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OpenBSD 4.7 Released
An anonymous reader writes "The release of OpenBSD 4.7 was announced today. Included in this release are support for more wireless cards, the loongson platform, pf improvements, many midlayer filesystem improvements including a new dynamic buffer cache, dynamic VFS name cache rewrite and NFS client stability fixes, routing daemon improvements including the new MPLS label distribution protocol daemon (ldpd) and over 5,800 packages. Please help support the project by ordering your copy today!"
If I can't see examples of OpenBSD running Gnome with transparent Conky over a red Lamborghini Murcielago wallpaper and maybe some cascading green character columns like the Matrix, I'm going back to Ubuntu.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Yeah, I use OpenBSD. My firewall's named linksys and the SSID is default, both for sheer entertainment value. OpenBSD like anything else has its flaws: namely a insular and hostile user community and theocratic leader with a vision. On the other hand it's people like that who get things done.
It would be nice to do more with OpenBSD than I can now, but last I checked ports didn't have the latest asterisk, getting the latest Java running is a pita, the latest Apache has an incompatible license or something, ZFS will never be supported, etc, etc, etc. But staying up with the latest software isn't really a design goal for Theo & crew. It's sort of the PVP UNIX - no care bears welcome. Their targeted approach to security over features makes it the best OS out there for targeted uses, but who knows if they'll make it to 5.7 - decreasing relevance and due to narrowing mainstream software support definitely also narrows interest.
Regardless, congrats on another great release.
Be careful with the settings of the no-df bit in TCP fragments, which Linux NFS generates and expects, while PF rightly blocks when scrubbing. The PF FAQ is your friend there.
Oh come on now... The title is inflammatory and tone is combative. Unsurprisingly the discussion at guy's blog degenerates pretty quickly.
I don't really disagree with most of his central points: Secure by default isn't really useful to most people; OpenBSD needs more security features than older UNIX ones; and the OpenBSD team does themselves a huge disservice with their "not invented here" syndrome... But really the whole thing could be been written with a more professional tone and fostered a lot more constructive discussion.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I started using OpenBSD at version 2.7 after a few years using various versions of Redhat linux and Mandrake.
I was hooked right away.. It was a lot of things. Maybe the first was the really easy installation process... In my opinion it still might be the simplest out there. There is the well written man pages.. And the simple 'full' installation. It was easy to understand where everything was and it mostly stayed that way from release to release. The config files seemed easy to read and the firewall was really snazzy!
They do some good work! I enjoy using it, even if all I am really doing is small scale hobby work.
Perhaps every Ubuntu release story should have a link to a site titled "The Unusability of Ubuntu." Seems fair, doesn't it? The article would necessarily have to be negative... title non-withstanding. Slashdot has turned seriously hostile to non-Linux open source operating systems. I'm not sure why. I've even heard people here use the classic, "nobody uses it, so it must be bad" argument - the same one Windows users make about Linux.