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OpenBSD 3.9 Released

Posted by Hemos on Mon May 01, 2006 07:56 AM
from the free-willy dept.
Upgrades Operating Systems Software Announcements BSD
An anonymous reader writes "OpenBSD 3.9 was released this morning and is now available for download from the OpenBSD mirror sites. Among the new features is integrated framework for monitoring hardware sensors, a BSD licensed driver for nvidia nforce ethernet, and loads of new drivers and bug fixes. Of course you can still purchase the CD-ROM set which includes support for five platforms: i386, amd64, macppc, sparc, sparc64, and also includes the complete blob free source tree and prebuilt packages for many architectures. As always your contributions help to continue the devlopment of this great opeating system."
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OpenBSD 3.9 Released 25 Comments More /

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  • BSD confirms it. Netcraft is dead.
  • As always your contributions [openbsd.org] help to continue the devlopment of this great opeating system."

    That sentence about should read:

    As always your contributions [openbsd.org] help to continue the devlopment of all opeating systems.

    Apple's security relies on openSSH, Microsoft service's for Unix are openBSD tools, there's traces of it all over linux. In short openBSD has made everyone's lives better - you should contribute to openBSD if you're a computer user of any sort!

    Thanks Theo - for releasing your work under a BSD license, you've allowed us all to benefit from it.
      • Not to disagree ith you but I'm a longtime Ubuntu user (since Jan 2005) and I'd like to ask: what, among the things you've listed, couldn't have been done without Linux?

        Go to the Ubuntu packages pages & search for openbsd [ubuntu.com] Two pages of results! And that's barely scrathing the surface.

        Furthermore, as someone else in this thread mentions, openBSD audits their code more thoroughly prior to inclusion in their system. Many packages used in Ubuntu (apache, x.org, etc etc etc) have bug fixes contributed back from the openBSD port.

        You're thinking I'm saying that openBSD can do something linux can't - I'm not really, its more like openBSD is the cranky old uncle of the free-unix family, telling all the youngsters to lock their doors & not walk around at night :-)

      • Re:Not to disagree with you... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "longtime...(since Jan 2005)"

        LOL! This statement is just sooo linux. So you use Ubuntu, like the hordes who jumped on Gentoo when it was cool (and on Red Hat and Mandrake long before that.) The overwhelming majority of users who yell 'Linux!' at everybody are switching distros everytime a new one comes out. That's why so much effort goes in to semi-locking-in users by the package management system, a la YAST2. Keep your Ubuntu CD for another year AC, I'll bet even money you have a different distro on your m

  • Dodos rejoice (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (209368) on Monday May 01 2006, @08:00AM (#15236015)
    which includes support for five platforms: i386, amd64, macppc, sparc, sparc64

    at least you'll be able to do something with your old mac when Apple is done switching and pulls the plug on ppc support for good...

  • Rock Solid Already (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2006, @08:02AM (#15236019)
    Actually the CDs have been shipped for those that preordered, I got mine a couple fo weeks ago. The best thing, it just installs like a dream. I tried setting it up inside a VMware Workstation, took all of about 5 minutes from the CD.

    I also made my first donation to OpenBSD for a long time, to keep it going, since I use OpenSSH every day, infact my job depends on it.

    • Re:Rock Solid Already (Score:4, Interesting)

      by pimpimpim (811140) on Monday May 01 2006, @04:03PM (#15239913)
      I've always had the easiest installs with openbsd, on a rather exotic motherboard with via C3 processor, I got my sound, video, IBM rapid access keyboard with all extra keys, etc working directly from install. I never had this with any linux version I tried. For the things I want to do: edit files, run a (web)server, listen to music, watch videos, OpenBSD gives me more than enough.

      So to me, OpenBSD is just a Good Thing (R) from a practical point of view. I don't bother to have the latest version of everything, but I'm happy when things "just work" ;) and you can trust that they are solid and safe.

  • Have my CDs already (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grub (11606) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday May 01 2006, @08:07AM (#15236036) Homepage Journal

    Installed on an AMD64X2-3800. zoom Had to compile -current for something but I'm in the minority.

    Order the CDs and make a donation today, you cheap bastards!
  • "help to continue the devlopment of this great opeating system."

    1. Spel checkr.
    2. Full LRF support.
    3. There is no third thing.
    4. Universal Binary.

  • Torrents! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gandalf360 (194169) on Monday May 01 2006, @08:31AM (#15236106) Homepage
    Before the weight of the collective slashdot effect kills the main BSD servers, check out the bit torrents that are located here: http://openbsd.somedomain.net/ [somedomain.net]

    • First of all, I am not a user of *BSD, although I do appreciate their goals. I am a Debian [debian.org] user and have been one for quite some time now.

      One fact to appreciate about Debian is that it is loosing its ties to the Linux kernel [kernel.org] and becoming more and more general, now including even BSD efforts (like the kfreebsd5 [debian.org] port).

      So, even though I am a Debian user, I have this secret appreciation for all the work that the BSD people have done and continue to do and I am downloading the OpenBSD release from the torren

  • Only OpenBSD supported my wireless card (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dildo (250211) on Monday May 01 2006, @11:04AM (#15237058)
    After two weeks of attempting to get the various crappy beta-quality drivers to work on linux, I switched to OpenBSD to find that it supported my wireless card perfectly. (I have a PPC machine, so ndiswrapper was not an option.)

    Installing was also easy. If you have a little patience and are not afraid of a text-only install, starting OpenBSD was very easy.

    I like this operating system. The man files are comprehensive and well written, and even a person with limited technical experience (me) was able to get everything working fairly quickly.

  • BSD licensed nve driver? (Score:3, Informative)

    by toadlife (301863) on Monday May 01 2006, @01:05PM (#15238217) Journal
    "a BSD licensed driver for nvidia nforce ethernet"

    PLEASE, for love of Beastie, port this over to FreeBSD. The existing nve driver in FreeBSD is a POS.

    • Re:architectures? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by The Tyrant (472050) on Monday May 01 2006, @08:47AM (#15236173)
      OpenBSD has excelent Sparc support, and I for one am very happy about it, Sparcs make excelent firewalls and servers for small environments, mine currently has a quad fast ethernet card in the back thus meaning I dont need an extra hub in the server cupboard (just the four rooms it connects to) and combined with OpenBSD's excelent packet filter and rock solid security (which is even stronger on sparc since it can take advantage of quirks of the archetecture to defend against some attacks better) it makes an ideal server for me, runs nicely and doesn't even push the sparc that hard.

      Joke or otherwise, Sparcs are awesome machines (for some roles), and OpenBSD is an awesome system.
    • Take a look at the OpenBSD rack [openbsd.org] in Theo's basement, and you will see how popular SPARC32 kit is with the devs - I counted 5 machines in total.
    • What about Niagara [sun.com]?

      Unfortunately, last I heard, Sun was being their usual selves and hiding key architectural details (e.g., chipset stuff) that are holding up the porting effort.

      That was about a month or so ago -- hopefully Sun have decided to open up by now ...
      • Frankly, this is crap. 10GB drive and you can't maintain a source tree???

        I could maintain a lot of stuff in 10GB, but given the sensitive nature of most OpenBSD installations (such as firewalls, etc.), GCC is not among the things I want to have around.

        According to the FAQ [openbsd.org], three file sets are required for installation:

        • bsd
        • baseXX.tgz
        • etcXX.tgz

        Although that gets you a complete running system, it doesn't leave you with one that can self-host source updates. Given that I run exactly one OpenBSD machine at the office, I don't want to have a separate build server sitting around just to keep it updated. So, even though I have the hardware to support the process, and the technical skills to do so, it's still a major pain in the neck.

        Oh, and to those saying I should just install snapshots, the FAQ says: [openbsd.org]

        Between formal releases of OpenBSD, snapshots are made available through the FTP sites. As the name implies, these are builds of whatever code is in the tree at the instant the builder grabbed a copy of the code for that particular platform. Remember, on some platforms, it may be DAYS before the snapshot build is completed and put out for distribution. There is no promise that the snapshots are completely functional, or even install.
        Elsewhere on the site are other discouraging words [openbsd.org]:

        • /pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/
          For our major architectures, we tend to build mini releases of unknown stability and quality about every month or so. This is where we place those test releases.

        Ain't no way I'm going to tell my boss that my security update process involves "mini releases of unknown stability and quality". That is why I'd like to see "baseXX-r1.tgz" at ftp.openbsd.bsd (and it's mirrors) that holds nothing but the 3 or 4 binaries I'd need to upgrade on a stock system to bring it up to date. I'm not stupid or broke - just very time-challenged. I'd be happy to pay for a subscription to such a service were one available.

        • I could maintain a lot of stuff in 10GB, but given the sensitive nature of most OpenBSD installations (such as firewalls, etc.), GCC is not among the things I want to have around.

          Kill this goddammed myth already...

          Removing programs from your hard drive can't POSSIBLY make your machine any more secure. Taking the SUID/SGID bit off can, but that's a bit different, and programs like GCC aren't SUID, anyhow.

          It's absolutely ridiculous to assume an intruder NEEDS you to install GCC for him. He can quite easily

          • It's absolutely ridiculous to assume an intruder NEEDS you to install GCC for him. He can quite easily install OpenBSD on his own hardware and compile the code there, transfering the binary to your box. Or he can install whatever dev tools he wants, once he has root on your box.

            I'm first going on the assumption that the attacker only has regular user access. If he has root, then all is lost (well, not completely [openbsd.org], but still...). Regular users, though, might find it a bit annoying to not have any includes

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