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OpenBSD 3.7 Reviewed
busfahrer writes "Jem Matzan has written a review of OpenBSD 3.7 for Newsforge. He talks about their licensing issues, network features, upgrading packages and the new supported architectures."
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Opening line:
The operating system world has been blessed by another regular release of OpenBSD.
And, no, it doesn't get any more objective further down. Nor does he talk about the licensing issues or new architectures in any detail at all - less detail, in fact, than he talks about the theme tune.
I liked linux back when nobody knew what it was. Now my mom even knows what it is.
Good bye linux, hello obscurity, er, OpenBSD!
BSD is not dying at all. Most of the major operating systems are based on BSD, or have borrowed code from it.
It will happen.
"...an effigy of a crown-wearing penguin."
Sheesh. The prez in "Mars Attacks" said it best:
"Why can't we work out our differences? Why can't we work things out? Little people, why can't we all just get along?"
Mark
Is there *any* actual information in this article at all (useful information, anyway)? The only tidbits I could find boil down to things like "my on-board controller didn't work", "I couldn't compile KDE myself", and "this and that specific option to this and that program gives a warning when you use it".
Outside of these things, the only pieces of information I could find boiled down to "there's two new ports", "it still doesn't include Apache 2.x", and "you get daily (in)security reports mailed to you". If it wasn't for the irrelevant fluff mentioned above, I'd assume the author of this article hasn't even installed OpenBSD and instead just looked through the website and maybe Google'd for some extra information.
I really hope the author didn't get payed too much for this, because no matter how much he got, the article wasn't worth it.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I guess BSD isn't dead after all.
It's now a zombie. Neither dead or alive.
Evolution or ID?
As someone who replied to the original article (see bottom of original link) mentioned, it would've been interesting to have seen a true comprehensive analysis of OpenBSD, rather than a lot of "I think" and "I liked".
I would have appreciated the article more if it were a lot more in-depth, but perhaps that would've ward off others. I would like to see him not just talk about the install process (initially), but also how easy it was to install applications (and not just "I had to type too much"), configure them (interface-configuration, or purely text-editing), and finally - how well they all interacted. Now, I know that sounds more like an analysis of the individual applications rather than the operating system, but what is an operating system if not a platform that you use to interact with applications?
We also hear about the "new wireless" stuff... where was that? Test with multiple cards? USB-Wireless perhaps? PCMCIA Wireless? To tout such things (even in the review) and then not do anything with them is rather disappointing.
From the article:
The theme of the OpenBSD 3.7 CD set is The Wizard of Oz, and the cute little CD jacket cartoon strip shows the OpenBSD mascot and friends on a journey to achieve better wireless card drivers. Their adventure takes them to the Emerald City to meet the great and powerful Wizard of OS himself -- an effigy of a crown-wearing penguin. The man behind the curtain turns out to be a Richard Stallman-like character with GNU horns. The characters are disappointed because the Wizard ends up being "all talk -- no action!" So they decide to code the wireless driver by reverse-engineering the device.
Actually, from an admins point of view, the BSDs are easier to learn than any linux distribution. That is not to say they are easier to use, but they are simpler when it comes to managing the system:
Less complicated init;
MUCH better documentation;
Less painful filesystem management (though LVM2 is really nice);
The downsides are significant however:
Bad support for esoteric hardware;
Less vendor support;
Fewer eyes looking over the code (though, to be fair, there is MUCH less code for them to look over)
When I ran RedHat, there were some pretty annoying things that got changed from release to release (inetd disappears, two different C compiler installs because of kernel problems, etc.).
This kind of stuff doesn't happen in OpenBSD. From an administration perspective, my first 3.2 install is very similar to the 3.5 that I run now, which itself is similar to 3.7. There are no large architecture changes (perhaps because things are well-thought-out from the start).
Because of this, you pretty much know what you're getting when a new OpenBSD release comes out. The installer is practically identical, and the running system yeilds few surprises. There will always be new features, but there won't be lots of things to unlearn.
So no, I don't really pay much attention to the reviews. The list of new features on the OpenBSD web page pretty much tells me all that I need to know.
I know this is slashdot, but please stop spreading FUD.
6 91304
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=127944&cid=10
Fewer eyes looking over the code
I don't know if this is really true. There are three major BSD "distributions" with subtle differences. Fans of each routinely look over the code for the others looking for good, "stealable" code. Not only does that mean that people are looking at the code, but informed "outsider" coders are looking at it with a critical eye. So, even if the code is reviewed by fewer people, it's reviewed by people who are more likely to notice, report, and fix bugs.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
I simply told you which one I like better and why (i.e. what you asked for). I didn't tell you what are the differences between them, so your deduction is wrong.
h andbook/index.html
In fact, the main differences are technical, in their very goals: while FreeBSD focuses mainly on features and i386 performance, OpenBSD focuses mainly on code correctness and security.
>Do these two share between each other?
Sure they do - and massively.
For example, one little jewel that came from OpenBSD to the other *BSDs is pf (packet filter), that has an excellent reputation for its being very clean and easy to use.
>Is there a common BSD kernel or anything like that?
No.
The *BSDs are developed like OSes, not "distros". So, while they massively share code, they maintain their own kernels.
To better understand the differences, it helps to notice that OpenBSD was born as a NetBSD fork, 8 years ago - and even today, it shares more code with NetBSD than with FreeBSD.
But to understand even better, well.. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are renowned for their excellent documentation, that is well worth having a look at.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/
http://openbsd.org/faq/index.html
--
Requiem for the FUD
OpenBSD is really more of a server OS. Sure you /can/ use it as a desktop, but there are better alternatives. I think its strongest point is how in /etc/rc.conf one can simply change say named_flags=N to named_flags="" (command arguments could go inside the quotes) and bam! BIND is up and running. Many of these services are available in /etc/rc.conf from the default install. Thus with OpenBSD it is possible to bring up a reliable and secure server fairly quickly.