Stable OpenBSD 3.7 has been released. On this site there is release announcement. Changes are noticed here. Many people are downloading files, so use nearest mirror if You can from this list .
OpenBSD 3.7 has been released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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33 Comments
2005-05-20 3:16 pm
Anonymous
I have to say OpenBSD is the most impressive operating system i’ve encountered. I can’t wait to install the new release! 
2005-05-20 4:03 pm
2005-05-20 6:46 pm
2005-05-20 7:14 pm
Nice, to hear there is again a new release of openbsd
What’s the best BSD version for desktop usage? I’m using NetBSD now, but what’s really the difference between openbsd, netbsd and freebsd for desktop users. One of the important features for me are gnome and staying up with the latest versions of software.
(FreeBSD 5.4 has problems with my nforce2 mobo)
nForce is just junk. Get something decent.
Any of the three should be fine. I imagine FreeBSD’s ports are more bleeding edge, but NetBSD seems to be a better system (IMO only). OpenBSD’s my favorite, but plenty of people aren’t content with the speed of the system.
a new song with it as well. Yea OpenBSD!
I don’t know which is ‘the best’, because my experience with OpenBSD and NetBSD is very limited – I use FreeBSD on my desktop. Just try them out and see for yourself, no one can tell you what you’ll like.
In case you have an Asus motherboard (might work for other nforce2 mobos as well, not sure), your FreeBSD problem can be circumvented by disabling firewire (IEEE1394) ports in the BIOS.
One of the important features for me are gnome and staying up with the latest versions of software.
If you want to keep up-to-date with 3rd party software then OpenBSD might not be for you. I don’t know if anything has changed with OpenBSD 3.7, but in the past you get the ports tree for that version of OpenBSD and they don’t recomend you to update to the latest -current branch of the ports tree. They only update the ports tree for your version of OpenBSD if there are security updates and that’s it.
It’s not like FreeBSD, where you keep updating your ports tree for the latest ports and then you update our ports if they’re old.
I love OpenBSD. If I had to pick one thing that I didn’t like about OpenBSD, then that would be it (the second thing would be the lack of tab completion in sftp). Otherwise, the OS is great.
PCBSD looks really interesting. It is FreeBSD with a graphical install that loads KDE from the get go. It also is developing a package repository to download that which you want on your system. It is basically FreeBSD 5.4 with increased usability for those switching from other oses.
<a href=”http://www.pcbsd.org/“>PCBSD
@Arjan
Thank you, I will try if disabling firewire helps, I don’t use it anyway…
@Anonymous
Why is nforce crap? It is used everywhere (yes windows is used too :p) But yes, my next platform will be a little different… people become smarter by time you see. Any suggestions?
@Patrick
It’s good for newbie users, but a normal installation isn’t also that difficult…
!!My congratulations to all the OpenBSD developers!!
I’m planning to replace my Linux firewall with OpenBSD’s PF, much better and easier to understand than iptables (anyone willing to port PF to Linux ?
)
PS: Don’t forget to order your CDs…
Check out their theme song, “Wizard of OS”. Am I the only one who finds it cute that every OpenBSD release has it’s own theme song?
I switched my fileserver (smb/ftp/cvs) from Gentoo to OpenBSD…. never looked back!
OpenBSD is a perfect server platform…
Big thanks to the devs.
No you are not! my favorite song, Pond-erosa Puff 🙂
Eh… this one’s okay. “The Legend of Puffy Hood” and “Erailed” are better
@Myrd: I think they are cool too, my fav was the one from 3.2.
I should have waited to install, just installed 3.6 on a Compaq 1210 (P150/80MB) Laptop on Sunday. I have a SPARCstation 20 that runs 3.6 as well. Compiling -STABLE is a loooong process on these boxen.
Single floppy FTP installs have saved alot of my older machines. Others might complain about the install, I think setting up the HD might be the “hardest” part, and even that is not rocket science, and the man/faq are perfect!
Thanks Theo & Team!
(Paranoid & Proud Since 2.7)
If you look at the artwork that goes with the latest song, there is what looks like a negative image of RMS. It seems a lot of open source community people don’t like RMS.
What’s the problem? He’s made significant contributions–if nothing else as a programmer. IIRC he helped develop Emacs and GCC, and OpenBSD is built with GCC.
I pre-ordered the CDs a month ago but they’re not here yet; Saturday’s my last official day before the summer vacation, so it’s great that I’ll be able to upgrade the server before I leave.
I just recently bought a USB keyboard to replace my worn-out PS2 model. To my chagrin, it doesn’t seem to work with ANY of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD). But it works fine with Linux. I’ve done a lot of googling, have seen various suggestions, none of which have worked so far. With *BSD, the keyboard behaves as if it’s not there – can’t type anything. Does anyone have any ideas?
TIA,
DB
It’s not like the other *BSDs are at all difficult to use, either. PCBSD has already had two OSNews stories in the last month, so I don’t know why you feel it’s not getting enough attention.
RE: USB keyboard
Does http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-s… help? Specifically, the suggestion to disable atkbd0?
With FreeBSD 5.4 you have an option at the boot menu to boot up with a USB keybaord. Did you try that?
“i know you “developers” and “advanced-users” don’t like it when OSes are to “easy”. i’ve already heard the freeBSD users moan and bitch about the fact, that now newbies install their beloved OS on a desktop system. ”
Sorry Jay that you have had some negitive experiences with certain users. I have been a FreeBSD user since 4.5. And personally, I see nothing wrong with PC-BSD. PC-BSD is bsically FreeBSD with a graphical installer. The only difference that I can see is that it loads everything into 2 partitions.
Other than the partitions, its FreeBSD that has been pre-configured for the desktop. O’wait, there is one more difference that I have noticed (read about), various moduals are already compiled into the kernel like some sound devices.
So in essence, big deal, its FreeBSD w/out the GENERIC kernel in addition to some pre-config apps. Not a bad way to go if you want a system setup once its installed.
But for the record, I wouldn’t change from FreeBSD for the world. Besides, I prefer something other than a Desktop Environment. I like leaner Window Managers. Just my preference.
USB keyboards work great under NetBSD for me. You might want to peek around in your bios and check to see if you have legacy usb kb enabled or not.
nForce is crap because nVidia isn’t opening documentation. If they did, support would rock. Until then, avoid the boards.
Andrew Z. writes:
If you look at the artwork that goes with the latest song, there is what looks like a negative image of RMS. It seems a lot of open source community people don’t like RMS.
What’s the problem? He’s made significant contributions–if nothing else as a programmer. IIRC he helped develop Emacs and GCC, and OpenBSD is built with GCC.
The song commentary states:
Meanwhile both Linux and FSF head developers are not asking their communities to help us in our efforts to free development information for all, but are even going further and telling their development communities to not work with us at pressuring vendors. It is ridiculous.
So the beef is that Mr. Stallman is not on board in their open specs push.
Talking about their earlier Ethernet efforts, the commentary also says:
Many vendors refused to supply programmers with programming documentation for these chipsets.
Don’t you think it’s a bit much to ask the vendors to send over programmers with specs to explain it to the OpenBSD people. Oh, oh, he means …
This is why automatic translation will never work
This is my opnion on what the difference is but its based on facts and experience.
OpenBSD -> very secure because of code auditing and other practices. They have like 1 vulnerability every 2 years. Makes and excellent firewall/router. It does very poorly in benchamarks(compared to linux and freebsd) for apache and mysql.
NetBSD -> i have very limited experience but i hear NetBSD supports more platform than anything else.
FreeBSD -> semi-secure and bleeding edge. Great for web/ftp/mail servers. Has to be updated frequently…lots of releases.
I don’t think the art work was supposed to portray RMS in bad light. I think people just view it that way because they already think that that’s the way everyone feels about RMS. I’d say the art work is more humourous and offensive.
I’m pretty sure RMS himself values the work that OpenBSD has done trying to get hardware manufacturers to provide documentation — in fact, it wasn’t long ago that RMS presented an award to Theo.
The OpenBSD guys are mostly pissed because many of the top linux/FSF developers aren’t taking the same stance — in fact, many of them don’t seem to care. And you know what? I bet RMS is equally pissed off – for years he’s been lecturing everyone on freedom, so I can’t imagine he would change his tone as far as hardware docs and drivers are concerned.
Anyway, let’s not make insane speculations here, no sense inventing problems that don’t exist.
Yay for the great release of OpenBSD, just dl’ed it.
Boo because I noticed EVERY single comment mentioning PC BSD is marked for Review, wtf?
BSD’s
I use OpenBSD for my router, NetBSD for my server, and FreeBSD on my desktop. In that order (IMHO) they serve well.
Slackware Linux on my Laptop 🙂
/Jed
> So the beef is that Mr. Stallman is not on board in their open specs push.
There’s no beef with Stallman on this issue. Stallman is actually on board and has publicly lauded Theo and OpenBSD for their effort to open hardware.
One of the REALLY nice things about OpenBSD is that because most (if not all) f the supported drivers are compiled in the kernel, it’s stupid simple to have most hardware working out of the box. Not that setting up drivers you need to load at boot-time is hard or anything, but it’s a pleasure nonetheless. Because of the wonderful design of the system (same with NetBSD, although IIRC NetBSD uses modules for many drivers now), having all those drivers in there doesn’t leave you with a massive kernel.
I still prefer Mac OS X myself, but OpenBSD is in many, many ways a fantastic system.
OpenBSG is really great, every realease is a step behind, but I have one question: OpenBSD support XSP (ASP server) ?
Lars Hansson writes:
There’s no beef with Stallman on this issue. Stallman is actually on board and has publicly lauded Theo and OpenBSD for their effort to open hardware.
Then they might want to reconsider the content of the commentary, song, and pictures. Particularly the “throne”. Which intentional or not brings to mind the expression that ends “… or get off the pot”. However, being OpenBSD, they treat everyone with exuberant irreverence (to be kind), so that’s not likely to happen.
Like their system. See for example of home application Real Ouellet’s detailed guide to OpenBSD gateway/firewall: