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OpenBSD Review at DistroWatch
jpkunst writes "Robert Storey at DistroWatch com has written an in-depth and favorable review of OpenBSD: OpenBSD - For Your Eyes Only. 'The first OpenBSD memento I ever saw was a T-shirt with a picture of a cop chasing a script kiddie. That image remained etched in my mind for well over a year before I finally got my hands on a copy of this fine OS. Now that I have it installed on my machine, I only wonder what took me so long.'"
The article is very clear and concise. While BSD was not trivial to install the very first time, it isn't too difficult for those with experience. However even noobs can install OpenBSD with this article.
BTW - A good idea is to install OpenBSD on a dedicated secondary hard disk, such as a 4GB or something that you can find for free now a days. That way you will not have to worry about ruining your partitions on your primary disk, as OpenBSD is a bit scarier with writing to your MBR than, lets say, the GUI for GRUB in the RedHat installer.
"As Benjamin Franklin once said, the only way for three people to keep a secret is if two of them are dead. While it's doubtful that Ben was referring to computer security, many PC users have lots of little secrets stored on their hard drives. Things such as credit card numbers, a personal address book, and perhaps a few naughty photos from the New Year's Eve party."
Man, why aren't my New Year's Eve parties like that!
"True dat with a wiffle ball bat." -- kabrakan
Now that is funny!
Perhaps you would like to know that FreeBSD usually gets new hardware support before Linux... It some cases, LONG before Linux... USB & Firewire support come to mind immediately, but there are plenty of other examples as well.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
non-trivial to whom? as a linux dork maybe 5 years ago, i installed BSD on a friends laptop without ever reading a single thing about BSD. He asked me if I would, then handed me the cd's. A little while later it was up and running.
non-trivial to MS-Windows users, Mac users, and Linux initiates maybe. But 5 years ago, I was barely above the status of linux newb. Ok, so it wasn't exactly trivial to do at the time, but easy enough to do without documentation.
Still, your point is well taken.
That way you will not have to worry about ruining your partitions on your primary disk, as OpenBSD is a bit scarier with writing to your MBR than, lets say, the GUI for GRUB in the RedHat installer.
You don't seem to have heard of the *feature* in Fedora Core 2 to get rid of booting from a windows partition
Keep in mind that all the BSDs share code with eachother. FreeBSD and NetBSD have imported OpenBSD's PF. NetBSD has imported OpenBSD W^X. All of the BSD's share various internals and device drivers.
There have been 300+ committers to FreeBSD in the past year. I'm guessing Open/Net/DragonFlyBSD have 1-3 dozen developers each. Apple has a bunch of developers. All combined, the BSDs are doing pretty good.
Since each BSD has a different focus, the developer has a choice of which fits their style best.
Something that might interest users of FreeBSD who envy pf:
pf on FreeBSD
-Dan
... is the mascot they present when you visit their respective web sites.
Linux = Penguin = Warm and cuddly.
FreeBSD = Cartoony demon = Warm (hot?) and cuddly.
NetBSD = Many cartoony demons = Even warmer and cuddlier than FreeBSD.
OpenBSD = Blowfish with a leaash on another fish with a spiked collar = spiky, poisonous, and into S&M
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
I am somewhere between newbie and novice when it comes to *nix. When I decided I needed a good secure operating system for my job to put their web server on, I realized that I didn't know or want to learn all the steps it takes to secure Linux.
So I decided on OpenBSD (that whole "secure by default" thing kinda enticed me). I picked up a copy of "Secure Architectures with OpenBSD" and went to work. Well, then I realized that it probably would have been faster to learn the steps to securing Linux, but I am really liking OpenBSD so far.
I can honestly say, installation was incredibly easy once I RTFM, and I'm finding it is that way with most stuff. And the things that I have hit snags on (making PHP and MySQL play nice together) have been resolved by a few posts to misc@openbsd.org.
And OpenBSD's clean filesystem makes it a lot easier to learn Unix than other OSs.
Oh, and did I mention that Ports and Packages kick ass?
The short answer is NO!
The fact is, the BSD development model is what leads to the quality of BSD systems. If you want the Linux mode, well, thats what Linux is for. We WANT the BSD model.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Just read the man pages. Amazing how down to earth and straightforward things can be if there's a group focus on simplicity. Everything is laid out in plain English. Setting up my OpenBSD box as a DHCP server took less time than doing the same thing using the GUI on my Linksys wireless AP. That's including reading the man page.
This guy is way out there
The man pages on BSD simply rock. As opposed to the man pages on most Linux distros, many of which say, "This hasn't been updated since the dawn of time, you should be using our proprietary hypertext system 'info' to get your information, dumbass." Not including the ones that were taken (as is allowed under the BSD license) directly from the BSD folk, of course. And most tools written by people influenced by their system provide equally usable man pages. Its a great cycle of documentary bliss! Or something. Either way, its pretty cool.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I guess the best bet for someone who just wants to try out BSD is Freesbie
A BSD newbie must also know that all BSDs have the same advantage over Linux. That is good documentation for development and for POSIX patterns.
But im not trying to start a flamewar, even because BSDs may not be the best OS for everyone.
for regular users, or for bigger OS flexibility, i would sugest to stay with our pal Tux! (ive used it for long time =) )
but if you want to build a stable server in which youll need to do some secure,well-documented development, BSD is always a good choice.
One must only have in mind that the BSDs are not all equal as ive read on earlier posts!! (people were talking about FreeBSD when the topic clearly states about Open).
just for the record:
NetBSD >runs on everything with 32 bits. (including toasters =D)
FreeBSD > good performance and stability. (My personal choice ! )
OpenBSD > awesome security but bad performance compared to the other 2.(what i have to work with in college)
just thought that someone needed to clear that out!
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
If you want to give OpenBSD a try without installing it head over to http://metawire.org. They offer free OpenBSD shells, they've got a pretty big community and it's a great place to play and learn with OpenBSD.