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The Rust thing comes up all the time, and Theo already addressed the issue[1]. Basically it boils down to speed and the fact that OpenBSD runs on some pretty sl

The Rust thing comes up all the time, and Theo already addressed the issue[1]. Basically it boils down to speed and the fact that OpenBSD runs on some pretty slow hardware and require the full OS to be build on actual hardware. As for the immutable OS, OpenBSD went the other direction and relink the kernel on each boot. [1] https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=151233345723889&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=151233345723889&w=2

alberth 3y ago
The root of the issue actually appears to be that OpenBSD still supports extremely old and slow architectures (that struggle to build itself): alpha amd64 arm64 armv7 hppa i386 landisk loongson luna88k macppc octeon powerpc64 riscv64 sparc64 For a project with such limited resources as OpenBSD, it seems wise for them to drop support for a large number of these legacy platforms and focus on more widely used architectures. I understand that, supporting more architectures actually help uncover more bugs. But you could still do that with a supported platform list that is 1/2 that size. https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html Look at what DragonflyBSD has been able to accomplish, truly competitive with Linux regarding performance and features, with the smallest development team out of all the BSDs. They can do this in large part because they focus on only 1 platform (supporting arch64).
- StayTrue 3y ago
  But it isn’t a business that can shuffle human resources at will. Your point reminds me of Theo losing his shit about how long it took me to build the CD release images I was responsible for. Poor machine crunched for more than a week to do it.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Over the years they have dropped support for a number of platforms[1], but they don't do it based on "popularity" but more whether there are developers (with hardware available) who are interested in working on it. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html
accrual 3y ago
> the fact that OpenBSD runs on some pretty slow hardware This is one of my favorite aspects of OpenBSD. I play with a lot of retro hardware and running OpenBSD is an excellent way to make any old hardware feel like new. Oldest real hardware I've run it on is a 486 DX2-66, oldest virtual hardware was a 386 using OpenBSD 4.1. Also ran a Pentium MMX as a WiFi router for a few weeks while sourcing a replacement.
- gosub100 3y ago
  ActionRetro has several videos where he puts it on G3 macs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT71HwfiM_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT71HwfiM_A
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Despite the "i386" name I don't think contemporary OpenBSD will work on a real 80386 or 80486 system. The supported hardware is described as: "All CPUs compatible with the Intel Pentium or later, with Intel-compatible hardware floating point support should work." There is also a note: "Due to the increased usage of OpenBSD/amd64, as well as the age and practicality of most i386 hardware, only easy and critical security fixes are backported to i386. The project has more important things to focus on." I would guess they are not too far from dropping support entirely, but as I understand it that all depends on whether there are any developers interested in still working on it. The OpenBSD developers build the OS for themselves. They make it freely available to anyone who finds it useful, but they do not really build it for "the users."
  - accrual 3y ago
    You're correct, 386 support was dropped after OpenBSD 4.1 (May 2007), and 486 support was dropped after 6.8 (October 2020). If I recall correctly, the project compiler changed after 6.8 and wasn't able to build the entire ports tree when targeting the 486, so they now target Pentium (i586) and higher. Even though it's technically out-of-date and unsupported, an OpenBSD release from 2020 is still pretty impressive for the DX2 (1993). :)

alberth 3y ago

The root of the issue actually appears to be that OpenBSD still supports extremely old and slow architectures (that struggle to build itself): alpha amd64 arm64 armv7 hppa i386 landisk loongson luna88k macppc octeon powerpc64 riscv64 sparc64 For a project with such limited resources as OpenBSD, it seems wise for them to drop support for a large number of these legacy platforms and focus on more widely used architectures. I understand that, supporting more architectures actually help uncover more bugs. But you could still do that with a supported platform list that is 1/2 that size. https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html Look at what DragonflyBSD has been able to accomplish, truly competitive with Linux regarding performance and features, with the smallest development team out of all the BSDs. They can do this in large part because they focus on only 1 platform (supporting arch64).

StayTrue 3y ago
But it isn’t a business that can shuffle human resources at will. Your point reminds me of Theo losing his shit about how long it took me to build the CD release images I was responsible for. Poor machine crunched for more than a week to do it.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Over the years they have dropped support for a number of platforms[1], but they don't do it based on "popularity" but more whether there are developers (with hardware available) who are interested in working on it. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html https://www.openbsd.org/plat.html

accrual 3y ago

> the fact that OpenBSD runs on some pretty slow hardware This is one of my favorite aspects of OpenBSD. I play with a lot of retro hardware and running OpenBSD is an excellent way to make any old hardware feel like new. Oldest real hardware I've run it on is a 486 DX2-66, oldest virtual hardware was a 386 using OpenBSD 4.1. Also ran a Pentium MMX as a WiFi router for a few weeks while sourcing a replacement.

gosub100 3y ago
ActionRetro has several videos where he puts it on G3 macs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT71HwfiM_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT71HwfiM_A
SoftTalker 3y ago
Despite the "i386" name I don't think contemporary OpenBSD will work on a real 80386 or 80486 system. The supported hardware is described as: "All CPUs compatible with the Intel Pentium or later, with Intel-compatible hardware floating point support should work." There is also a note: "Due to the increased usage of OpenBSD/amd64, as well as the age and practicality of most i386 hardware, only easy and critical security fixes are backported to i386. The project has more important things to focus on." I would guess they are not too far from dropping support entirely, but as I understand it that all depends on whether there are any developers interested in still working on it. The OpenBSD developers build the OS for themselves. They make it freely available to anyone who finds it useful, but they do not really build it for "the users."
- accrual 3y ago
  You're correct, 386 support was dropped after OpenBSD 4.1 (May 2007), and 486 support was dropped after 6.8 (October 2020). If I recall correctly, the project compiler changed after 6.8 and wasn't able to build the entire ports tree when targeting the 486, so they now target Pentium (i586) and higher. Even though it's technically out-of-date and unsupported, an OpenBSD release from 2020 is still pretty impressive for the DX2 (1993). :)