Submitted by OpenBSD 4.8 has been released. The main feature of this release is the ACPI suspend and resume for laptops with Intel or Ati graphic chipsets. If anyone is knowledgeable enough about OpenBSD to write a long item about it, feel free.
OpenBSD 4.8 has been released. The main feature of this release is the ACPI suspend and resume for laptops with Intel or Ati graphic chipsets. If anyone is knowledgeable enough about OpenBSD to write a long item about it, feel free.
Is it me and my usage, or does OpenBSD fall between to chairs?
NetBSD is this tiny little bastard you can run on your coffeemaker, and FreeBSD is the hardworking network-throughputting, webserver?
Edit: OpenBSD got OpenBGPD and OpenOSPFD which is really neat, but FreeBSD still got quagga (never tried bgp with quagga, but ospf works superb)
Edited 2010-11-01 21:47 UTC
For instance on Sparc OpenBSD’s default configuration is a bit nicer although I think some hardware works a bit better on NetBSD. Anybody have an AG-10E sbus frambuffer to spare :-). I have a leo/ZX which is quite an intersting card yet lacking on the open source driver side :C.
Edited 2010-11-01 21:53 UTC
> Is it me and my usage, or does OpenBSD fall between two chairs?
The OpenBSD has a prime role: utterly secure network infrastructure – routing, firewalling and link management.
You can fill that gap with other BSDs or Linux or whatever; but there in lies a debate about features (e.g. CARP) and hardened robust secure reliability.
The problem with OpenBSD is that they haven’t “suffered fools” enough to create a sufficient critical mass of users. Doing the right thing and not worrying about popularity is one thing; but dipping below minimum momentum and moaning about lack of donations ain’t that sustainable.
I think part of the issue is that OS security has become a much smaller part of the equation. The other operating systems through a combination of code audits, great security patch management, and having very little (if any) direct exposure to the Internet, we don’t hear about remote exploits anymore.
Attack vectors typically concentrate on the application layer, such as PHP/ASP/Java/SQL injection/XSS. OpenBSD is, for the most part, irrelevant to that layer. Exploitable PHP code is as exploitable on OpenBSD as it is on Linux or FreeBSD.
Edited 2010-11-01 23:22 UTC
OpenBSD Rocks!
Edited 2010-11-02 08:14 UTC
It’s true that hackers focus on third party services but Linux has had more privilege escalation exploits which can turn a PHP exploit into a much bigger problem.
It’s most unfortunate then that quagga is ass.
Does it work, sure. Is it easy to work with, not so much.
I really hate the Cisco-wannabe interface of quagga.
On top of them other side projects that you have mentioned there is one other project from the OpenBSD project that is used by pretty much every Linux distribution, and Unix-like system in existance. As far as I know the OpenSSH project is from the OpenBSD project and I believe we owe a lot to that project in regards.
EDIT: I had to make a change due to a grammar mistake.
Edited 2010-11-02 14:12 UTC
I think it does when it comes to web servers.
FreeBSD has an excellent security record and provides better performance and compatibility.
But OpenBSD is still a good choice for routers and firewalls.
OpenBSD is great IMO. The only thing I dislike is their packages/ports are really out of date sometimes. Would be nice if they could cooperate with NetBSD and adopt pkgsrc. Why do the work twice when pkgsrc works on OpenBSD anyway?
The OpenBSD ports infrastructure and tools were written by Marc Espie in perl, it’s remarkably well designed and receives considerably improvements.. ports are maintained (..by the community, or devs) and receive a steady stream of improvements, considerable effort goes into making things compile on OpenBSD due to bugs in 3rd party software (..and assumptions of Linux-only).
The following is a recent paper from a talk delivered by him at this years EuroBSDcon.
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon_2010_pkg_add/index.html
There is no chance of using pkgsrc on OpenBSD officially.. and using the official ports tree gives you OpenBSD specific patches that are unlikely to be available elsewhere.
Edited 2010-11-02 01:58 UTC
The OpenBSD ports and package system is absolutely superb.
Totally rock solid and very easy to use. Package managers for various linux distros could learn a thing or two from it.
What I like most about the project is that stuff either works or it doesn’t, no half working wireless drivers that break with a kernel update, it works or it doesn’t. At least you know where you are.
Also the man pages are superb. I spend very little time “googling” a solution, I can just use the docs.
Agreed. I’ve never met a regression of the features I use in OpenBSD and I use CURRENT.
4.9 will have even simpler wireless control, kill groff, and replace the ancient GCC.
The worst thing about OpenBSD releases is that by the time they come out(even if you pre-order the CDs), the CURRENT tree is full of new release-quality features worth upgrading.
For my needs, following stable is fine. I run it mainly as a FOSS (non-ASP.NET) development environment. So I been happy feature wise since 3.9 (in terms of OS features). I started using in 3.7 so It wasn’t really that much different. but having pkg_add -i was a nice features to the package manager which made things a lot easier. Obviously newer better packages and system improvements have been welcome. Fedora Core 14 would crash while trying to detect my monitor resolution … OpenBSD just did it.
I ain’t particularly a unix wiz (I use a lot of MS software and like it), but because OpenBSD is soo well doced, I can just get on with it.
God damn it just get a blog.
Nobody cares about your FOSS (non-ASP.NET) life.
Of course you feel special because you’re using OpenBSD, and that’s fine. Just keep it for your f’in blog.
Thanks.
Nice try troll.
GCC was already updated to 4.2.1 for 4.8 for a good portion of the commonly used archs.
Impressive, seems that FreeBSD is pretty retarded now