Review: OpenBSD 3.4 SPARC64 Edition

'It's me' writes "Tony Bourke is reviewing OpenBSD 3.4 for SPARC-64. He discusses installation, the feel of the OS, its desktop, its performance, a MySQL problem he stumbled on, development tools and hardware support, firewalling and more."

Comments

OSNews Article Overview

[duffbeer703]

OpenBSD is great.

It recognized my NIC and worked very well.

The firewall features are very valuable and robust.

Conclusion: Linux is not ready for the desktop.

Not a Dupe! And an OK review

[bhima]

I found the article rather interesting! And if anyone had bothered to read the previous article they would realize that this guy is doing a series of articles based on the same Sparc box and a variety of operating systems (perhaps all the ones that will run on it and are freely available). To bad his doesn't seem to be a developer because he doesn't touch on anything at all in that arena and I would have been mildly interested in comparisons.

Re:Not only a dupe...

[Homology]

..but a little late, considering that 3.5 is due to ship tomorrow.

He did try a snapshot dated 29th of March, and that snapshot is pretty much OpenBSD 3.5. It would be nice if he could at least toch upon some of the new features of OpenBSD 3.5 like Greylisting (very efficient anti-spam and anti-email-virus) or CARP (the Common Address Redundancy Protocol) for failover.

Sparc64. . .

[bplipschitz]

I run OpenBSD 3.4 on an Ultra1 and an Ultra2 with no problems whatsoever. Granted, they are machines at home that the kids use [for doing homework, playing games, surfing the web], but they hold up well, are relatively quiet, and aren't going to get easily hacked.

The main reason I run OpenBSD on these machines, is that the graphics support was superior to NetBSD [which I run on an old SS20], and FreeBSD doesn't support the SBUS [yet].

Few errors

[the morgawr]

Though it's not the author's fault entirely (he is in a hurry), some of the bad experiences he had could have been avoided if he had followed the documentation and not assumed that OpenBSD is the same as Net and Free.

For example he tried to run the various X configurations utilities. The FAQ clearly states that there is a WORKING example configuration that you should start from in /usr/X11/README .

Furthermore the FAQ also states to not compile from source unless absolutely nessessary. If he had used packages, he might not have had the problems with the databases that he had. However there was a MySQL glitch in 3.4 (I think, it could have been 3.3) that was fixed in stable. Also, the 3.5 snapshot from the 29th had some serious problems (people were told not to use it). Doing a little more homework would have avoided these problems; it's all documented.

While overall the article was very interesting, I am disappointed that his haste caused him to have problems where he should not have.

Re:Few errors

[tokki]

For example he tried to run the various X configurations utilities. The FAQ clearly states that there is a WORKING example configuration that you should start from in /usr/X11/README .

The FAQ does not state this at all. Which FAQ are you refering to? ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/doc/obsd-faq.txt

While it was odd that starting up X11 with a non-working config crashed the system, I was able to get X11 working, as you can see in the screenshot.

Furthermore the FAQ also states to not compile from source unless absolutely nessessary.

That is not what the FAQ says. In fact, it only references compiling when talking about ports versus packages, and not compiling in general. It says that packages are easier, and it's recommended to use them, but it seems more of trouble-saving and time-saving advice than anything else, not an admonishment of compiling.

Ports Versus Packages

If he had used packages, he might not have had the problems with the databases that he had. However there was a MySQL glitch in 3.4 (I think, it could have been 3.3) that was fixed in stable.

I've gotten several comments about using packages. For one, I'm using MySQL 4.0. There are no packages or even ports for MySQL 4.0. I've been using it with the other evaluations, and it is MySQL's latest.

I prefer to compile from source whenever possible. Packages and ports are a convienence, and can often contain patches and workarounds, especially on non-x86 distributions. It would seem silly to rely entirely on ports/packages.

There is a port for PostgreSQL which I used and had the same bus error problems, although I didn't use a precompiled package. I'll give that a spin when I'm by the system, but right now I'm in Hawaii so I don't have access to the OpenBSD system.

Also, the 3.5 snapshot from the 29th had some serious problems (people were told not to use it). Doing a little more homework would have avoided these problems; it's all documented.

The 3.5 snapshot worked fine for me, and I didn't see any "do not use" messages anywhere. The only problem I had with it was it exhibited the same strange MySQL behavior that 3.4 did. For me, it worked exactly the same as 3.4. So I'm not sure what "problems avoided" you are referring to.

You'll note that I did solicit the help of the OpenBSD/sparc mailing list, and while I recieved some excellent suggestions, nothing was able to sort out the particular issue.

Re:Few errors

[0racle]

It didn't crash the system because of an invalid XF86Config file, it crashed because he tried to start X one a Serial Console, you can't do that.

As far as the MySQL problem, its very well known and has been in OpenBSD for some time, the MySQL Manual has it listed for as far back as 2.8 if I recall correctly, just for some reason not everyone hits it.

On a side note, it was nice to see my name in a review, even though I was for all intents and purposes no help at all.

Hardware support problem in ALL BSDs

[mnmn]

Part of the reason why Linux is so popular is it supports almost all hardware out there. BSD is great and preferable for me in many places because if its simplicity and its more standard.

I tried OpenBSD in my Ultra5 a while ago, before the first of these two reviews came out, and it ran much faster than Solaris. I have a SCSI disk in there, so it was an impressive firewall, except it didnt see the ATM card.

Also needed to install OpenBSD (I'm used to OpenBSD's simplicity) on my spanking new VA Linux 1000 webserver, but I was using a Promise SATA card in there to run the SATA disk. Only Linux can read the SATA, so I had to revert back. BSD is great but (1) You have to have the hardware it supports (2) You should only need the functions your version of BSD supports.

I'd love to see FreeBSD support SATA cards (Promise TX2plus) and have facilities like Linux UML or Solaris zones, unlike chroots. In the short run, Linux is there, in the long run BSD will be used unless Linux becomes real stable, and is standardized, or the Slackware development is continued.

Re:Hardware support problem in ALL BSDs

[Brandybuck]

I'd love to see FreeBSD support SATA cards

WTF? FreeBSD does support SATA cards. My workstation does not have any IDE harddrives, yet I've had FreeBSD on it for a year. This machine does not have Linux on it because at the time I purchased the system Linux only had SATA support as a patch. At the last time I tried to install Linux on it, none of the shipping distros included SATA support on the install media.

Again?

[saintlupus]

Tony Bourke is reviewing OpenBSD 3.4 for SPARC-64.

Would someone please give this guy a Solaris CD already?

He's reviewed _everything_ else that runs on his eBay-purchased US5. Let it go.

--saint