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OpenBSD 4.3 Released

Posted by timothy on from the deserves-more-praise dept.

An anonymous reader writes "OpenBSD 4.3 is now available! Released today, May 1, 2008, 4.3 introduces many new improvements and upgrades. The complete changelog is here. Torrents can be found here." As usual, this release is accompanied by a song.

44 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Why isn't this in the bsd.slashdot.org section?

  2. hmm? by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    /me is curious why this article is displayed as abbreviated while the gNewSense article is displayed as full text.

    1. Re:hmm? by urcreepyneighbor · · Score: 1

      /me is curious why this article is displayed as abbreviated while the gNewSense article is displayed as full text. Curious like how a perp dies in police custody?

      zing!
      --
      "The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
    2. Re:hmm? by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For exactly the opposite reason from what you'd probably expect. Flame Wars = Ad views, and Slashdot has been working for years to create an atmosphere where RMS's concept of "free software" is flame war material. gNewSense article = "free software" flame war. OpenBSD is just a solid OS, and therefore triggers no flame war (except when Theo starts one - those always get full articles).

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    3. Re:hmm? by incripshin · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I'm tired of hearing about every alpha/beta/rc that nubuntu comes out with. The BSD developers do far more work than the people working on the linux distros.

  3. Torrents are Available by nebulous_afterthough · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here's the tracker - http://openbsd.somedomain.net/
    Most popular architectures appear to be i386, amd64, and sparc64.

    1. Re:Torrents are Available by nebulous_afterthough · · Score: 1

      Nice. Explain the 100KB/s upload I've been seeding all day then. Guess those three people REALLY like it.
      That makes 4 of us who run a real OS.

  4. Re:Oblig by kellyb9 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did you ever think that FreeBSD is so stable, many of the users don't post?

  5. Picture of 'New' Rack? by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 1

    Everyone should click on the picture of their 'new rack' in the lower right of the page.
    Looks like some truly ancient hardware... are those SS-20s?

    1. Re:Picture of 'New' Rack? by 0racle · · Score: 1

      Most likely these And what's wrong with SS20's or some other, older hardware?

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    2. Re:Picture of 'New' Rack? by 0racle · · Score: 1

      SS10 and 20 machines can run up to 4 hypersparcs which keeps my hopes for SMP SPARC32 alive and with hypersparcs up to 200MHz, they make pretty good build machines. Also Ultra1's are Sun4u. It's sort of hard to hack SPARC32 on a SPARC64.

      As far as wanting machines, if you want to donate them, I'm sure they wouldn't mind hearing from you.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    3. Re:Picture of 'New' Rack? by incripshin · · Score: 1

      I'm certain that the image has been up for at least a year, so I don't know when it was 'new'.

  6. Re:Oblig by snarfies · · Score: 1

    HAHA OH WOW. Please tell me you're seriously asking me that.

  7. Re:none for me, thanks by BobNET · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've always liked the idea of OpenBSD but stuck with Linux because OpenBSD ISO images are so hard to find. IIRC, they do this on purpose.

    ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.3/i386/install43.iso (replace with address and path to your nearest mirror and architecture where appropriate)

  8. Re:Oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If BSD dies, it will really be a bad day, since I'll be forced to run my servers with shitty, bloated code that is riddled with security problems (you guys call it Linux, if I recall correctly). Obligatory "the difference between BSD and Linux users is that BSD users get laid and Linux people are fat creepy nerds with no life" joke goes here.

  9. Re:OnLAMP article about the new release by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1

    A nice article regarding the new developments of 4.3

    Yeah. It's a nice article and there are a lot of improvements. Some unexpected like the better performance for SSDs.

    Speaking of SSDs, I see CDs slowly but surely heading the way of the floppy. At some point, they're going to disappear from more or less all new units. They're off a few models already, but it's too soon to say when the tipping point will hit. When it does, the sales of read-only CDs will have to be replaced, possibly with read-write SD flash or USB sticks or something similar. Some thought will have to be put into how to best deal with that when the time comes.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  10. Re:Warning: Unofficial Torrents by raddan · · Score: 1

    Simple solution is to check the MD5. If it matches, you're fine. If you're worried about hogging the project's bandwidth, buy a CD set. The $50 will go to a good cause.

  11. Re:BSD zealots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Apparently you didn't bother looking at why the song is about Stallman. He came onto the OpenBSD mailing list and posted many many times saying how un-free OpenBSD was because it dared to link to some non-free software *in it's port's collection* in case people wanted to download some popular non-free software. He wasted a lot of his time bashing them on their home turf. It's unsurprising that they might spend a little bashing back.

  12. Re:BSD zealots by RLiegh · · Score: 1

    I think it has less to do with the ideals of the FSF as much is it has to do with a month-long-flamewar that happened on their mailing list from dec to jan. In short they're not as much denouncing GNU as much as they are denouncing GNU trolls

  13. Re:OnLAMP article about the new release by Uncle+Focker · · Score: 1

    I see CDs slowly but surely heading the way of the floppy. At some point, they're going to disappear from more or less all new units. They're off a few models already, but it's too soon to say when the tipping point will hit. The reason that CD drives are disappearing is because of the fact that DVD drives are pretty much as cheap as any CD drive AND can read CDs (with many able to also burn CDs).

    When it does, the sales of read-only CDs will have to be replaced, possibly with read-write SD flash or USB sticks or something similar. This logic doesn't follow. DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drives all read CDs. Why would the elimination of drives that only read CDs mean that CDs would have to be replaced? There are still 100s of millions of the previous mentioned drives that can read them just the same.

    Some thought will have to be put into how to best deal with that when the time comes. This time you mention would have to extend to the end of all optical media, which isn't coming around any time soon.
  14. A bad song? by Ikipou · · Score: 1

    The song accompanying the distribution is against GNU licensing. The previous song were not against free software, there were funny, and against BLOB, lack of support from hardware vendors, etc. I don't see the interest in hitting other free (as in speech) project. OK, there was the problem of relicensing of a driver for the Linux kernel, but they should begin to work together instead of beginning a war.

    --
    Insightful! :)
    1. Re:A bad song? by urcreepyneighbor · · Score: 2, Informative

      but they should begin to work together instead of beginning a war. Get your facts straight. Hell, get some facts - at least.

      We didn't start shit.

      We're just ending the war with style, baby. ;)
      --
      "The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
    2. Re:A bad song? by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're not going to get anywhere by complaining about flame wars between the OpenBSD guys, the GNU guys and the Linux guys. They disagree, and all three groups have people with forcible personalities and no reason not to start a flame war. RMS was asking for it this time. Linus was asking for it last time. Theo was asking for it the time before that.

      All of these groups create very solid software - and creating a modern free OS distribution currently requires software from at least two of the groups (gcc and OpenSSH are in everything these days). I see no downside to letting them continue to flame each other - it hasn't slowed any of them down in the 7+ years I've been watching them do it.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    3. Re:A bad song? by turing_m · · Score: 1

      I assume you are referring to this event, which would be the obvious start to any war (and not by the BSD folks):

      http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/13/156258

      --
      If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
    4. Re:A bad song? by Secret+Rabbit · · Score: 1

      There is a very good reason why the release focus is the way it is this time. It all started with this email with RMS trolling on the misc@ list (ended up being around an 800 email thread with RMS proving what a nutter he is):

      http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119730630513821&w=2

      You should also read the comment on the lyrics page. It's just under the picture in the left column:

      http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#43

      """
      OK, there was the problem of relicensing of a driver for the Linux kernel
      """

      Which people made him aware of, which should have been concerning to him because how that ended up would have negatively impacted his OS. But, his answer to people was to leave him alone on that matter. As in, he'll use any technique, no matter how shady to promote and further his own goals.

      """
      but they should begin to work together instead of beginning a war
      """

      Kinda hard when RMS works to license everything under the "you either license it all under our license or you can't work with us" GPL. Which, btw, is incompatible with the BSD. There's also the fact that he's been quoted as saying that he'd rather see all programmers be taxi drivers having all code free (using his NON-dictionary definition) than having any proprietary software at all.

      Rather hard to work with someone when they are completely uncompromising. Seriously, read the thread. It tells of a *very* unstable person.

    5. Re:A bad song? by Frantactical+Fruke · · Score: 1

      "Seriously, read the thread. It tells of a *very* unstable person."

      Um, I don't see how you can call a person unstable, when he has espoused an unchanged set of beliefs for three decades. That makes him about as unstable as the Rock of Gibraltar. Some other adjective might perhaps serve better in expressing your frustration with him.

      Not that it would help, as neither RMS not Theo de Raadt is likely to be moved. By anything. So these altercations are pure entertainment events that will be viewed by coming generations like the medieval fights over the number of angels on the head of a pin.

    6. Re:A bad song? by Secret+Rabbit · · Score: 1

      First off, you seem to not know what that thread was about. I suggest that you read it before making any other comments that suggest that you haven't a clue as to what was discussed.

      Secondly, his beliefs have changed significantly over time. It's just that the changes are viewed by his followers as still "in the spirit" of his previous views. If you would have been involved in that thread, or even had read it, you would have seen his position change significantly even in that short period of time.

      You see, the problem with his opinions is that they are very context sensitive. He'll take a point of view that allows him to "win" an argument. Then later on, when that point of view works against him, he'll say that people misinterpreted him ignoring quotes and requests for explanation side stepping the issue by ignoring the issue itself.

      Trust me, I've had conversation(s) with him before, and he completely ignores any questions that the answers would work against him. He'll even ignore further requests at answering the questions. It's extremely frustrating to have non-discussions that go like this:

      Me: You said "quote 1" and now you say "quote 2". These contradict each other.
      RMS: You're misquoting me. You're taking "quote 1" out of context.
      Me: We were talking about x then and we are talking about x now. How is that taking it out of context?
      RMS: --- talks about something else ---
      Me: Please answer the question.
      RMS: --- continues along another line ---
      Me: Seriously, just answer the question.
      RMS: ...

      You get the point.

      Third, this didn't have anything to do with Theo's moving or unmoving attitude. It had everything to do with RMS spreading FUD about OpenBSD then RMS coming on misc@ and picking a fight. He's done that before to the Subversion project among others.

      http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS6278881818.html
      http://fitz.blogspot.com/2007/07/stallman-shoots-free-software-movement.html

      Among others.

      Fourthly, you're going to have to explain to me how the below describes a stable person (i.e. clicking links in posts helps):

      http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#43
      """
      We are just plain tired of being lectured to by a man who is a lot like Naomi Campbell.

      In 1998 when a United Airlines plane was waiting in the queue at Washington Dulles International Airport for take-off to New Orleans (where a Usenix conference was taking place), one man stood up from his seat, demanded that they stop waiting in the queue and be permitted to deplane. Even after orders from the crew and a pilot from the cockpit he refused to sit down. The plane exited the queue and returned to the airport gangway. Security personnel ran onto the plane and removed this man, Richard Stallman, from the plane. After Richard was removed from the plane, everyone else stayed onboard and continued their journey to New Orleans. A few OpenBSD developers were on that same plane, seated very closeby, so we have an accurate story of the events.

      This is the man who presumes that he should preach to us about morality, freedom, and what is best for us. He believes it is his God-given role to tell us what is best for us, when he has shown that he takes actions which are not best for everyone. He prefers actions which he thinks are best for him -- and him alone -- and then lies to the public. Richard Stallman is no Spock.

      We release our software in ways that are maximally free. We remove all restrictions on use and distribution, but leave a requirement to be known as the authors. We follow a pattern of free source code distribution that started in the mid-1980's in Berkeley, from before Richard Stallman had any powerful influence which he could use so falsely.

      We have a development sub-tree called "ports". Our

    7. Re:A bad song? by Frantactical+Fruke · · Score: 1

      Hm. A list of ad hominems (the plane anecdote) and false attributions ("You cannot sell your code...") is not going to convince me that you are the sensible ones in that exchange. I like free software of all flavors, but getting dragged into byzantine wars of interpretation of the word "free" is not my idea of well-spent time. If your people had simply ignored RMS, you would have had an easier time. The Ubuntu people obviously do, since I don't see flame wars like this over gNewsense. They just made their Gobuntu branch to satisfy the freedom fanatics and continue as before in the main distro.

  15. Re:no netcraft jokes? by Uncle+Focker · · Score: 1

    You're almost an hour behind there. See: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=540248&cid=23264284 and then http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=540248&cid=23264514

  16. Re:BSD zealots by Uncle+Focker · · Score: 1

    No, they are opposed to the trolling of Stallman who was spreading falsehoods about their project and then refused to apologize or even acknowledge his misstatements.

  17. Re:OnLAMP article about the new release by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

    Flash drives are great but they are not great at arcivile backups.
    I don't think you will be seeing optical media going away anytime soon. DVD drives are about as cheap as CD drives and DVDR drives are very cheap.
    Optical drives are only being pulled from sub notebooks and even then they do seemed to be missed.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  18. Re:Obligatory "Run Linux" post by BobNET · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, but does it run Linux?

    Yes.

  19. OpenBSD user base grows by one! by silvrstar · · Score: 1

    Now, Ivan Russian Programmer will make most valuable contributions to project. Hoorah!

  20. Re:BSD zealots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    no, you're misinformed. it is the FSF zealot Stallman who was frothing at the mouth accusing OpenBSD of being "not free" because of various licenses that the ports (which are installed by makefile download and compiling by the user, the binaries are not distributed with OpenBSD).

    Stallman should be ashamed of himself for spreading FUD in the OpenBSD mailing lists. He's a hypocrite, since he has made sure the FSF software has windows versions distributed. He's more interested in making a spectacle of himself these days than in advancing the cause of his so-called "free" software.

  21. Re:Oblig by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

    Hey, I'm not fat!

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  22. Re:Oblig by urbanriot · · Score: 1

    Are you including the comprehensive ports tree?

  23. Re:Warning: Unofficial Torrents by raddan · · Score: 1

    Whew! Somebody needs a timeout. List of MD5s.

  24. Misconceptions by Slashcrap · · Score: 1

    Many people think that OpenBSD is an operating system development project. In reality, OpenBSD is a trolling project that just happens to produce an OS as a happy side effect.

  25. DNS/PRNG by Metallic+Vortex · · Score: 1

    I just checked the changelog. it looks like they caved and fixed the DNS/PRNG issue.

  26. Re:Oblig by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Great! FreeBSD is grown a lot lately, the default installation is over 800 MB.

    Dang! At current prices, that'll cost me nearly 14 cents. That's just unacceptable.

    Sarcasm aside, I think FreeBSD long ago gave up any pretense of being a minimal OS. There's nothing at all wrong with that goal, but FreeBSD's target hardware is larger servers.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  27. Re:none for me, thanks by sycotic · · Score: 1

    LOL you are so 4.1 or earlier, dude.

    Get with the times!

    The OpenBSD project offers ISO files free for download now :)

    --
    -- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
  28. Re:Warning: Unofficial Torrents by sycotic · · Score: 1

    LOL you are so 4.1 or earlier, dude.

    Get with the times!

    The OpenBSD project offers ISO files (and associated MD5 sums) free for download now :)

    --
    -- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
  29. Re:BSD zealots by hubertf · · Score: 1

    I didn't realize that BSD zealots are [...]

    Please don't lump all three BSD projects and their users into one pot, thanks.

      - Hubert

  30. SMP for sparc64 running on Blade 2k for two months by ajsbsd.net · · Score: 1

    Kudos to my favorite OS people for the reliability of their SMP code for sparc64. I can finally make use of all these servers! cpu0 at mainbus0: SUNW,UltraSPARC-III+ (rev 2.2) @ 1056 MHz cpu0: physical 32K instruction (32 b/l), 64K data (32 b/l), 8192K external (512 b/l) cpu1 at mainbus0: SUNW,UltraSPARC-III+ (rev 2.2) @ 1056 MHz cpu1: physical 32K instruction (32 b/l), 64K data (32 b/l), 8192K external (512 b/l) -a