Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

OpenBSD Drops Support For Loadable Kernel Modules

Posted by Soulskill on from the loadable-kernel-modules-have-had-it-too-good-for-too-long dept.

jones_supa writes: The OpenBSD developers have decided to remove support for loadable kernel modules from the BSD distribution's next release. Several commits earlier this month stripped out the loadable kernel modules support. Phoronix's Michael Larabel has not yet found an official reason for the decision to drop support. He wagers that it is due to security or code quality/openness ideals.

6 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Security Threat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    So, no more removing a single module because a security issue has been found.

    Almost sounds like someone is backdooring the hell out of OpenBSD.

  2. Re:When was the last time you compiled a kernel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    If you run OpenBSD and want to use ports, compiling your own kernel is basically mandatory.

  3. To Dice: Please fire SoulSkill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Reason: he trolls more than he posts.

    kthxbye

  4. In other news. by Truekaiser · · Score: 0, Troll

    OpenBSD market share drops as it no longer supports third party hardware. Former OpenBSD users migrate FreeBSD and DragonflyBSD where they can load the drivers for their raid cards and other server hardware that is not yet in the BSD mainline kernel.

    This decision is almost as dumb as the unquestioned adoption of SystemD in linux..

  5. OpenBSD is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Basically, OpenBSD has locked itself from ever becoming a modern operating system capable of running on modern laptops where hardware ecosystem tends to change a lot with all the USB pluggables. Oh also, forget about any kind of serious graphics acceleration. Phoronix recently compared opensource to proprietary nvidia (and previously AMD) drivers and the results are abysmal for the open source ones.

    Not that there's anything wrong with that. OpenBSD will remain a niche product run by a handful of users that otherwise run Macs (oh, citation needed? http://assets.keltia.net/photos/BSDCan-2014/Devsummit/medium/devsummit-31856.jpg ) and other than being primary sources of OpenSSH and hopefully systemd shims, completely irrelevant.

    By the way, this is news, okay, but not really. Us gentoo users have been runing slim kernels compiled only for the hardware we use, because we can, for years now. But, I can always re-enable modules or simply use the genkernel. I have no idea why they're dropping the modules instead of disabling by default. I'd says lack of manpower and increasing irrelevance of the OS.

  6. Re:Code compression by Noryungi · · Score: -1, Troll

    I am afraid your intelligence has also been compressed.

    Besides, OpenBSD uses BSD libc, which is a lot less bloated than GNU libc.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)