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Interesting ! Been toying with the idea to move my "medium'ish" site to an OpenBSD stack currently on Ubuntu Linux 18 (can you get any more vanilla ?) For no o

Interesting ! Been toying with the idea to move my "medium'ish" site to an OpenBSD stack currently on Ubuntu Linux 18 (can you get any more vanilla ?) For no other reasons than: 1) I can (i'm the boss, and only employee :/) 2) OpenBSD, will always have a special place in my heart going back 20 years, trying to "share" our dialup modem on my 386 ! 3) I also like going on vacation and not worry 4) That artwork :P 5) Just love the pure simplicity of it, everything "fits in your working mind" 6) I feel the older I get, the more I move to a graybeard-unix-mindset. Although I'm no way near as clever or component as the 'myth'. I like to think the (ok my) "ultimate final destination" is me sitting on a mountain top with a netbook coding in a LISP in Emacs on OpenBSB. Of course I might need some eye-candy so I will allow lolcat-bash-prompts for that color-req in my life. *The final zen-state* Now if I can only find a "DECENT" VPS host that offers any bsd default install options looking at you scaleway !

icybox 5y ago
This will be very opinionated, but ... when I'm working with linux, I need to google stuff around, because there are no [,usable] manpages. Sure, it's easy, everybody just loves to google their stack traces to find solutions ... BSD is boring, it just work. And from my experience, OpenBSD was acting like an apprentice, when I was setting something up. It handed me the tools or configs at the moment I needed them. Everything is there at arms reach. If you know what you're doing, the system is helping you. Need config file? - there's one in /etc/examples! The old saying goes like "Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." I don't think I need to tell you, but do your testing before you switch over your production. Hopping off the bandwagon has its benefits, but also its costs. OTOH, (ad 2), I think you'd know your way around. I've played with BSD4.3 in SIMH couple weeks ago and was surprised that I can use it! ad 3: I've had an argument with security guys forcing minimum password length couple months ago. Somehow they just couldn't understand that I don't have passwords at all and use SSH keys. Also, linux doesn't have pledge and unveil or chroot by default, so they just don't understand the benefits ... ad 5: for me, OpenBSD is the only system where I can ps auxwww and know what's going on ... Not sure what's going on, but the working theory is that most people just don't care or understand, so this is not a value for them from the start... ad 6: UNIX graybeards FTW! (https://archive.org/details/unix-magic-poster-gary-overcare-1 https://archive.org/details/unix-magic-poster-gary-overcare-...) Most linux VPS could be taken over by writing miniroot.fs to the virtual drive & rebooting the drive. Some might need to emulate some cloud-init stuff ... P.S. I've started with linux more than 20y ago. I was blessed enough (hey! life provides only gifts ;) ) to administer some Solaris 6,7,9 and 10 boxes that has shown me "proper" UNIX ... since then, it's painful to experience some linux stuff that has been solved already, and just works(tm), but NIH ...
- jmclnx 5y ago
  > ad 3: I've had an argument with security guys forcing minimum password length couple months ago. Somehow they just couldn't understand that I don't have passwords at all and use SSH keys I have had the exact same argument many times too, I could not get them to understand how much better ssh keys are then passwords.
ptidhomme 5y ago
Now if I can only find a "DECENT" VPS host that offers any bsd default install options looking at you scaleway ! I don't know if Vultr fits in "decent" but I've had no problem with them and they support direct OpenBSD installs. You can spin a full OpenBSD in less than 2 minutes.

icybox 5y ago

This will be very opinionated, but ... when I'm working with linux, I need to google stuff around, because there are no [,usable] manpages. Sure, it's easy, everybody just loves to google their stack traces to find solutions ... BSD is boring, it just work. And from my experience, OpenBSD was acting like an apprentice, when I was setting something up. It handed me the tools or configs at the moment I needed them. Everything is there at arms reach. If you know what you're doing, the system is helping you. Need config file? - there's one in /etc/examples! The old saying goes like "Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." I don't think I need to tell you, but do your testing before you switch over your production. Hopping off the bandwagon has its benefits, but also its costs. OTOH, (ad 2), I think you'd know your way around. I've played with BSD4.3 in SIMH couple weeks ago and was surprised that I can use it! ad 3: I've had an argument with security guys forcing minimum password length couple months ago. Somehow they just couldn't understand that I don't have passwords at all and use SSH keys. Also, linux doesn't have pledge and unveil or chroot by default, so they just don't understand the benefits ... ad 5: for me, OpenBSD is the only system where I can ps auxwww and know what's going on ... Not sure what's going on, but the working theory is that most people just don't care or understand, so this is not a value for them from the start... ad 6: UNIX graybeards FTW! (https://archive.org/details/unix-magic-poster-gary-overcare-1 https://archive.org/details/unix-magic-poster-gary-overcare-...) Most linux VPS could be taken over by writing miniroot.fs to the virtual drive & rebooting the drive. Some might need to emulate some cloud-init stuff ... P.S. I've started with linux more than 20y ago. I was blessed enough (hey! life provides only gifts ;) ) to administer some Solaris 6,7,9 and 10 boxes that has shown me "proper" UNIX ... since then, it's painful to experience some linux stuff that has been solved already, and just works(tm), but NIH ...

jmclnx 5y ago
> ad 3: I've had an argument with security guys forcing minimum password length couple months ago. Somehow they just couldn't understand that I don't have passwords at all and use SSH keys I have had the exact same argument many times too, I could not get them to understand how much better ssh keys are then passwords.

ptidhomme 5y ago

Now if I can only find a "DECENT" VPS host that offers any bsd default install options looking at you scaleway ! I don't know if Vultr fits in "decent" but I've had no problem with them and they support direct OpenBSD installs. You can spin a full OpenBSD in less than 2 minutes.