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I have used OpenBSD as my daily driver for maybe 3/4 years, though I stopped after a dispute over the merge of some of my patches which I found petty. My exper

I have used OpenBSD as my daily driver for maybe 3/4 years, though I stopped after a dispute over the merge of some of my patches which I found petty. My experience on the good side: - OpenBSD has a very clean code base. Simple and to the point with no useless abstraction, which is ideal if you want to understand your kernel or make light changes. It's obviously opinionated, but I found OpenBSD to be clearer and simpler than FreeBSD and even NetBSD. - Modification, build and boot of a kernel is a breeze. If you have been frustrated with Linux kernel development, OpenBSD is a million times simpler. - If you use a common laptop, especially ThinkPads T series, then hardware and drivers won't be an issue. - My usage is pretty typical for a programmer user: I need a WM (i3), a browser, a nice terminal, and development tools (c, c++, rust, python). Software is pretty up to date IMHO, nothing to complain about. On the bad side: - I found the core community annoying and immature. Every discussion that implies something could be done in a manner that ressembles what Linux does has to be mocked and turned to derision. It feels like a small circle of long time friends keep the projects in their hands and if you're either in or out this circle. This leads to a "us versus them" mentality that I dislike.

mingus88 2y ago
The issue with the community is foundational. The entire project was born out of a personal dispute between Theo and the NetBSD team he was contributing to. I recall he was a frequent headliner on Slashdot in the late 90s due to his flame wars It was entertaining to read as a younger person but these days I prefer to avoid drama. I haven’t deployed an openbsd system in a while as I feel the industry has standardized so many lessons that openbsd pioneered back then, and it is no longer novel to have a secure by default OS.

mingus88 2y ago

The issue with the community is foundational. The entire project was born out of a personal dispute between Theo and the NetBSD team he was contributing to. I recall he was a frequent headliner on Slashdot in the late 90s due to his flame wars It was entertaining to read as a younger person but these days I prefer to avoid drama. I haven’t deployed an openbsd system in a while as I feel the industry has standardized so many lessons that openbsd pioneered back then, and it is no longer novel to have a secure by default OS.