5 ms·

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

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 Follow the upgrade guide and delete outdated files (much easier since sysclean(8)), and a 10-year-old OpenBSD box can have a filesystem as pristine as a freshly installed system.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.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
melony 5y ago
I don't want a OS where I have to read man pages and documentation to get around. The whole self documentation excuse is the same reason why Emacs is slowly losing market share. People want software that is intuitive, and failing that, have all answers available on their favorite search engine. Short of baking a chatbot or search engine into OpenBSD, relying purely on self documentation is not sustainable. Though the idea of Clippy being powered by GPT3 does sound appealing.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  Sure, you could make the OS CLI "intuitive" (by which I am sure you mean discoverable) by supplying the 'help' command, but in the end wouldn't this still amount to reading a bunch of text?..
- lcall 5y ago
  You can still use search engines, but once you learn your way around the documentation, you might find it is more reliable and quicker. To me, it seems worthwhile to have fewer 0-day bugs to worry about, and more reliable separation between user accounts (fewer privilege escalation bugs, etc etc). (I also recommend setting default umask to 0077 for the same reason, except while using pkg_add -- I have a wrapper script that undoes it temporarily for that due to issues encountered.) There are reasons people use Windows or Apple (perceived convenience), and reasons not to (long-term cost/benefit decisions for known uses). In case it becomes useful to anyone: One way to traverse the docs is (occasionally helpful) is using something like http://man.bsd.lv/ http://man.bsd.lv/ for OBSD docs, like putting in an "=" (w/o quotes) in the search field then clicking "apropos" shows all the commands -- a useful way to learn "what is available in the base system"; or doing full-text searches (can be learned locally, I have an awkward script for it if needed), (Edit: s/what is available/what is available in the base system/ .) And: I find the ~"only 2 remote holes in the default install since about 1996" to be very impressive. Edit: Another way to look at it might be by priorities. I have come to see priorities of some systems roughly as: OpenBSD: security, openness, correctness (including of documentation), portability. Linux: features, performance, openness, breadth of everything, compatibility, convenience (distributions vary in specifics of course; debian and/or devuan continue to impress me in their own way). FreeBSD: performance, stability, openness. NetBSD: portability, stability?, maybe enjoyment for its developers, openness. (I know least here.) Windows / Apple: profitability while targeting preferences of specific groups who want different specific kinds of convenience, it seems.
matja 5y ago
Lack of ZFS, or any checksumming filesystem at all is a hard "no" for me.

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.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

melony 5y ago

I don't want a OS where I have to read man pages and documentation to get around. The whole self documentation excuse is the same reason why Emacs is slowly losing market share. People want software that is intuitive, and failing that, have all answers available on their favorite search engine. Short of baking a chatbot or search engine into OpenBSD, relying purely on self documentation is not sustainable. Though the idea of Clippy being powered by GPT3 does sound appealing.

Koshkin 5y ago
Sure, you could make the OS CLI "intuitive" (by which I am sure you mean discoverable) by supplying the 'help' command, but in the end wouldn't this still amount to reading a bunch of text?..
lcall 5y ago
You can still use search engines, but once you learn your way around the documentation, you might find it is more reliable and quicker. To me, it seems worthwhile to have fewer 0-day bugs to worry about, and more reliable separation between user accounts (fewer privilege escalation bugs, etc etc). (I also recommend setting default umask to 0077 for the same reason, except while using pkg_add -- I have a wrapper script that undoes it temporarily for that due to issues encountered.) There are reasons people use Windows or Apple (perceived convenience), and reasons not to (long-term cost/benefit decisions for known uses). In case it becomes useful to anyone: One way to traverse the docs is (occasionally helpful) is using something like http://man.bsd.lv/ http://man.bsd.lv/ for OBSD docs, like putting in an "=" (w/o quotes) in the search field then clicking "apropos" shows all the commands -- a useful way to learn "what is available in the base system"; or doing full-text searches (can be learned locally, I have an awkward script for it if needed), (Edit: s/what is available/what is available in the base system/ .) And: I find the ~"only 2 remote holes in the default install since about 1996" to be very impressive. Edit: Another way to look at it might be by priorities. I have come to see priorities of some systems roughly as: OpenBSD: security, openness, correctness (including of documentation), portability. Linux: features, performance, openness, breadth of everything, compatibility, convenience (distributions vary in specifics of course; debian and/or devuan continue to impress me in their own way). FreeBSD: performance, stability, openness. NetBSD: portability, stability?, maybe enjoyment for its developers, openness. (I know least here.) Windows / Apple: profitability while targeting preferences of specific groups who want different specific kinds of convenience, it seems.

matja 5y ago

Lack of ZFS, or any checksumming filesystem at all is a hard "no" for me.