Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

OpenBSD 3.7 Released

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the come-and-get-it dept.

pgilman writes "It's official: OpenBSD 3.7 has been released. There are oodles of new features, including tons of new and improved wireless drivers (covered here previously), new ports for the Sharp Zaurus and SGI, improvements to OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, OpenNTPD, CARP, PF, a new OSPF daemon, new functionality for the already-excellent ports & packages system, and lots more. As always, please support the project if you can by buying CDs and t-shirts, or grab the goodness from your local mirror."

5 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. How's the install? by m50d · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Manually creating a BSD disklabel is not to be taken lightly. If you're experienced you can do it, but it's very far from friendly. Anyone know if they've done anything to make it easier?

    --
    I am trolling
    1. Re:How's the install? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      buy the CD. Dedicate 1 HDD to OpenBSD. Then follow the printed instructions. i avoided OpenBSD for a lond time because of FUD like this. Found out that it is probably one of the best *nix distros there is. Simple, well documented, and WORKS. Also the pors tree is clean and smooth. Almost as easy as apt-get.

  2. Try the Torrent! by cjsnell · · Score: 5, Informative

    Check out the Unofficial OpenBSD Bittorrent Page. If the torrent isn't here, it will be, soon!

  3. Re:Neither irony nor sarcasm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The first trollish reference was to the fact that OpenBSD is much more secure by default then any distro Linux. The second was to the fact the OpenBSD is much more stable then any disto of Linux.
    How is this a troll? It's true. Anyone who is suffuciently familiar with the innards of both will tell you that, no question.

    I'm primarily a Linux user who does some OpenBSD on the side. I don't use GUIs that much, I configure everything by hand, and I do a lot of coding. I've written kernel stuff.

    I can tell you that it is clear that OpenBSD is simpler, more consistent, and just plain makes more sense than Linux. Coming from Linux, OpenBSD is more than a joy to work with.

    Linux is very ad-hoc. It just sort of "grew." It was developed in many places by many people, few of them working together with the big context of "the Linux system" in mind. The pace of development is very rush-rush-rush, and for example many times, the approach of the kernel developers is "let's shove this out to userland and let distributors worry about writing a script to make sense of it."

    OpenBSD is the opposite. People working on OpenBSD core packages have a specific kernel, userland, config script, etc., etc. in mind. There is a concept of "the OpenBSD system" and it is fairly consistent. People are working together to acheive that goal. The pace of development is more relaxed, and the people working on the userland are some of the same folks writing the kernel. So you don't get the sort of ad-hoc interfaces that make no sense to anything but a shell script (i.e. iptables), you get something which at every level, the user can get an idea how it works (i.e. pf).

    Or take wireless. Until recently I had a Linux box set up as a wireless access point. To do that I had to play around with different kernel modules, some of them shipping with the kernel, some of them not, ad nauseum until something worked. This was very annoying.

    Awhile ago I put the very same wireless card in an OpenBSD box whose software had not been updated in a few years. The card just worked! Without rebuilding or changing any config files, the card was detected.

    Then, I put a 2-line file in /etc, made some changes to the DHCPD config file, and much to my surprise, it functioned as a wireless access point. Effortlessly. Having struggled with this in Linux (where it is much more painful to do), I had much appreciation for this.

    The fact is, OpenBSD just does things the Right Way. People say OpenBSD's big strength is security, but that's slightly missing the point. OpenBSD's strength is correctness. From correctness yields stability, security, and all around ease of use.

    You can call me a fanboy, but I say OpenBSD wins hands down against any Linux distribution, with the only exception being that Linux generally supports more hardware, quicker.
  4. Re:Growl by DavidBurns · · Score: 5, Informative

    Expanding on a previous comment: A 1970's IBM project, System/R, developed "Structured English Query Language" shortened to "SEQUEL", and later changed to SQL. The CORRECT pronunciation of "SQL" is still "sequel". Saying "ess kew ell" is the sign of a newbie. Not that there's anything wrong with newbies, until they get fresh about things they don't know about. See e.g. http://www.faqs.org/docs/ppbook/c1164.htm