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> What's the big deal, there are often changes, sometimes inconvenient, sometimes breaking changes, requiring a configuration file change or software update. I

> What's the big deal, there are often changes, sometimes inconvenient, sometimes breaking changes, requiring a configuration file change or software update. I think some might suggest that the defaults matter a lot. > However, it may doesn't throttle well for some users, resulting in huge power usage even when idle, heat from the CPU and also fan noise. While the crowd that uses OpenBSD might be crafty enough to look up and apply solutions, this happening in any mainstream OS would be unacceptable, since many simply wouldn't know how to change the setting, or wouldn't even be aware that there's a setting to change in the first place. And what would the consequences be if tens to hundreds of millions of devices out there suddenly started wasting lots of electricity and ran in a mode that could cause the CPUs to fail more quickly? Here's a nice article on the topic of defaults: https://www.jason.af/defaults-matter/ https://www.jason.af/defaults-matter/

discardedrefuse 5y ago
> this happening in any mainstream OS would be unacceptable, since many simply wouldn't know how to change the setting, or wouldn't even be aware that there's a setting to change in the first place. Last year I tried to run FreeBSD on a HP DL380 G7 (old-ish enterprise server). After install, all the fans were spinning at ludicrous speeds. Funny thing about these HP servers; the fans will spin like this if you put non-HP hardware components in them. I don't have non-HP components, so I never had the fan issue prior to FreeBSD. But because the issue was so common, searching the web kept turning up crazy solutions using resistors and such. I gave up and put Alpine Linux on there instead. Alpine worked great. Months later, I went back and tried FreeBSD again. This time I had stumbled across a FreeBSD specific fix for the fan: sysctl hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest=C3 That was it; a C state setting. I had to learn about C states, powerd and Intel SpeedStep before I could do anything with FreeBSD on that server. No power management. But... we get a mail server? Yeah, I would say defaults do matter.
throwawayboise 5y ago
> While the crowd that uses OpenBSD might be crafty enough to look up and apply solutions, this happening in any mainstream OS would be unacceptable OpenBSD expects that its users will look up and apply solutions. They do not have a goal to be a mainstream OS.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > OpenBSD expects that its users will look up and apply solutions. That is fine and all, but consider the following: - if a solution is needed, that means that there's a problem; why should an update knowingly introduce a problem? - caring about the environmental impact/load on the hardware isn't mutually exclusive with being knowledgeable and able to apply solutions; shouldn't the more conservative/environmentally friendly option be the default setting?

discardedrefuse 5y ago

> this happening in any mainstream OS would be unacceptable, since many simply wouldn't know how to change the setting, or wouldn't even be aware that there's a setting to change in the first place. Last year I tried to run FreeBSD on a HP DL380 G7 (old-ish enterprise server). After install, all the fans were spinning at ludicrous speeds. Funny thing about these HP servers; the fans will spin like this if you put non-HP hardware components in them. I don't have non-HP components, so I never had the fan issue prior to FreeBSD. But because the issue was so common, searching the web kept turning up crazy solutions using resistors and such. I gave up and put Alpine Linux on there instead. Alpine worked great. Months later, I went back and tried FreeBSD again. This time I had stumbled across a FreeBSD specific fix for the fan: sysctl hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest=C3 That was it; a C state setting. I had to learn about C states, powerd and Intel SpeedStep before I could do anything with FreeBSD on that server. No power management. But... we get a mail server? Yeah, I would say defaults do matter.

throwawayboise 5y ago

> While the crowd that uses OpenBSD might be crafty enough to look up and apply solutions, this happening in any mainstream OS would be unacceptable OpenBSD expects that its users will look up and apply solutions. They do not have a goal to be a mainstream OS.

KronisLV 5y ago
> OpenBSD expects that its users will look up and apply solutions. That is fine and all, but consider the following: - if a solution is needed, that means that there's a problem; why should an update knowingly introduce a problem? - caring about the environmental impact/load on the hardware isn't mutually exclusive with being knowledgeable and able to apply solutions; shouldn't the more conservative/environmentally friendly option be the default setting?