OpenBSD Marches Toward 5.0 Release 112
badger.foo writes "OpenBSD-current just turned 5.0-beta, providing us a preview of what the upcoming release (slated for November 1st) will look like. Peter Hansteen takes us through the main new features and explains the development process that has consistently turned out high-quality releases on time, every six months for more than a decade."
Re:OpenBSD Rock Solid OS without fluf. (Score:4, Interesting)
Running a 2 year old copy of OpenBSD still safe (unless you make it otherwise). Your Linux ISO from 2 weeks ago is already vulnerable.
Safer on old systems (Score:2, Interesting)
If your hardware is older, OpenBSD is a safer environment - if your CPU does not implement the NX bit, OpenBSD manages the same functionality with W^X. Many other memory-handling features make the system safer (malloc with mmap, rather than sbrk, for example), although there can be a performance penalty.
OpenBSD implements privilege separation in many of the daemons of the base system (ftpd, dhcpd, ntpd, sshd), so you can trust them more.
OpenBSD's alternate daemons for well-known protocols (ntpd, smtpd) give you some "security through obscurity," and you also gain flexibility.
There are also custom patches for well-known servers to improve security (apache chroot).
In a number of ways, OpenBSD is the "Reference UNIX Security implementation." Come see why.
Re:OpenBSD Rock Solid OS without fluf. (Score:5, Interesting)
The OpenBSD technology is amazing; I'd recommend that any Linux user gives it a try to see how a Unix is supposed to work. Simple, flexible, consistent, robust, and superbly documented (there are man pages for everything, including the internal kernel APIs needed to write device drivers!). I just wish it had apt, that's all. (And better non-PC support. My main server's an ARM.)
It's even more amazing if you've ever interacted with the OpenBSD community, who are basically dickheads. Admittedly, it's been a while since I gave up on the -misc, but the last time I was there there was some poor guy trying to discuss virtualisation and the lead developers (including Theo) were simply hurling childish abuse at him rather than, say, actually trying to communicate. And of course all their groupies were joining in. It was incredibly unpleasant.
I suppose it's possible that they've grown up since then. I really wish they would; OpenBSD deserves a lot more attention and use. But I was so turned off by the total lack of anything resembling professionalism in the community (which is weird, because the actual docs are brilliant) that I haven't felt like going back.
tried openbsd before (Score:1, Interesting)
Some things that annoyed the hell out of me:
1. First install it wouldn't boot. Seems it didn't save the partitions correctly, so tried again. This time it booted.
2. Home and end keys don't send you to the end or beginning of the command line you're on. Mac also does this. It annoys the hell out of me. One thing windows and linux got right.
3. It comes with vi by default but trying to install vim was a hassle. And once you get it installed, it's not used by default. Instead you gotta create an alias on your shell login script. But even then I could not get that working. On linux, when you install vim, it replaces vi. If I use the command vi after I install vim, it'll use vim. On bsd it keeps both, leading to frustrations.
4. You need to install openssh server after and then go through hoops to allow users to login.
This really did remind me of linux back in 1995. It's archaic and you must remember work arounds. How hard is it to make these modifications be part of the standard install? Why weren't they done a long time ago? I'm sure if you started making stuff as "easy" as linux, you'll attract more users. But from trying it myself, I can see why it's used by so many few people.
Re:tried openbsd before (Score:1, Interesting)
Some things that annoyed the hell out of me:
1. First install it wouldn't boot. Seems it didn't save the partitions correctly, so tried again. This time it booted.
2. Home and end keys don't send you to the end or beginning of the command line you're on. Mac also does this. It annoys the hell out of me. One thing windows and linux got right.
3. It comes with vi by default but trying to install vim was a hassle. And once you get it installed, it's not used by default. Instead you gotta create an alias on your shell login script. But even then I could not get that working. On linux, when you install vim, it replaces vi. If I use the command vi after I install vim, it'll use vim. On bsd it keeps both, leading to frustrations.
4. You need to install openssh server after and then go through hoops to allow users to login.
This really did remind me of linux back in 1995. It's archaic and you must remember work arounds. How hard is it to make these modifications be part of the standard install? Why weren't they done a long time ago? I'm sure if you started making stuff as "easy" as linux, you'll attract more users. But from trying it myself, I can see why it's used by so many few people.
Whine #1 You screwed it up. Don't blame OBSD. You could have read the install documentation prior to attempting an installation. They are on the web site.
Whine #2 If this makes your top 5 pet peeves, OBSD must be really great. You could fix the keyboard issue if you were to read the manuals. Is that a problem for you?
Whine #3 Have you considered that OBSD is multiuser? Maybe others will want to use original vi. You consider yourself competent to critique a Unix based OS and yet you are unable to manage something as simple as your login environment.
Whine #4 Your statement is factually wrong. OpenSSH is part of the base install and has been so for 10 years I know of. Have you ever actually used OBSD?
If not, please don't start now.