OpenBSD 2.8 Released

I just logged into the OpenBSD ftp server and noticed that OpenBSD 2.8 is up and ready for download. From the Press Release, 2.8 contains improved hardware support for newer Apple Hardware (iMac, G3, G4, G4 Cube), security fixes, AES support, AES/Rindjael encrypted swap, OpenSSH 2.3.0, RSA libraries in base install, and many more ports in the ports tree. According to the project, this release commemorates 5 years of OpenBSD, on October 18, 2000. This is OpenBSD's 9th release. Happy Belated Birthday OpenBSD!

Comments

Re:That so rules.

[Mawbid]

I agree that GNU's move to info is not helping, but I'd like to defend them a little by pointing out that their reasons for switching were valid and that it's "only" the execution that has failed.

Take a look at man tar (for a non-GNU version of tar) and info tar respectively. Newbies complain that man pages are hard to understand, being primarily references rather than teaching tools. I've read man pages that described in detail every option available, but neglected to say what the program was for! Very few (Linux) man pages explain how the program fits into the grand scheme of things or include a tutorial. Most don't even include examples. Furthermore, there's no toplevel man page or any man page equivalent to, say, the Shell Utilities info page, which are very useful for learning about how to use the system rather than an individual program (which you may not even know exists or is appropriate for the task at hand).

Now, mostly this can be fixed by writing more man pages and adding explanation and tutorial matter but if you're going to do that, you start wanting more structure and navigation than man provides and thus info was born. So, I disagree that man is superior to info. Info solves real problems with man.

The problem is that info hasn't been widely adopted and most people just end up using man (at least I did -- I don't even think to check info most of the time). When that happens, stubbornly refusing to write proper man pages and saying "use info, it's much better!" does no good.

(Plus, the standard info viewer sucks entirely too much, but at least there's pinfo.)

I suspect that whether it's info or man isn't the key point though. If you want really good documentation with examples, a tutorial, descriptions of concepts and common work procedures, links (navigatable or "see also") to related programs and so forth, then you're talking about a major effort in writing the documentation and that, I think, is the main reason such documentation doesn't exist in info or man for most programs.
--

Geez Pat

[Shoeboy]

from the three-years-without-a-hole dept
You have my pity.
--Shoeboy

Re:The problem with OpenBSD

[rent]

I know it sucks when another OS (besides Linux) is mentioned on Slashdot, but all of us Linux fans can deal with it. So please keep your anti-BSD propaganda to yourself..!

If you want to support OpenBSD...

[trims]

Like many others here that run OpenBSD, I've got a collection of CDs from previous releases, and really don't need another CD, since I can just snarf the updates.

Rather than get Yet Another T-Shirt, I suggest that people wanting to make a donation do it via PayPal. The OpenBSD user on PayPal is: obsdpaypal@openbsd.org. This is by far the easiest way to send them money, and it all goes to the project.

If you're a corporation that uses OpenBSD, I suggest that they make a nice donation - I've usually suggested $1000 as a suitable amount.

-Erik