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OpenBSD 6.4 Released (openbsd.org)
The 45th version of the OpenBSD project has been released, bringing more hardware support (Radeon driver updates, Intel microcode integration, and more), a virtualization tool that supports the disk format qcow2, and a network interface where you can quickly join and switch between different Wi-Fi networks.
Root.cz also notes that audio recording is now disabled by default. If you need to record audio, it can be enabled with the new sysctl variable. An anonymous Slashdot reader first shared the announcement. You can download it from any of the mirrors here.
Root.cz also notes that audio recording is now disabled by default. If you need to record audio, it can be enabled with the new sysctl variable. An anonymous Slashdot reader first shared the announcement. You can download it from any of the mirrors here.
OpenBSD actually does have a code of conduct:
"Shut up and hack!"
In that 20 years, I have had at most 2 software related crashes.
That does not mean I don't also use other OSes. I do - none has been anywhere near as reliable, but many can do things OpenBSD can not.
In a database server (which is behind a front end) for a billing system which is 150 miles away, 2 years uptime is more important than supporting a graphics card (it runs headless). The Internet facing machine is duplicated, so one machine can be updated while the other handles the traffic, If the update goes wrong, it can stay like that til a routine visit. If the database engine (or even the switchover) went wrong, someone has to go there and a lot of money is lost before he gets there.
You are already in front of your gaming machine. If it goes BSOD, you press the reset button. Its not the same scenario.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
My main desktop is Debian GNU/Linux.
But I also have two OpenBSB systems, and my experience is quite different between the two. I use them for various tasks (though they also sometimes sit unused for weeks), and for easy interaction use a graphical environment. One of the tasks I use them for is to check if the Small Device C Compiler (SDCC) works well on OpenBSD.
One is an old amd64 Dell laptop with German keyboard. Basically, it just works. XFCE as desktop, Firefox as browser, LLVM for the compiler.
The other is a Mac mini (the fastest of the PPC versions, RAM upgraded to max, with SSD - still slow compared to modern systems) with German keyboard. Well, X works. I never could get the German keyboard layout to work though, so I have to do quite some trial-and error when typing. There is no Firefox or LLVM for it. netsurf for the browser works kind of okayish for many websites. The compiler that comes with OpenBSD is an ancient GCC, that does not support current language standards, such as C++11, so it won't compile current software. Fortunately, one can install GCC 4.9, which already is an important improvement (at least it supports C++11, so a bit more software compiles, but C++14 support is incomplete).
I first installed Linux in 1994 (Slackware), and soon began to use it professionally. Over the following years I tried various distributions, Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, until settling for Debian around 2001, for my workstation, laptop, and servers. In 2011 I noticed that I was spending way too much time tinkering around to keep my laptop in a stable state (wouldn't resume from sleep, audio was hit-and-miss, wifi worked under one kernel but not the next one). I bought a MacBook Pro and haven't looked back ever since.
On the server side, over the past few years I have replaced all Debian installations with FreeBSD. Not "because systemd", but things were heading in a direction I didn't much care about. So if I have to re-learn a bunch of ingrained things I might as well take the plunge already. And I found out that I love FreeBSD; and the way things are done and worked with seems to be more natural to me. To list just a few:
- pf firewall /etc and /usr/local/etc are separated for a reason
- package versions do not depend on OS release - I can have the latest packages running on an older release, and I can upgrade releases without upgrading all your userland binaries
- I can run the current (or a recent) version of the packages I need without having to resort to an unstable OS branch (see above)
-
- jails
So to answer your question: (Free)BSD definitely better serves my needs.
I'm not writing this to disparage Debian or any other Linux distribution. I appreciate the work so many people have put into this (and have donated over the years). With FreeBDS I just found a system that I am more productive and feel more at home with.