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Pain points for me: The package management and upgrades. If I'm not mistaken (perfectly possible, I'm really no expert and only browsed OpenBSD documentation h

Pain points for me: The package management and upgrades. If I'm not mistaken (perfectly possible, I'm really no expert and only browsed OpenBSD documentation here and there) - you have no decent binary packages FreeBSD guys online complain a lot about the current pkgng changes, but the direction is great: Build from ports, install binaries elsewhere. This is something I really really like, since I tend to avoid building stuff on production machines and since I don't want to (even temporarily - and that means you have to clean up!) pull in pure build time dependencies. FreeBSD solved this for my use case with pkgng and the ability to easily host your own repository. I have a build machine and run portshaker/poudriere to create exactly the (binary) packages I need. Installation on the targets is a breeze. - consider the heartbleed issue As far as I understand the OpenBSD project issued a patch (as in text file) and told you to rebuild the related parts of your base system (or everything)? FreeBSD has binary updates for these kind of things. I'm not trying to bash OpenBSD or promote FreeBSD, I guess the general idea behind this post is that I'm interested in the project OpenBSD, but feel that running OpenBSD would probably too much tinkering than I'd like (cough I guess I'm saying that I'm lazy?). But maybe, maybe, I'm wrong about one or both of these "issues"? Maybe there are 3rd party helpers that make everything very, very easy (just like portshaker/poudriere on FreeBSD are tools I install from ports, i.e. not part of base)? I'd be happy to be enlightened.

avsm 13y ago
> you have no decent binary packages This is completely incorrect. OpenBSD has been all about building reproducible binary packages for quite a long time now, and the ports tree is regularly bulk-built and failing ports fixed or swept out of the way. The key difference from FreeBSD is that OpenBSD binary package sets are released every six months with the base system, and you are expected to upgrade them during a system upgrade. It's as simple as `pkg_add -ui` if you point the PKG_PATH to a remote OpenBSD distribution mirror. One advantage of upgrading ports with the base system is that caveats are all conveniently listed in the upgrade guide for that release. E.g. for 5.4->5.5: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade55.html#Pkgup http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade55.html#Pkgup
- darklajid 13y ago
  Cool! Thanks for correcting me. That said: I need more stuff than the ports tree contains (I .. checked NetBSD and FreeBSD, plus a couple of Linux distributions. I admit that I haven't checked all my packages against OpenBSD's ports tree, but I assume I'm correct). Plus, I do need the occasional update without waiting 6 month. How would I do that? For comparison: On FreeBSD I use portshaker to create a ports tree that is a mixture of upstream (FreeBSD) and other sources (a git repository, in my case). If FreeBSD doesn't bump a package and PRs take a whiiiiile, I bump that thing in my overlay. poudriere allows me to build (in bulk) all my relevant packages in jails, is clever enough to rebuild just the stuff that changed (or where I changed the config) and spits out a directory structure that represents a pkgng repository with (optional) signed binary packages. pkgng is pointed to my repository (actually it supports multiple sources, apt like. Can PKG_PATH do that?), which contains now builds from upstream ports and my overlay. How would I (hoping that you have a couple of minutes and can prove me wrong once more) - build binary packages for ports that either don't exist upstream (stuff I ported) or are outdated upstream? - distribute those in a decent way (PKG_PATH swapping..?) I guess I'm left with the question whether we're talking about the same thing when we're saying 'decent binary packages'? I'm sure you can OpenBSD works well for the intended use - but 'decent' wasn't an objective attribute here, it was more a subjective 'decent for my needs' kind of thing. More details above. In the end, pkg_* feel like ooold Solaris, or like using Slackware again. That's package management on a different level and feels like a step down from apt/yum/pacman/pkgng. Again: Probably it's just a matter of convenience and my laziness in the end, but so far I feel that's not for me.
  - avsm 13y ago
    I'll just point you at the ports and packages documentation, which has answers to all your questions: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html
    - darklajid 13y ago
      Fair enough. Here's an upvote, that's probably the right answer. That said: I read that page. Multiple times. It doesn't help me mapping my portshaker/poudriere setup into something in the OpenBSD world so far. On the other hand: It makes no sense to expect that answer from you either, so .. back to the first line, full circle. :)
adamrt 13y ago
You post is formatted awkwardly so I'm only guessing at your issues. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding. "you have no decent binary packages" - OpenBSD encourages the use of binary packages. The OS is shipped with them. You can use ports (compile from source) if you like, but packages are preferred. [0] There are no binary updates for the base system (maybe in 3rd party, but not from OpenBSD). You do have to compile but there are only a few per release and not mandatory if they don't affect you. Here is the heartbleed patch [1]. Very simple and contains the instructions in the patch. [0] Ports and Package Docs - http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html [1] Heartbleed Patch - http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/5.5/common/002_openssl.patch.sig http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/5.5/common/002_op...
borando 13y ago
the ability to easily host your own repository. OpenBSD can do this by default. Just build your package how you like, and then on the target machines, set $PKG_PATH to your build/hosting server.

avsm 13y ago

> you have no decent binary packages This is completely incorrect. OpenBSD has been all about building reproducible binary packages for quite a long time now, and the ports tree is regularly bulk-built and failing ports fixed or swept out of the way. The key difference from FreeBSD is that OpenBSD binary package sets are released every six months with the base system, and you are expected to upgrade them during a system upgrade. It's as simple as `pkg_add -ui` if you point the PKG_PATH to a remote OpenBSD distribution mirror. One advantage of upgrading ports with the base system is that caveats are all conveniently listed in the upgrade guide for that release. E.g. for 5.4->5.5: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade55.html#Pkgup http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade55.html#Pkgup

darklajid 13y ago
Cool! Thanks for correcting me. That said: I need more stuff than the ports tree contains (I .. checked NetBSD and FreeBSD, plus a couple of Linux distributions. I admit that I haven't checked all my packages against OpenBSD's ports tree, but I assume I'm correct). Plus, I do need the occasional update without waiting 6 month. How would I do that? For comparison: On FreeBSD I use portshaker to create a ports tree that is a mixture of upstream (FreeBSD) and other sources (a git repository, in my case). If FreeBSD doesn't bump a package and PRs take a whiiiiile, I bump that thing in my overlay. poudriere allows me to build (in bulk) all my relevant packages in jails, is clever enough to rebuild just the stuff that changed (or where I changed the config) and spits out a directory structure that represents a pkgng repository with (optional) signed binary packages. pkgng is pointed to my repository (actually it supports multiple sources, apt like. Can PKG_PATH do that?), which contains now builds from upstream ports and my overlay. How would I (hoping that you have a couple of minutes and can prove me wrong once more) - build binary packages for ports that either don't exist upstream (stuff I ported) or are outdated upstream? - distribute those in a decent way (PKG_PATH swapping..?) I guess I'm left with the question whether we're talking about the same thing when we're saying 'decent binary packages'? I'm sure you can OpenBSD works well for the intended use - but 'decent' wasn't an objective attribute here, it was more a subjective 'decent for my needs' kind of thing. More details above. In the end, pkg_* feel like ooold Solaris, or like using Slackware again. That's package management on a different level and feels like a step down from apt/yum/pacman/pkgng. Again: Probably it's just a matter of convenience and my laziness in the end, but so far I feel that's not for me.
- avsm 13y ago
  I'll just point you at the ports and packages documentation, which has answers to all your questions: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html
  - darklajid 13y ago
    Fair enough. Here's an upvote, that's probably the right answer. That said: I read that page. Multiple times. It doesn't help me mapping my portshaker/poudriere setup into something in the OpenBSD world so far. On the other hand: It makes no sense to expect that answer from you either, so .. back to the first line, full circle. :)

adamrt 13y ago

You post is formatted awkwardly so I'm only guessing at your issues. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding. "you have no decent binary packages" - OpenBSD encourages the use of binary packages. The OS is shipped with them. You can use ports (compile from source) if you like, but packages are preferred. [0] There are no binary updates for the base system (maybe in 3rd party, but not from OpenBSD). You do have to compile but there are only a few per release and not mandatory if they don't affect you. Here is the heartbleed patch [1]. Very simple and contains the instructions in the patch. [0] Ports and Package Docs - http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html [1] Heartbleed Patch - http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/5.5/common/002_openssl.patch.sig http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/5.5/common/002_op...

borando 13y ago

the ability to easily host your own repository. OpenBSD can do this by default. Just build your package how you like, and then on the target machines, set $PKG_PATH to your build/hosting server.