFS probably isn't a great idea, but coherency has clearly taken a backseat to features in this case.
  - gtirloni 5y ago
    It's coherent with the other ZFS implementations in Linux and Solaris.
    - nrr 5y ago
      Likewise, apropos storage systems that handle logical volume management, Linux's LVM tools are extremely reminiscent of those from HP-UX[0], and NetBSD's LVM guide explicitly calls out their tooling being built from Linux's lvm2tools[1]. There's a modest amount of precedent for this kind of thing. 0: lvcreate(1M) from HP-UX 11i https://nixdoc.net/man-pages/HP-UX/man1/lvcreate.1m.html https://nixdoc.net/man-pages/HP-UX/man1/lvcreate.1m.html 1: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-lvm.html http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-lvm.html
  - MisterTea 5y ago
    > Changing the tooling around ZFS probably isn't a great idea, but coherency has clearly taken a backseat to features in this case. Right, because ZFS is a foreign piece of software that runs on other operating systems. At that point you are better off keeping those tools coherent with other ZFS implementations. This is a good compromise.
yung_steezy 5y ago
I would recommend FreeBSD if you were going to try one of them. The BSD experience a bit like using linux was like 15 years ago. Online DRM for sites like Netflix will not work for example. Specifically in the case of FreeBSD the filesystem is well curated and cohesive, if you feel a file ought to be in a certain location it is usually there. Additionally the manpages and docs are a joy to read. I'm less familiar with OpenBSD but it is similar in terms of prioritising being a cohesive operating system and docs. Some design choices the team have made for reasons such as security make the system feel sluggish by modern standards, even compared to other BSDs. You might get a lot of mileage out of it if you enjoy old school C programming and reading the source code for coreutils libraries.
- ToddWBurgess 5y ago
  I got FreeBSD running on a Raspberry PI. It isn't too hard to install and get up and running. I primarily use FreeBSD on the Pi for ARM assembly programming. All BSDs are great for devs.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    ooc why didn't you try NetBSD? Isn't running on every little device kinda their wheelhouse?
    - ToddWBurgess 5y ago
      I did try NetBSD first on the Pi but the install wasn't working for me. Getting FreeBSD up and running on the Raspberry Pi was a lot less painful. If I really want to kick around NetBSD I can run an instance of it in GNU Boxes on one of my Linux boxes.
- deltarholamda 5y ago
  >prioritising being a cohesive operating system and docs This is one of the areas where OpenBSD really shines. Their documentation is really good. FreeBSD is also quite good, but I've been consistently impressed with OpenBSD's docs since 2.5. Linux distros can't reach the same level of quality due to being less cohesive at the base, though they do make up for it with quantity. You can search for most Linux issues and find an answer.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
I love OpenBSD because it is as close to "just works" as it gets in an ideal world. I love using it for my personal website because it is very easy to get a proper overview over the OS as a whole and because it comes with some of my favourite pieces of software and all I need for a personal website is part of the system: httpd, pf etc. Also OpenBSD has some of the best docs out there, I rarely need to websearch anything. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world, so I rarely get to spin up OpenBSD outside of that due to a number of reasons like a lack of filesystems for interoperability (USB media) and firmware drivers (got to be specific in the hardware you buy for it).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
m4r35n357 5y ago
I use Debian and love OpenBSD.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  This has a rather deep philosophical basis.
- hda111 5y ago
  Savaged by systemd
waynesonfire 5y ago
Im a life long linux user and decided to use FreeBSD as a platform for my most recent hobby project. It was surpising how enlightening it was to use a different tool. It does somethings the same way, somethings different, what was most pleasant was discovering the things it did better. I don't think you can read about it, really worth experiencing this.
gigatexal 5y ago
This link is for OpenBSD but I have the most experience with FreeBSD. Reasons to try out a BSD, even FreeBSD: 1. ZFS -- by far and away the best filesystem there is. (A hella partisan take but try it out and you'll likely fall in love like the rest of us did) 2. The handbook. The handbook is gold. It's up there with some of the best documentation available. 3. Less fragmentation. The BSDs have 3 main derivatives: NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD. (There are others but these are the main) 4. If you like LXD then you'll love Jails. 5. The BSD license. (If being the most free means something to you. I kind of like it but maybe this isn't a selling point.) 6. Can be rolling or used in an LTS fashion. It's rather easy to track -current all the time or just stick with a stable release and do periodic binary package updates.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
yrui 5y ago
I've been running OpenBSD more than 15 years, and it does have a learning curve. One area to consider as a happy Debian desktop user is using OpenBSD as a router OS. PC Engines (I have no affiliation to them) makes a very nice router called "Alix" and OpenBSD works well on it. Previously, people were installing it on Soekris routers before they went out of business. OpenBSD's firewall pf is by far my favorite, and it and OpenBSD have a lot of nice networking features and tools to tinker with. It's free of blobs (in the default install), free of known bugs (in the default install--but generally your router will work well with only the default install), and configured to be reasonably secure by default. The documentation is also frequently praised. How many other modern, full-fledged, well-maintained and open code OSes run in 32 Mb of RAM?
- thijsvandien 5y ago
  ALIX is EOL. Nowadays you'll want to use their APU (excellent too).
upofadown 5y ago
I don't care that much about the security claims but I have to acknowledge that they are probably true to some extent. I value OpenBSD most for its minimalism. The OpenBSD project seems to have managed to avoid the feature bloat that other systems are now suffering from. You have to learn it, but there is not a lot there to learn. Once you figure out how to set it up then the audio just works. That is a killer feature compared to the situation I had to deal with when I was doing Debian on the desktop.
School-Cotton 5y ago
You’re obviously curious and want to try it, or you wouldn’t have posted that, so why not go for it? You have nothing to lose. For me the coolest thing about OpenBSD is it’s the simplest OS that is still of practical use (i.e., not counting ones that are purely for research or education). So if you’re curious about how any part of the system works, it’s easy to just dive into /usr/src and figure it out. It’s also entirely configured via simple text files rather than some opaque systemd monstrosity.
- tazjin 5y ago
  systemd is configured via simple text files
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    What simple text file is, for example, the list of WiFi SSIDs to try to connect to stored in?
    - nix23 5y ago
      /etc/systemd/network/25-wireless.network https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-networkd#network_files https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-networkd#network_fi... But simple i would not call it...compared to bsd ;)
      - enriquto 5y ago
        This file does not exist on my rather plain ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I tried finding similarly named files, to no avail. Knowing the notorious ADHD of the systemd developership, I wouldn't be surprised if this file is moved, renamed, and uses a different format every six months.
        nix23 5y ago
        /lib/systemd/network http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/systemd.network.5.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/systemd.netwo... or find / -name '*.network' But yeah, BSD's would have them at one place -> /etc ...linux-distro standardization is a terrible mess.
yabones 5y ago
Linux systems are made by dozens of disparate teams, and it shows. Every command has a different syntax - just think about how "help" could be -h, --help, -help, -? etc BSDs are very tightly integrated. The entire OS is very consistent and 'correct', down to the tiny and pedantic details like putting things under /usr that are usually installed in /bin, because that's the way it's supposed to be. (Ex. `/usr/local/bin/bash`) Think of it like reading Wikipedia, no matter which page you read it seems like it was written by the same person. That's the kind of consistency that OpenBSD intends to create.
- adamrt 5y ago
  Just to clarify, Bash is installed under /usr/local because it’s from packages and not part of the base system. The base shell, ksh, is at /bin/ksh. You probably know that but I just felt like being pedantic this morning :).
  - chasil 5y ago
    ...and that ksh descended from pdksh, and is distributed as the oksh portable project here: https://github.com/ibara/oksh https://github.com/ibara/oksh The MirBSD Korn Shell also descended from pdksh, and it can be found here: http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm http://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm I don't know about the feature differences and code quality between these two; they both implement most of ksh88, and a small amount of ksh93. I prefer mksh when I need something more than a POSIX shell.
  - yabones 5y ago
    Yes, absolutely true. The idea is that `ksh` is good enough, and the extra features of bash are extraneous or unnecessary, making it an add-on rather than a core feature. It's an interesting idea, and while I feel bash is absolutely 'good enough' to be part of the base system, I wouldn't want zsh or fish part of my base system - so it's then a matter of opinion whose shell is bloat and whose is essential. So I respect their decision to not include bash in the base image - it's meant to be uncompromisingly lean and simple.
    - 5y ago
tharne 5y ago
I used open BSD for a little while. It's very simple, clean, and elegantly designed. If you're looking to learn more about Unix, then you'll have a lot of fun with OpenBSD. If you want to use it as a daily driver, you're probably going to run into some headaches. That being said, if you're willing to put in some time, learn a little bit and forgo some software here and there, you certainly *could* use OpenBSD as a daily driver. One really cool thing about OpenBSD is that the OpenBSD devs use the OS as their daily driver. You'll likely keep hearing about how good the OpenBSD man pages are. I always thought this was a weird thing to mention and make a big deal about. But holy crap, the OpenBSD documentation is amazing. Reading it has definitely made my own documentation at work significantly better. The downside? There are a couple. The biggest two are that, 1) you're not going to find a lot of the software you might normally use; and 2) The performance is not great and battery life is not very good.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
  > If you want to use it as a daily driver, you're probably going to run into some headaches This all depends on the hardware you bring to the table. A random Acer laptop with a questionable ACPI table is probably going to have problems, but a previous-gen Thinkpad X1 should be great because that's what the devs use. > you're not going to find a lot of the software you might normally use This really depends on your use cases – I can do most of the development I want on my OpenBSD laptop. But there are some gaps, absolutely. > The performance is not great and battery life is not very good. Harder to argue this one. It's getting better release by release, though :)
fbhabbed 5y ago
Definitely try it in a VM first or at least image your Debian drive before going at it. You are going to miss your perfectly working Debian install
tomc1985 5y ago
I recently built my latest server in FreeBSD just to get some hard experience with it... ...and I love it! Documentation is generally excellent, readable, and centralized. There are only a dozen or two processes running on a fresh system without much of anything installed, and idle CPU usage is the zeroyist zero I've ever seen for a server OS. The directory structure in `man hier` is actually used, and it feels like the surface area of what I have to learn to be proficient is sooooooooooo much smaller. It's not perfect (home and end keys don't work consistently) but definitely a breath of fresh air. Plus, many programs (ezjail, for example) integrate tightly with ZFS, which is also awesome. I know linux finally got quality ZFS support but BSD (along with solaris) are OG Plus, now I am learning a great deal about how MacOS is built. Funny enough, I have a DJ controller (Pioneer XDJ-XZ) that uses BSD for its operating system. So it seems to be a great embedded audio OS as well!
UI_at_80x24 5y ago
Easy: text log files, text config files, no systemd.
puffyn 5y ago
I can only comment on OpenBSD. It’s a minimal unix system. I like the minimalism. OpenBSD is mainly a router/server/firewall system but you can use OpenBSD on a desktop. If your hardware is supported everything works out of the box. Firefox/Chromium have pledge/unveil security which prevent them from accessing your file system. Something like apparmor but works put of the box. However it’s not designed as a desktop system (installing a browser introduces many security risks). They have some additional security features like encrypted swap and others. In terms of security, the OpenBSD kernel is a lot smaller than the linux kernel. Can’t have holes in code that doesn’t exist. All together it’s just a minimal small unix system. If you want to use it on the desktop, you can use it for basic surfing or 90s video games. I’m using it for fun mainly. There is no jails / docker / virtualbox so I don’t use it for coding. OpenBSD isn’t really a desktop OS, desktop users typically use FreeBSD because there are many more packages. FreeBSD is a completely different OS.
- anthk 5y ago
  >If you want to use it on the desktop, you can use it for basic surfing or 90s video games Why? You have PPSSPP, Dolphin, maybe some current-gen emulators, and lots of sourc ports. And fnaify for Mono games. https://playonbsd.com/shopping_guide/ https://playonbsd.com/shopping_guide/
- amatecha 5y ago
  There is virtualization with vmm: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html
- snvzz 5y ago
  >basic surfing With recent versions of chrome/firefox and 3d acceleration on amd/intel graphics, you're not limited to "basic surfing". The only reason I can think of that you would say that is that perhaps you do e.g. have an NVIDIA card (why...) and thus you're stuck with no accelerated graphics.
- lcall 5y ago
  After learning some things (see my umask comment etc, elsewhere here on this page, and my way around the FAQs etc), I have found it very useful for my desktop and am happy with it. Even before I learned things like tmux and fvwm, xfce etc worked nicely. (Having said that, my needs might be atypical.) Edit/ps: last I knew, it had something like 10_000 binary packages available, in addition to the base system.
eacafdcbac 5y ago
Playing with OpenBSD will be a learning experience. For me, that's usually enough to install something on a non-daily driver machine. Are you a software engineer or CS student? If so, I'd say that OpenBSD really shines in code simplicity, clarity, and consistency. This is also a matter of taste. What drew me in initially was the quality and consistency of the kernel source code, consistent high standards in documentation, and the design of system interfaces and libraries. I like being able to answer my own questions and I find that easier in OpenBSD than in Linux. Sometimes I sit for hours and simply flip back and forth between documentation and code exploring how things work. I feel that this level of consistency and availability of information within the system feed creative urges on my part. I like to write code and I feel like I have an easier time doing that in OpenBSD than Linux (again, a matter of tastes.) This is in large part because my workflow tends to happen at the terminal. I would be surprised to find that VSCode, Slack, Discord, and other electron-y applications can be made to work in OpenBSD at all... maybe they do, but I've never felt the need to try, so if they don't I'm fine with that. I think OpenBSD is well adapted to a specific kind of user and a specific kind of problems. If you're paranoid, or a developer, or just like the terminal window, or prefer design consistency over broad compatibility and feature variety, you might find that you really enjoy using OpenBSD. By all means, give it a spin if for no other reason than to learn about a thing that's out there that a bunch of people enjoy. If OpenBSD is not for you, that's okay too. I don't think that the user base, developers, or community have ever been looking run campaigns aimed at growing the popularity of the system. For me that's a good thing, the developers seem less prone to chasing the next thing that will expand their share in a market, and are more focused on making a thing they want to use - which translates well for me. YMMV.

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ptidhomme 5y ago

Not yet as it seems.

nix23 5y ago
Released Oct 14, 2021. (51st OpenBSD release) https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.0/amd64/ https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.0/amd64/
- ptidhomme 5y ago
  I'm well aware, but still not official (no artwork released for example)
  - nix23 5y ago
    But the "Style Hymn" :) https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#70 https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#70 But hey, if the Artwork is the release point for you, that's fine with me ;)
    - zephyr9 5y ago
      Also the homepage is a bit of a giveaway: > The current release is OpenBSD 6.9, released May 1, 2021.
      - nix23 5y ago
        Press the Download button and be amazed ;) But no release for you, until homepage is.
zephyr9 5y ago
Exactly, everyone knows it's not official until the artwork is out.
- nix23 5y ago
  The song is the important stuff, if there is no song you should jump that release.

jmclnx 5y ago

Just see this: https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html But if your video is Nvidia, you are out of luck until they open their drivers.

xvilka 5y ago
Everyone is out of luck until NVIDIA open their drivers. I am sure their proprietary ones are complete garbage, for compatibility and application-specific tweaks. I wish more open source systems and progress tell them the same thing that Linus did.
ksec 5y ago
From https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html >Be as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit. Someone has the wisdom to put this in nearly 20 years ago.
- bluGill 5y ago
  OpenBSD split from NetBSD years ago for political reasons. So it isn't a surprise that 20 years ago politics and the issues thereof were high on everyone's mind.
  - ksec 5y ago
    >OpenBSD split from NetBSD years ago for political reasons. I was naive in thinking it was always about the focus on priorities, as in Security vs NetBSD's portability. So I decided to read up on it [1]. Since Wiki seems to be purposely quiet / unclear on the incident. Turns out Open Source Politics isn't that much different 25 years later. [1] https://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html https://www.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html
    - zokula 5y ago
      That would assume that OpenBSD is secure the first place.

user3939382 5y ago

My main use for OpenBSD is as a firewall/router, and they frequently make breaking changes to the pf rule syntax so I had to abandon it. Last breaking change when I checked was July, but it's been going on for many years. If you have one firewall no big deal, but if you set them up for customers all over the place it's a nightmare. They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here.

binkHN 5y ago
Frequently is very subjective. Sometimes you have to make way for progress. I’ve been using pf since 3.0 and the syntax changes have been minimal and, I’d say, always for the better and to make a drastic improvement.
nix23 5y ago
>They should take a page out of Microsoft's book here Yeah NO. OpenBSD is the opposite of backward compatibility by design. You should have known that before installing at your customers site en masse. That's probably one point why PFsense is based on freebsd and OPNsense on hardenedbsd.
- noja 5y ago
  ^^ The wording of this response represents exactly why many people don't choose OpenBSD.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    Honestly that is a compliment. When it comes to evaluating tech, the best statements are those where you can walk away knowing very clearly that yes, this meets my needs, or no this absolutely does not meet my needs.
  - nix23 5y ago
    Let that not hear Linus and his wording.
  - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago

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brynet 5y ago

Link to announcement: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=163422237101753&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=163422237101753&w=2

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xbar 5y ago

OpenBSD WireGuard VPN servers make me happy.

mirekrusin 5y ago

I'd love to try but I'm experiencing hardcore option paralysis every time I start thinking about it. FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD – _that_ is the question. Wait, maybe DragonFly actually? illumos? ...wait, I mean OpenIndiana, I think... wait, what's OmniOS? Is Darwin a thing, like I could just have BSD and macOS for free or something?

chousuke 5y ago
I recommend giving OpenBSD a try over the others. It's just... a clean OS, and the base system is extremely well documented; to the point that I think it's the only OS you can learn inside out without ever using Google. OpenBSD might not be the best choice for any given use, but it's so remarkably consistent and understandable that I think everyone interested in alternative OSes should try it out at least once.
- kazen44 5y ago
  OpenBSD has been the OS with the lowest amount of maintenance in my opinion. used it as a webserver and VPN appliance for a couple of years now. only thing in terms of maintenance is the following when a new release is released. pkg_add -u ( i usually update extra packages every 6 months, which is mainly lets encrypt). syspatch sysupgrade reboot: after reboot sysmerge to see if i need to do a config diff. Has been rocksolid and very future rich in base aswell.
  - snvzz 5y ago
    While sysupgrade is convenient, there's usually some manual steps. Always read the upgrade guide before upgrading.
    - wahern 5y ago
      For the OpenBSD curious: This release only includes changes related to SNMP, which I imagine are irrelevant to most people, though probably exciting for a subset of OpenBSD users. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade70.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade70.html The upgrade guide for 6.9 gives a better flavor for how OpenBSD handles and documents subsystem and configuration changes: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade69.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade69.html Notice how succinct and consistent (across decades!) are the upgrade guides. The above have the same basic format and content as this one from 2004: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade35.html https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade35.html I've been doing remote upgrades of OpenBSD and Linux (mostly Debian, but also occasionally Red Hat derivatives) for over 20 years. While I've fortunately only rarely encountered significant problems with any of them, OpenBSD upgrades are the only ones where I can have any confidence in understanding and tracking how the system evolves across upgrades. Follow the upgrade guide and delete outdated files (much easier since sysclean(8)), and a 10-year-old OpenBSD box can have a filesystem as pristine as a freshly installed system. I'm not one of those people who wants pristine for the sake of pristine. But pristine is important when you care about security, and maintenance burden is a huge component of security, as are simplicity and transparency.

fithisux 5y ago

With a port of Dlang :-)

Koshkin 5y ago
But no Rust, it seems. (Wouldn't it be nice if the most secure OS was (re)written in the safest language available today?)
- gnubison 5y ago
  The OpenBSD people value both security and simplicity — I doubt that they would adopt Rust system-wide.
- ayushnix 5y ago
  IIRC, Theo was (is?) against using rust because rust hasn't seen real world usage and coreutils hasn't been written in rust (according to him). When someone pointed out how there's RedoxOS and uutils, coreutils written in rust, he went on to question their POSIX compliance and whether memory safety was really a thing. So yeah, I doubt rust is ever coming to OpenBSD. I'm also skeptical about the level of adoption rust will see in the Linux kernel. People are usually resistant to change (sometimes for good reasons). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er44ur7wkXQ&t=2107 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er44ur7wkXQ&t=2107

Panino 5y ago

Since timeout(1) was imported I can pkg_delete coreutils, nice. Lots of other goodies too.

e12e 5y ago
Where/how do you use it? The description is pretty straightforward: https://man.openbsd.org/timeout.1 https://man.openbsd.org/timeout.1 But it's not something I'd miss - unless it's used in some scripts I'm unaware of..

gigatexal 5y ago

Super impressed with all the work going on in BSD to support and make it work on M1 macs. I can’t believe this is free. Glad I support the BSDs with the pittance every month that I can but wow amazing work.

GordonS 5y ago

I used to use CentOS for all my Linux servers, but that's no longer an option of course. I've been using Vmware PhotonOS for Docker host VMs, and I'm pretty happy with it. For everything else though... I'm thinking Ubuntu, but I'm not sure. Might a *BSD be a good option? Does it have any real advantages over Linux? Or any drawbacks for that matter?

jadbox 5y ago
"that's no longer an option of course." why?
- GordonS 5y ago
  On account of CentOS, in "standard" Linux form, being dead. I don't want to run CentOS Stream.
  - hnarn 5y ago
    So run Rocky or Alma? They're both binary compatible versions of RHEL8. If you're already used to the Enterprise Linux ecosystem, there's no point in switching away from it entirely just because of CentOS stream, unless you're just interested in trying something new.
dralley 5y ago
CentOS Stream is a perfectly fine option and the practical differences from classic CentOS are insignificant for most users, especially people who are just running a homelab. But if it makes you uncomfortable there's always Rocky or Alma Linux.
chasil 5y ago
Major drawbacks are closed-source applications intended for RedHat. These might work with some kind of binary emulation, but the vendor will never support it. My focus would be database. Microsoft's binary ODBC libraries and Oracle Instant Client are Linux binaries. FreeTDS and Oracle SQLcl/JDBC are options on a BSD, but there are drawbacks, as there likely would be with any binary packages. I know that both RedHat and Oracle will migrate an installed CentOS to their platforms (RedHat does it more violently, by replacing every installed package). Alma & Rocky might also be migration options.

GordonS 5y ago

What init system do the *BSDs use? Is systemd an option?

chasil 5y ago
*YES*, systemd is an option. It is not the default. https://lobste.rs/s/jx3cr6/initware_systemd_fork_runs_on_openbsd_for https://lobste.rs/s/jx3cr6/initware_systemd_fork_runs_on_ope...
- hnarn 5y ago
  I'm the first to admit that I'm ignorant of the facts here, but seeing that a systemd fork ran on OpenBSD for the first time two months ago does not give me confidence that it's "an option" in the sense that you can trust it to work well. And to be pedantic (this is an OpenBSD thread, after all), it's not "systemd", it's a fork of systemd called "InitWare", and the GitHub repo describes it as "alpha software". Someone also pointed out in the discussion you linked that it doesn't seem to include journald. Here's a relevant PR: https://github.com/InitWare/InitWare/pull/27 https://github.com/InitWare/InitWare/pull/27
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    Pretty much this. SystemD was inspired by LaunchD on MacOS and was written as a clean room implementation of something in the spirit of LaunchD. InitWare is essentially an init system inspired by SystemD.
branzo 5y ago
definitely not.
snvzz 5y ago
systemd doesn't support anything but Linux, as it is designed around Linux-specific APIs.
Koshkin 5y ago
They all borrow one from Slackware Linux.

NexRebular 5y ago

Time to upgrade the T-series SPARCs. Nice to have a free modern OS to keep that amazing hardware still in usable state.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

Can anyone comment on how hardware support is these days? The last BSD I tried (4.4) wasn't that great with my laptop at the time

jzer0cool 5y ago

For learning I used FreeBSD at my university to do some work with the kernel. I would be interested to hear more about someone's experience if having used all three, Ubuntu, OpenBSD, FreeBSD. 1) For VM Desktop Usage on a laptop 2) Server only.