10 ms·

OpenBSD 5.4 Released

156 points by sramov 13y ago

sramov 13y ago
Packets already flowing through 5.4 -release on my 'lil ALIX home router. Workstation on -current, of course. There is nothing quite like OpenBSD out there. Thank you OpenBSD developers!
- csmuk 13y ago
  Signed up to agree. Canned 6 Ubuntu machines (servers) and replaced with OpenBSD 5.3 recently. So much goodness ships with openbsd it's unreal. Bar Theo's sharp tongue (which is usually spot on), you get pf, opensmtpd (so much cleaner than postfix), nginx in base, miles better manual pages than Linux, no horrid gnu info, small and simple base system, absolutely no surprises, no bloated crap like dbus/upstart, tmux in base and what I can only describe as a warm fuzzy "why the hell isn't everything like this" feeling. Also, it's just about the only thing I've found that can work adequately entirely offline without having to use google to fix obscure problems and decypher documentation. I've got a bootable USB stick that contains the base packages, entire FAQ (main documentation source outside manpages), all normal binary packages I use, WiFi firmware and its less than 2Gb. Thanks as well.
  - pit 13y ago
    Agreed, the base install gives you a system that feels both minimal and complete at the same time. Plus, every release includes a song: http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 13y ago
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  - ape4 13y ago
    Yeah, what is the point of gnu info?
    - philsnow 13y ago
      hypertext man pages ? what is it that people don't like about them ?
      - ape4 13y ago
        Isn't there some way to get hypertext into man pages? Eg extend nroff. Then you don't have to have a parallel system.
        4ad 13y ago
        nroff isn't the problem, the pager is. I view manual pages in acme and they become very hypertexty. It's not perfect, as they weren't written with that in mind, but it's damn good.
        clarry 13y ago
        You can use w3mman (it installs with the w3m package on OBSD) and you'll be able to follow manual xrefs. Html output with links can also be generated, see the afterbook man page linked above for an example.
    - mhurron 13y ago
      NIH
    - teddyh 13y ago
      From https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/GNU-Manuals.html https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/GNU-Manuals.htm... The preferred document format for the GNU system is the Texinfo formatting language. Every GNU package should (ideally) have documentation in Texinfo both for reference and for learners. Texinfo makes it possible to produce a good quality formatted book, using TeX, and to generate an Info file. It is also possible to generate HTML output from Texinfo source. [...] Make sure your manual is clear to a reader who knows nothing about the topic and reads it straight through. This means covering basic topics at the beginning, and advanced topics only later. This also means defining every specialized term when it is first used. Programmers tend to carry over the structure of the program as the structure for its documentation. But this structure is not necessarily good for explaining how to use the program; it may be irrelevant and confusing for a user. Instead, the right way to structure documentation is according to the concepts and questions that a user will have in mind when reading it. This principle applies at every level, from the lowest (ordering sentences in a paragraph) to the highest (ordering of chapter topics within the manual). Sometimes this structure of ideas matches the structure of the implementation of the software being documented—but often they are different. An important part of learning to write good documentation is to learn to notice when you have unthinkingly structured the documentation like the implementation, stop yourself, and look for better alternatives. For example, each program in the GNU system probably ought to be documented in one manual; but this does not mean each program should have its own manual. That would be following the structure of the implementation, rather than the structure that helps the user understand. Instead, each manual should cover a coherent topic. For example, instead of a manual for diff and a manual for diff3, we have one manual for “comparison of files” which covers both of those programs, as well as cmp. By documenting these programs together, we can make the whole subject clearer. The manual which discusses a program should certainly document all of the program’s command-line options and all of its commands. It should give examples of their use. But don’t organize the manual as a list of features. Instead, organize it logically, by subtopics. Address the questions that a user will ask when thinking about the job that the program does. Don’t just tell the reader what each feature can do—say what jobs it is good for, and show how to use it for those jobs. Explain what is recommended usage, and what kinds of usage users should avoid. In general, a GNU manual should serve both as tutorial and reference. It should be set up for convenient access to each topic through Info, and for reading straight through (appendixes aside). A GNU manual should give a good introduction to a beginner reading through from the start, and should also provide all the details that hackers want. The Bison manual (https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts...) is a good example of this—please take a look at it to see what we mean. That is not as hard as it first sounds. Arrange each chapter as a logical breakdown of its topic, but order the sections, and write their text, so that reading the chapter straight through makes sense. Do likewise when structuring the book into chapters, and when structuring a section into paragraphs. The watchword is, at each point, address the most fundamental and important issue raised by the preceding text. If necessary, add extra chapters at the beginning of the manual which are purely tutorial and cover the basics of the subject. These provide the framework for a beginner to understand the rest of the manual. The Bison manual (https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts...) provides a good example of how to do this. To serve as a reference, a manual should have an Index that lists all the functions, variables, options, and important concepts that are part of the program. One combined Index should do for a short manual, but sometimes for a complex package it is better to use multiple indices. The Texinfo manual includes advice on preparing good index entries, see Making Index Entries(https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Index-Entries.html https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_nod...) in GNU Texinfo, and see Defining the Entries of an Index(https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Indexing-Commands.html https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_nod...) in GNU Texinfo. Don’t use Unix man pages as a model for how to write GNU documentation; most of them are terse, badly structured, and give inadequate explanation of the underlying concepts. (There are, of course, some exceptions.) Also, Unix man pages use a particular format which is different from what we use in GNU manuals. [...]
  - pfortuny 13y ago
    The doc is really unbeatable, I know nothing like it anywhere.
    - dman 13y ago
      Are they much different than the freebsd docs?
      - itwontdie 13y ago
        From my experience FreeBSD documentation is often outdated and no longer applicable. In my opinion incorrect documentation is worse than having no information as it often causes more problems and frustration.
        GalacticDomin8r 13y ago
        > From my experience FreeBSD documentation is often outdated and no longer applicable You were using an open source project and as such feedback is critical. Can you list the bug report you filed on the problems? > In my opinion incorrect documentation is worse than having no information as it often causes more problems and frustration. That is your opinion of course. IMO experience, having outdated docs is much better than having none at all.
  - DennisP 13y ago
    Do you know how it does with high concurrent loads these days?
    - csmuk 13y ago
      I've not done a direct comparison but it feels solid under load. IO bound processes seem to balance IO fairly i.e. no bad neighbour problem where one process will starve another and a fork bomb won't take out the system even though I managed to hit a loadavg of 80! It still was very responsive. Secondarily, I have a VM on BigV which seems to suffer less pauses and oddness than Ubuntu 12.04LTS did. Works nicely on UltraSparc machines (U30 and U60 tested) as well which is a bonus. I still find them superior to Intel even if they are power hungry and rather old now. Context switch time seems pretty low on Sparcs. Not sure if it uses hardware contexts or not though - haven't looked at the code.
    - stock_toaster 13y ago
      I think PF in openbsd is still single core[1]. FreeBSD 10.x apparently has an SMP version of PF[2]. My feeling is still that if high performance is desired, FreeBSD is still preferred. For "normal" workloads though, I think OpenBSD would be a fine choice. I do like how "clean" an OpenBSD system feels. [1]: http://openbsd.7691.n7.nabble.com/Performance-limits-with-OpenBSD-ToE-offloading-Intel-ET2-cards-td228314.html http://openbsd.7691.n7.nabble.com/Performance-limits-with-Op... [2]: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-pf/2012-June/006643.html http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-pf/2012-June/0066...
  - microcolonel 13y ago
    D-Bus is just a low-level socket protocol(which is, by the way, really quite light); there is nothing "bloated" about it.
    - justincormack 13y ago
      Well, its going into the kernel as kdbus, which you could argue is bloated. Linux is much bigger than the BSDs, although it is modular and you can remove it, but the big distros use much of it so you can't if you use them...
      - microcolonel 13y ago
        A lot of things in linux are faster than in the various bsd kernels, some of this owing to having a few optional codepaths rather than just one. Also, kdbus basically means there is in fact /less/ code made necessary by using the dbus protocol, since you don't need the daemon anymore, it also means lower latency.
- protomyth 13y ago
  I'm going to reinstall a couple of servers this weekend with 5.4. It generally is just a matter of printing out /etc/fstab, doing the install (I skip the upgrade on these), install some packages, and laying back down the configs and keys from source code control. It takes about 20 - 30 minutes to put these servers up (gateway, dns). [edit] I should point out I've had a box running it before release to make sure that any changes are accounted for.
  - aflott 13y ago
    I used to do fresh installs (due to a general fear of incremental upgrades failing) until I tried using their upgrade guides. I've never looked back. http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade54.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade54.html
    - protomyth 13y ago
      I do upgrades on some machines, but for some servers (firewall, dns, print server), it just takes a lot less time to do a fresh install. I keep the configs, keys, etc. under source control and can put it all back faster than doing the upgrade. It is also pretty good practice for anytime those servers go bad. It helps to be able to put temporary replacements in service from whatever I have lying around. I can save the hot spares for machines that have user data on them (e-mail, file servers).
    - ghshephard 13y ago
      I seem to recall someone (Theo, I believe) say that in order for an OpenBSD to maintain library compatibility with existing applications, you had to do an "Upgrade in Place" - and not do a fresh install. I.E. The default approach, incremental upgrade, is the only way to ensure your OpenBSD system doesn't fail.
      - protomyth 13y ago
        For the servers I'm talking about, blowing the whole thing away and installing any packages from the new disc is just fine and keeps away the clutter. I look at it this way, if all I'm really doing is adding some flags or configuration files, I would rather just blow it away and do the reinstall. Last couple of times I did that with my firewall, it was a 20 minute install.
jtth 13y ago
This building is energy neutral because all the lights are off and there's no power.
earlz 13y ago
I found out that http://openbsd.org http://openbsd.org is not the same as http://www.openbsd.org http://www.openbsd.org (one is much lower bandwidth) and apparently it's intentional that one doesn't redirect to the other. And that's not even to mention the website not using a static generator or CSS (despite http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/ http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/ actually being modern and good looking). From what I understand is the reason it's not changed is because it'd be too much work because it's duplicated everywhere, but they won't accept contributions to change it. I love OpenBSD as a piece of software, but I don't understand it's developers or community at all.
- csmuk 13y ago
  To be honest I've been using it for about 7 years and I didn't know that. I'm not sure that matters either. It's not really a priority and I respect that.
  - earlz 13y ago
    No, and being able to download all the FAQs easily is cool but there are things where it actually impacts me. For instance, I have a netbook without a cdrom drive or floppy disk. So, to install OpenBSD on it, I had to first install OpenBSD onto another PC computer, and then run makeboot and such on my USB drive and copy over the ramdisk. Apparently the cited excuse for why they don't support USB bootable media is because it's hard because some computers only support floppy emulator or don't support it, and there are many bugs in USB boot for older BIOS.. But that doesn't keep every other operating system of this day and age supporting it
    - csmuk 13y ago
      Yeah I do the same with the USB stick as its easier than CD media. I have a vbox VM ready to roll for such occasions. I have had numerous problems on older Dell/HP machines with USB booting anything so it's reasonable. I buy the official media even though I rarely use it.
    - retzkek 13y ago
simonw 13y ago
The vocals on the release song are lovely http://www.openbsd.org/songs/song54.mp3 http://www.openbsd.org/songs/song54.mp3 - http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54
deleted 13y ago
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pimeys 13y ago
I'm a big OS geek, I love to install and test all new operating systems. Does anybody use OpenBSD as their main development OS? At least there's ports, and looks like you can compile all the necessary tools (xmonad, vim, firefox, zsh) from the ports system. But is this the ideal use of OpenBSD? Do I gain something if changing from Gentoo?
- dysoco 13y ago
  I tried luck with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, but just couldn't. Yes, I love both Operating Systems, I love that they are integrated and somewhat less retarded than Linux, I also like their community and development team and OpenBSD's focus on security and code-correctness. But they are not yet "there" for Desktop use, many applications won't work or will be difficult to set up, and driver compatibility is way worse. So maybe in a couple of years I'll switch to FreeBSD as a desktop, but for now Funtoo is still fun and somewhat usable.
  - mmariani 13y ago
    Or you could switch to Mavericks which is based on Darwin that was forked from FreeBSD, and desktop ready. ;)
    - pimeys 13y ago
      But is too complicated system underneath for me to use. I love Funtoo/Gentoo for it's simplicity. I know exactly what's installed to my system and how I should configure it. With OS X, Ubuntu or Windows, I don't have that feeling anymore.
    - empthought 13y ago
      You probably know this, but the Darwin/FreeBSD relationship is much, much more complicated than a fork. Darwin's the successor to NeXTSTEP, which included a Mach microkernel and some BSD APIs and userland. When they developed OS X, Apple updated much of the userland using more recent FreeBSD versions as a base. Even more confusingly, Apple has contributed some subsystems to open source that have made their way into FreeBSD (notably the compiler and libc++). So Darwin's not a fork in the same way that OpenBSD is a fork of NetBSD.
jorgecastillo 13y ago
If you haven't tried OpenBSD yet I invite you to try it, you might like it. A long time ago I used OpenBSD as my sole desktop for six months and I fell in love with it. Right now OpenBSD is not a viable solution for my needs, but depending on your use case it might be for you. I definitely hope that one day I can use OpenBSD as my main operating system. My favorite OpenBSD features: -Awesome documentation (FAQ & Man Pages) -Small installation media (amd64/install54.iso - 232MB) -OpenBSD developers eat their own dog food -Just works philosophy
brunoqc 13y ago
What is the best hardware for a home router? Soekris was very popular in the past but I'm wondering that maybe there's cool hardware out there. I also wonder if carpd is usable with a DHCP connection.
- aflott 13y ago
  While may not be the best, but with no moving parts Alix boards are quite nice. http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm
- sramov 13y ago
  Soekris now has new models with Intel Atoms, top quality stuff as always (old ones are rock solid too, if a bit dated). I went with ALIX instead as I had a local distributor so it was quite a bit cheaper. Plenty fast for now, too.
- sramov 13y ago
  Also, there are some nice fanless Mini-ITX boards out there with dual gigabit, which is all you need (plus a case for a board and a switch, of course). M350 enclosure is popular and cheap. It goes without saying such box will smoke anything you can buy of-the-shelf. Hell, even the anemic ALIX Geode gave a nice boost to my home network over the crappy Linksys I had previously (things are now snappy and 100% stable).
- abjr 13y ago
  I'm not sure you'd consider it "cool", but I've been using one of these for the past 5 months with OpenBSD 5.3 with no issues: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205007 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205...
  - wglb 13y ago
    Your use is mainly as a router?
    - abjr 13y ago
spetsnaz 13y ago
Great for Firewall or Gateway...simply the best!

156 points by sramov 13y ago

Packets already flowing through 5.4 -release on my 'lil ALIX home router. Workstation on -current, of course. There is nothing quite like OpenBSD out there. Thank you OpenBSD developers!

csmuk 13y ago
Signed up to agree. Canned 6 Ubuntu machines (servers) and replaced with OpenBSD 5.3 recently. So much goodness ships with openbsd it's unreal. Bar Theo's sharp tongue (which is usually spot on), you get pf, opensmtpd (so much cleaner than postfix), nginx in base, miles better manual pages than Linux, no horrid gnu info, small and simple base system, absolutely no surprises, no bloated crap like dbus/upstart, tmux in base and what I can only describe as a warm fuzzy "why the hell isn't everything like this" feeling. Also, it's just about the only thing I've found that can work adequately entirely offline without having to use google to fix obscure problems and decypher documentation. I've got a bootable USB stick that contains the base packages, entire FAQ (main documentation source outside manpages), all normal binary packages I use, WiFi firmware and its less than 2Gb. Thanks as well.
- pit 13y ago
  Agreed, the base install gives you a system that feels both minimal and complete at the same time. Plus, every release includes a song: http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54
- deleted 13y ago
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- deleted 13y ago
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- ape4 13y ago
  Yeah, what is the point of gnu info?
  - philsnow 13y ago
    hypertext man pages ? what is it that people don't like about them ?
    - ape4 13y ago
      Isn't there some way to get hypertext into man pages? Eg extend nroff. Then you don't have to have a parallel system.
      - 4ad 13y ago
        nroff isn't the problem, the pager is. I view manual pages in acme and they become very hypertexty. It's not perfect, as they weren't written with that in mind, but it's damn good.
      - clarry 13y ago
        You can use w3mman (it installs with the w3m package on OBSD) and you'll be able to follow manual xrefs. Html output with links can also be generated, see the afterbook man page linked above for an example.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    NIH
  - teddyh 13y ago
    From https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/GNU-Manuals.html https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/GNU-Manuals.htm... The preferred document format for the GNU system is the Texinfo formatting language. Every GNU package should (ideally) have documentation in Texinfo both for reference and for learners. Texinfo makes it possible to produce a good quality formatted book, using TeX, and to generate an Info file. It is also possible to generate HTML output from Texinfo source. [...] Make sure your manual is clear to a reader who knows nothing about the topic and reads it straight through. This means covering basic topics at the beginning, and advanced topics only later. This also means defining every specialized term when it is first used. Programmers tend to carry over the structure of the program as the structure for its documentation. But this structure is not necessarily good for explaining how to use the program; it may be irrelevant and confusing for a user. Instead, the right way to structure documentation is according to the concepts and questions that a user will have in mind when reading it. This principle applies at every level, from the lowest (ordering sentences in a paragraph) to the highest (ordering of chapter topics within the manual). Sometimes this structure of ideas matches the structure of the implementation of the software being documented—but often they are different. An important part of learning to write good documentation is to learn to notice when you have unthinkingly structured the documentation like the implementation, stop yourself, and look for better alternatives. For example, each program in the GNU system probably ought to be documented in one manual; but this does not mean each program should have its own manual. That would be following the structure of the implementation, rather than the structure that helps the user understand. Instead, each manual should cover a coherent topic. For example, instead of a manual for diff and a manual for diff3, we have one manual for “comparison of files” which covers both of those programs, as well as cmp. By documenting these programs together, we can make the whole subject clearer. The manual which discusses a program should certainly document all of the program’s command-line options and all of its commands. It should give examples of their use. But don’t organize the manual as a list of features. Instead, organize it logically, by subtopics. Address the questions that a user will ask when thinking about the job that the program does. Don’t just tell the reader what each feature can do—say what jobs it is good for, and show how to use it for those jobs. Explain what is recommended usage, and what kinds of usage users should avoid. In general, a GNU manual should serve both as tutorial and reference. It should be set up for convenient access to each topic through Info, and for reading straight through (appendixes aside). A GNU manual should give a good introduction to a beginner reading through from the start, and should also provide all the details that hackers want. The Bison manual (https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts...) is a good example of this—please take a look at it to see what we mean. That is not as hard as it first sounds. Arrange each chapter as a logical breakdown of its topic, but order the sections, and write their text, so that reading the chapter straight through makes sense. Do likewise when structuring the book into chapters, and when structuring a section into paragraphs. The watchword is, at each point, address the most fundamental and important issue raised by the preceding text. If necessary, add extra chapters at the beginning of the manual which are purely tutorial and cover the basics of the subject. These provide the framework for a beginner to understand the rest of the manual. The Bison manual (https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Concepts...) provides a good example of how to do this. To serve as a reference, a manual should have an Index that lists all the functions, variables, options, and important concepts that are part of the program. One combined Index should do for a short manual, but sometimes for a complex package it is better to use multiple indices. The Texinfo manual includes advice on preparing good index entries, see Making Index Entries(https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Index-Entries.html https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_nod...) in GNU Texinfo, and see Defining the Entries of an Index(https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Indexing-Commands.html https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_nod...) in GNU Texinfo. Don’t use Unix man pages as a model for how to write GNU documentation; most of them are terse, badly structured, and give inadequate explanation of the underlying concepts. (There are, of course, some exceptions.) Also, Unix man pages use a particular format which is different from what we use in GNU manuals. [...]
- pfortuny 13y ago
  The doc is really unbeatable, I know nothing like it anywhere.
  - dman 13y ago
    Are they much different than the freebsd docs?
    - itwontdie 13y ago
      From my experience FreeBSD documentation is often outdated and no longer applicable. In my opinion incorrect documentation is worse than having no information as it often causes more problems and frustration.
      - GalacticDomin8r 13y ago
        > From my experience FreeBSD documentation is often outdated and no longer applicable You were using an open source project and as such feedback is critical. Can you list the bug report you filed on the problems? > In my opinion incorrect documentation is worse than having no information as it often causes more problems and frustration. That is your opinion of course. IMO experience, having outdated docs is much better than having none at all.
- DennisP 13y ago
  Do you know how it does with high concurrent loads these days?
  - csmuk 13y ago
    I've not done a direct comparison but it feels solid under load. IO bound processes seem to balance IO fairly i.e. no bad neighbour problem where one process will starve another and a fork bomb won't take out the system even though I managed to hit a loadavg of 80! It still was very responsive. Secondarily, I have a VM on BigV which seems to suffer less pauses and oddness than Ubuntu 12.04LTS did. Works nicely on UltraSparc machines (U30 and U60 tested) as well which is a bonus. I still find them superior to Intel even if they are power hungry and rather old now. Context switch time seems pretty low on Sparcs. Not sure if it uses hardware contexts or not though - haven't looked at the code.
  - stock_toaster 13y ago
    I think PF in openbsd is still single core[1]. FreeBSD 10.x apparently has an SMP version of PF[2]. My feeling is still that if high performance is desired, FreeBSD is still preferred. For "normal" workloads though, I think OpenBSD would be a fine choice. I do like how "clean" an OpenBSD system feels. [1]: http://openbsd.7691.n7.nabble.com/Performance-limits-with-OpenBSD-ToE-offloading-Intel-ET2-cards-td228314.html http://openbsd.7691.n7.nabble.com/Performance-limits-with-Op... [2]: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-pf/2012-June/006643.html http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-pf/2012-June/0066...
- microcolonel 13y ago
  D-Bus is just a low-level socket protocol(which is, by the way, really quite light); there is nothing "bloated" about it.
  - justincormack 13y ago
    Well, its going into the kernel as kdbus, which you could argue is bloated. Linux is much bigger than the BSDs, although it is modular and you can remove it, but the big distros use much of it so you can't if you use them...
    - microcolonel 13y ago
      A lot of things in linux are faster than in the various bsd kernels, some of this owing to having a few optional codepaths rather than just one. Also, kdbus basically means there is in fact /less/ code made necessary by using the dbus protocol, since you don't need the daemon anymore, it also means lower latency.
protomyth 13y ago
I'm going to reinstall a couple of servers this weekend with 5.4. It generally is just a matter of printing out /etc/fstab, doing the install (I skip the upgrade on these), install some packages, and laying back down the configs and keys from source code control. It takes about 20 - 30 minutes to put these servers up (gateway, dns). [edit] I should point out I've had a box running it before release to make sure that any changes are accounted for.
- aflott 13y ago
  I used to do fresh installs (due to a general fear of incremental upgrades failing) until I tried using their upgrade guides. I've never looked back. http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade54.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade54.html
  - protomyth 13y ago
    I do upgrades on some machines, but for some servers (firewall, dns, print server), it just takes a lot less time to do a fresh install. I keep the configs, keys, etc. under source control and can put it all back faster than doing the upgrade. It is also pretty good practice for anytime those servers go bad. It helps to be able to put temporary replacements in service from whatever I have lying around. I can save the hot spares for machines that have user data on them (e-mail, file servers).
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    I seem to recall someone (Theo, I believe) say that in order for an OpenBSD to maintain library compatibility with existing applications, you had to do an "Upgrade in Place" - and not do a fresh install. I.E. The default approach, incremental upgrade, is the only way to ensure your OpenBSD system doesn't fail.
    - protomyth 13y ago
      For the servers I'm talking about, blowing the whole thing away and installing any packages from the new disc is just fine and keeps away the clutter. I look at it this way, if all I'm really doing is adding some flags or configuration files, I would rather just blow it away and do the reinstall. Last couple of times I did that with my firewall, it was a 20 minute install.

jtth 13y ago

This building is energy neutral because all the lights are off and there's no power.

earlz 13y ago

I found out that http://openbsd.org http://openbsd.org is not the same as http://www.openbsd.org http://www.openbsd.org (one is much lower bandwidth) and apparently it's intentional that one doesn't redirect to the other. And that's not even to mention the website not using a static generator or CSS (despite http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/ http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/ actually being modern and good looking). From what I understand is the reason it's not changed is because it'd be too much work because it's duplicated everywhere, but they won't accept contributions to change it. I love OpenBSD as a piece of software, but I don't understand it's developers or community at all.

csmuk 13y ago
To be honest I've been using it for about 7 years and I didn't know that. I'm not sure that matters either. It's not really a priority and I respect that.
- earlz 13y ago
  No, and being able to download all the FAQs easily is cool but there are things where it actually impacts me. For instance, I have a netbook without a cdrom drive or floppy disk. So, to install OpenBSD on it, I had to first install OpenBSD onto another PC computer, and then run makeboot and such on my USB drive and copy over the ramdisk. Apparently the cited excuse for why they don't support USB bootable media is because it's hard because some computers only support floppy emulator or don't support it, and there are many bugs in USB boot for older BIOS.. But that doesn't keep every other operating system of this day and age supporting it
  - csmuk 13y ago
    Yeah I do the same with the USB stick as its easier than CD media. I have a vbox VM ready to roll for such occasions. I have had numerous problems on older Dell/HP machines with USB booting anything so it's reasonable. I buy the official media even though I rarely use it.
  - retzkek 13y ago

simonw 13y ago

The vocals on the release song are lovely http://www.openbsd.org/songs/song54.mp3 http://www.openbsd.org/songs/song54.mp3 - http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pimeys 13y ago

I'm a big OS geek, I love to install and test all new operating systems. Does anybody use OpenBSD as their main development OS? At least there's ports, and looks like you can compile all the necessary tools (xmonad, vim, firefox, zsh) from the ports system. But is this the ideal use of OpenBSD? Do I gain something if changing from Gentoo?

dysoco 13y ago
I tried luck with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, but just couldn't. Yes, I love both Operating Systems, I love that they are integrated and somewhat less retarded than Linux, I also like their community and development team and OpenBSD's focus on security and code-correctness. But they are not yet "there" for Desktop use, many applications won't work or will be difficult to set up, and driver compatibility is way worse. So maybe in a couple of years I'll switch to FreeBSD as a desktop, but for now Funtoo is still fun and somewhat usable.
- mmariani 13y ago
  Or you could switch to Mavericks which is based on Darwin that was forked from FreeBSD, and desktop ready. ;)
  - pimeys 13y ago
    But is too complicated system underneath for me to use. I love Funtoo/Gentoo for it's simplicity. I know exactly what's installed to my system and how I should configure it. With OS X, Ubuntu or Windows, I don't have that feeling anymore.
  - empthought 13y ago
    You probably know this, but the Darwin/FreeBSD relationship is much, much more complicated than a fork. Darwin's the successor to NeXTSTEP, which included a Mach microkernel and some BSD APIs and userland. When they developed OS X, Apple updated much of the userland using more recent FreeBSD versions as a base. Even more confusingly, Apple has contributed some subsystems to open source that have made their way into FreeBSD (notably the compiler and libc++). So Darwin's not a fork in the same way that OpenBSD is a fork of NetBSD.

jorgecastillo 13y ago

If you haven't tried OpenBSD yet I invite you to try it, you might like it. A long time ago I used OpenBSD as my sole desktop for six months and I fell in love with it. Right now OpenBSD is not a viable solution for my needs, but depending on your use case it might be for you. I definitely hope that one day I can use OpenBSD as my main operating system. My favorite OpenBSD features: -Awesome documentation (FAQ & Man Pages) -Small installation media (amd64/install54.iso - 232MB) -OpenBSD developers eat their own dog food -Just works philosophy

brunoqc 13y ago

What is the best hardware for a home router? Soekris was very popular in the past but I'm wondering that maybe there's cool hardware out there. I also wonder if carpd is usable with a DHCP connection.

aflott 13y ago
While may not be the best, but with no moving parts Alix boards are quite nice. http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm
sramov 13y ago
Soekris now has new models with Intel Atoms, top quality stuff as always (old ones are rock solid too, if a bit dated). I went with ALIX instead as I had a local distributor so it was quite a bit cheaper. Plenty fast for now, too.
sramov 13y ago
Also, there are some nice fanless Mini-ITX boards out there with dual gigabit, which is all you need (plus a case for a board and a switch, of course). M350 enclosure is popular and cheap. It goes without saying such box will smoke anything you can buy of-the-shelf. Hell, even the anemic ALIX Geode gave a nice boost to my home network over the crappy Linksys I had previously (things are now snappy and 100% stable).
abjr 13y ago
I'm not sure you'd consider it "cool", but I've been using one of these for the past 5 months with OpenBSD 5.3 with no issues: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205007 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205...
- wglb 13y ago
  Your use is mainly as a router?
  - abjr 13y ago

spetsnaz 13y ago

Great for Firewall or Gateway...simply the best!