OpenBSD 6.2 Released (openbsd.org)

basscomm writes: OpenBSD 6.2 has now been released. Check out the release notes if you're into that kind of thing. Some of the new features and systems include improved hardware support, vmm(4)/ vmd(8) improvements, IEEE 802.11 wireless stack improvements, generic network stack improvements, installer improvements, routing daemons and other userland network improvements, security improvements and more. Here is the full list of changes.

Comments

*BSDs are rendering Linux irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

The *BSDs are quickly rendering Linux irrelevant, especially now that nearly all Linux distros have started using systemd which has caused stability and reliability problems for lots of users.

OpenBSD is proving to be an excellent server OS. Its focus on security is more important now than ever before.

FreeBSD is proving to be an excellent general-purpose OS. It can be used very successfully on servers, as well as on workstations. It probably has the best hardware support of all of the BSDs, and its ZFS support is remarkably useful.

NetBSD is proving to be an excellent embedded OS. It supports a huge range of systems, both new and ancient.

DragonFly BSD is proving to be an excellent testbed for next-generation technologies. Its HAMMER filesystem is superb, and it has long had excellent support for multi-CPU systems, and its virtual kernel support is extraordinarily useful.

It's getting to the point where Linux really doesn't offer any substantial benefits over the *BSDs. In many ways the *BSDs offer significant advantages over Linux.

The *BSDs are becoming the go-to operating system for a wide range of computing needs, from servers to workstations to embedded systems.

Re:*BSDs are rendering Linux irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody please mod up the parent comment? It shouldn't be at -1. It's very relevant, and more importantly, it's correct. I've been involved with moving some servers from Linux to FreeBSD, and it has been an excellent experience so far. Unlike modern-day Linux distro developers, the FreeBSD developers clearly respect the UNIX philosophy, and it shows in the high quality of FreeBSD. It works very well as a web server and as an application server, and we've had great success using it to run PostgreSQL. Our developers have also started using FreeBSD as their main development OS, and they're loving it. To paraphrase one of our developers, "FreeBSD is what Linux should have been."

We're starting to investigate using OpenBSD for some of our servers, and so far the testing has been going very well. Our only complaint with OpenBSD is that it isn't as user-friendly or convenient to use as FreeBSD is. But we can overlook that because we know it's offering us a very robust and trustworthy system. Personally, I can't wait until we've moved all of our computing systems over to FreeBSD or OpenBSD. I have far more trust in the systems running FreeBSD or OpenBSD than do in the systems running Linux.

Re:*BSDs are rendering Linux irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

The various BSD forks are generally worked on by real operating system developers who care about the conceptual integrity of the system as a whole, not only the kernel itself. There are Linux distributions with a similar philosophy, but most Linux development now is done by either large commercial interests who are adopting an MS-like attitude or random incompetent people who only want to leave their mark on something, whether it's a good idea or not.

BSD is more elitist, and that's a good thing for the quality of the system.

Re:*BSDs are rendering Linux irrelevant.

[Billly Gates]

The various BSD forks are generally worked on by real operating system developers who care about the conceptual integrity of the system as a whole, not only the kernel itself. There are Linux distributions with a similar philosophy, but most Linux development now is done by either large commercial interests who are adopting an MS-like attitude or random incompetent people who only want to leave their mark on something, whether it's a good idea or not.

BSD is more elitist, and that's a good thing for the quality of the system.

The BSD guys are interesting. Not more elitist .. hell go look at the forums of ARCLinux MY GOD but rather conservative. The BSD guys are really good at documentation and creating teams like the ones making /usr/share/docs and the FreeBSD handbook and great manpages which also include Unix history.

The BSD guys want something done well with great input from experts rather than just throw yet a another million userspace daemon when problem solving. BSDs are also a full OS and not just a kernel, a distro, and a few user apps are thrown in and grown and linked together with a hope it will work.

My take is read the manual is added because they trust their own manual. If a newbie say well that doc SUCKs and they will examine it and quickly email the documentation guy to fix it etc. There is a real documentation effort as the kernel guys don't want to answer noobie questions and many are at all skill levels and needs. What is cool about FreeBSD at least is they have examples you can uncomment out to do things and hacks like CVSUP. It encourages you to play.

Re:*BSDs are rendering Linux irrelevant.

[slack_justyb]

It's getting to the point where Linux really doesn't offer any substantial benefits over the *BSDs. In many ways the *BSDs offer significant advantages over Linux.

Welp I know this will get modded down, but hell why not play devil's advocate here? Vendor support. You have actual companies that will stand behind and certify software and hardware for Linux. Not so much for BSDs. Also, you kind of point out the problem with BSD. This BSD is good for this, this BSD is good for that. Not many businesses have the time to sit there and evaluate ten different BSDs to figure out which one provides the most bang for buck, where as much as everyone hates it, systemd homogenizes Linux. A single known Linux versus a half dozen BSDs where commercial support is iffy at best, guess which one is going to win in the mind of the non-technical person who write the check that will pay for the installation.

The *BSDs are becoming the go-to operating system for a wide range of computing needs, from servers to workstations to embedded systems.

I don't doubt that BSDs are getting deployed, but you are over stating the figure a bit. Newer folks in the industry are learning Linux and while the old hats like the way BSD works and feels, the newer folks don't really give a stink. Most of them will get ten seconds to have 100 servers up and running, ready for whatever software the PHB has selected. With BSD you'll be lucky to get past configuring disks in that ten seconds. With Linux you'll have an army of AWS boxes at your command ready to go before your first cup of coffee is poured.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here dissing the BSD folks, but there's a serious need for folks to look past systemd as the sole reason everyone and their dog is leaving Linux. That's not happening and people yelling this argument sound a lot like how people used to junk on Java for how poorly 1.2 ran all the way up to where Java EE and Spring is pretty much everywhere. It's seriously getting old and Linux's popularity hasn't gone anywhere and doesn't look like it is going anywhere anytime soon.

All the different BSDs are great and they have their place. However, I hear arguments about systemd and the majority of them are dated as hell, just like when Java 6 was out and people would rag on it like everyone was still using Java 1.2. So all the different BSDs, they're doing great, I mean look at Yahoo, they're still running all their stuff on BSD. There's a good amount of IoT that is running some version of BSD. I'm not saying BSD isn't some hot stuff right now. What I am saying is that Linux is way more known and a lot of folks know it as the go-to-solution, systemd and all. Additionally, systemd, while contentious, has not been the death knell for Linux that everyone would like to think. It has been an evolution, to try and put the best spin on the systemd situation, but there's actual vendors with money on the line who have a vested interest in seeing systemd become stable. For the most part, it has become a stable system. That's not to say everything is rosy now, but systems with systemd on the server and a person well versed in systemd are good enough for actual production systems, Amazon among others have shown that very clearly.

especially now that nearly all Linux distros have started using systemd which has caused stability and reliability problems for lots of users.

At some point Slashdot users need to break the stereotype that we all beat a dead horse into jell-o. One sided shit like this and everyone who chimes in with "MOD UP!" are all echoing a view that is years old, and yes, I'm pretty sure Slashdot will be first to amp to front page any failure of systemd, because that's what the mob likes, because Slashdotter just can't stop kicking the horse. But truth be told, every flipping OS on the planet has bugs and some of them are pretty damn serious and require fixes, that's how software works. But c

Re:*BSDs are rendering Linux irrelevant.

[AmiMoJo]

I've been meaning to try TrueOS for desktop out. Anyone tried it?

Their web site doesn't inspire confidence (scrolling is broken), so I might just try FreeBSD. Been about a decade since I last used it...

My standard distro test is to install Chromium and see if the mouse wheel works properly. I've found you can usually tell is a desktop distro is crap by how much effort they put in to making basic input devices work.

Re:year 2038

[fisted]

Just for the record, this AC is full of shit.

ssh-keygen doesn't generate unencrypted ssh keys by default, that only happens when you skip entering a passphrase (same behavior as ssh-keygen on literally any other platform, because - who knew - it actually originates from OpenBSD). If you do enter a passphrase, it will even refuse to generate a key if the passphrase is too short.

As for layered security, there's plenty of that in OpenBSD, a good deal of which other OSs do not have. Most recent example would be the "pledge" system call (formerly known as "tame").

I particularly enjoy stealing them from CIFS and NFS shares and backups, because even if the OpenBSD box is "secure", people inevitably leave those convenient passphrase keys lying around.

Aha, the "passphrase keys". For the record, as anything else, the private key is created chmod 600. You're not "stealing" shit, you're making things up.