SMP On OpenBSD, Coming Soon 321
Lord of the OpenBSD writes "At long last, SMP development on OpenBSD looks to be gearing up. One person is now doing full-time funded development on SMP. Project leader Theo de Raadt is now asking for funding for a second developer. Theo has announced that SMP support for i386 is planned for the OpenBSD 3.6 or 3.7 release, the first of which is due in 8 months."
BSD: it's (a)live! (Score:5, Funny)
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD is dying community when Slashdot confirmed that *BSD death trolls have dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all troll posts. Coming on the heels of a recent troll survey which plainly states that trolls are running out of *BSD ammo, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot trolls are trolling with new and better methods [slashdot.org] because trolling about BSD's falsely prophetic death is as obsolete and useless as GNU HURD [gnu.org].
You don't need to be Jesus [stallman.org] to predict the Slashdot troll phenomena's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD trolls face a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD trolls because *BSD trolls are dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD trolls. As many of us are already aware, *BSD has recently acquired several [freesbie.org] Live CDs [livebsd.com]. Red devil Live CDs multiply like fucking rabbits.
The reasons for the death of the *BSD troll are obvious. The creators of the *BSD troll post have lost 93% of their core developers due to casulties from the sudden and unpleasant battles [slashdot.org] between Trollcore [slashdot.org] and GNAA [slashdot.org]. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD trolls are dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
GNAA leader Anonymous Coward states that there are 700 active trolls on Slashdot. How many BSD death trolls are there? Let's see. The number of troll posts vs BSD death troll posts on Slashdot is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 700/5 = 140 BSD death trolls. But half of those are just cheezy karma-whore spinoffs of the original troll. Therefore there are about 70 users of the real BSD death troll. These statistics, of course, reflect Slashdot before the war between Trollcore and GNAA. So we must assume that there are less than 70 people who actually believe that *BSD is still dying!
All major surveys show that *BSD trolls have steadily declined in humor level. *BSD trolls are very sick and their long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD trolls are to survive at all, they will be nothing but workers toiling in Slashdot trolling phenomena obscurity. *BSD death trolls continue to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save them at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD death trolls are dead.
Fact: *BSD: it's (a)live! [freesbie.org]
Risky to add SMP to free *nix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Risky to add SMP to free *nix (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh first of all competition. You have this small group with its own politics and motives that not Linux. This means their are probaly a few thing that they can get done better becasue they want to. For example, OpenSSH. Being OpenSSH did end up filling an important need, Linux, other unices and even Windows benifitted. Theo threw a bitch fit over the license of the packet filtering software in OpenBSD and this lead to an
Re:Risky to add SMP to free *nix (Score:2, Insightful)
Theo threw a bitch fit over the license of the packet filtering software in OpenBSD and this lead to another "more free" package
"threw a bitch"? Well.. he stuck to his standards; that's an admirable thing. However I can say with a clear conscience that pf is the finest L3 filter I've used. It eats ipf, ipfw, ipchains, etc etc, for breakfast. In fact the only thing the overpriced Cisco PIX has going for it is failover on some of their units.
joy == OpenBSD + pf
Re:Risky to add SMP to free *nix (Score:3, Insightful)
You assume that it is ego that's responsible for Theo to run the OpenBSD project (which as I said really does have a number of security features that Linux hasn't got--compare http://openbsd.org/errata.html [openbsd.org] t
Re:Risky to add SMP to free *nix (Score:2, Insightful)
The BSD source tree itself is reasonably well organized, and things are consistent, that is the most important part when dealing with the source I think, it means you can predict where to find the stuff you are looking for.
Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
-Truth
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever play with a cat? You swat at its head a bit, it tries to bite back or swat back, roll it around, it scratches your hand, etc, etc, the same way one cat plays with another - the nibbles and scratches don't really hurt a fellow cat. Theo plays rough with people, has thick skin, and expects others to play as rough as he does (yes rough often == flame wars, etc). He plays rough with everyone, irregardless of how much work you do, though he does really respect those who do good work (he'll talk *very* highly of them).
I don't much care for that attitude, but i also recognize that i am the same way with some people (at work, among co-workers, we hurl insults back and forth and call eachother on our fuck ups, but also respect eachother's work abilities and will say so when asked). Theo is just that much more consistent than i am.
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
So yes, his attitude was "I'm not going to code that feature for you because it doens't interest me.". But I'm pretty sure if anyone coded something good enough it would be accepted -- why wouldn't it be?
Play by the OpenBSD rules (no dumb licenses, etc), and write good code, and you can get your code into the official tree. If you write crappy code, or put a dumb license o
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
I sure hope that alone keeps BSD alive. Dumb licenses might kill Linux before Microsoft does. Then how will SCO stay in business if they have nobody to sue? Like a train wreck, these license battles are fun to watch.
"Dumb licenses"? (Score:2)
Precisely what are you referring to here? It seems to me that the GNU GPL (the license for the Linux kernal) is one of the most impressive licenses out there.
This takes nothing away from what the OpenBSD team is doing--I think their work is great and their license makes that work a genuine contribution to our community. That's why I bought OpenBSD 3.0 and a t-shirt and I don't regret the decision.
I doubt Microsoft can outcompete free software
Re:"Dumb licenses"? (Score:2)
Re:"Dumb licenses"? (Score:2)
Sure it is. The problem is that every up-and-coming project seems to think that to be important they have to invent their own license.
How much energy is being wasted trying to decide if the Bleh Public License 1.1 is Open Source/Debian Free/GPL Compatible/Advert Clausing etc.?
Seriously people (you know who you are) get a clue. Your project isn't
SCO: the movie (Score:2)
It's not about staying in business -- that's already a lost cause for SCO. It's about generating revenue. Suing people is the only way they've found to generate any revenue at all. The fact that it's not a sustainable business model is beside the point. Lots of businesses follow the model, "get in, grab the cash, get out."
Gee, maybe the movie version will have Ben Affleck and Angelina Jolie. Speaking of short term busines models...
Re:SCO: the movie (Score:2)
I'm not sure about some folks, but I thought generating revenue was one of the reasons for going into business. At this point, suing people is working for them. Expect the same from Microsoft when we're finished with SCO. It might not be sustainable, but it will buy a nice villa on the Mexican Riviera. Maybe the sustainable part is being able to do it over and over(one person or group, different corpor
Re:SCO: the movie (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
But why should anyone listen?
If you want a certain feature then you either code it, or pay someone to code it. Wishing doesn't produce better software.
Sure, you can contact the developer(s) and say "wouldn't it be nice if
If you don't like that answer then either provide the resources or pay for commercial software.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially since it's actually pretty rare for someone outside to come up with an idea that the people who work with the code all the time haven't actually already thought of.
Some ideas aren't bad, they just have to wait their turn in line and their priority may be low within the parameters of the project.
For instance, in Racer, a project overtly aimed at providing the best physics engine for driving sims, there is fairly constant call from the modelers, who don't contribute any code, to impliment opening doors and working horns.
While the core physics is yet incomplete.
Opening doors and working horns will come in time, and has been stipulated, when they make it to the top of the priority list. Right now nailing the tire and drive train model is far more important.
As a project head it's all too easy to become a code monkey for everyone with an idea. That isn't the role of a project head. His role is to decide what does and does not belong in the code base, and when it's important for what does belong in the code base to get implimented.
I'd don't know OBSD or Theo, but I do know some of the problems encountered in open collaborative works, or works that are essentially the project of a few, but that take place in fairly public view so the public tends to the think of them as open collaborative works when they are not.
This isn't just a problem in software projects. As a physicist I have spent many, many hours trying to explain to people why their idea for a magnetic perpetual motion machine just won't work. I have to spend these hours because these people haven't taken the trouble to gain a simple high school understanding of physics.
Now, as it happens I make part of my living tutoring basic scientific philosophy and physics. If these people wish to enroll and learn, fine, that's my "job."
But if all they want to do is argue with you, ad infinitum, in swarms, sooner or later you start to reach for the fly swatter and just bat them all away.
Not because you have anything against them, per se. Because life is short.
KFG
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
Um, are you kidding me? I've been involved in a project doing OpenBSD kernel development for the last 2 years, and I'll tell you right now there are so many shortcomings in the kernel you wouldn't believe it.
Let's start with the broken PCMCIA support (interrupt problems), or maybe the fact that it doesn't have kernel threads (user threads blow, especially when those are broken too), and don't get me started on the bro
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Well SMP is not important for file server (e.g. HTTP servers). If you look at a lot of the low end machines these days they're single processor. It's just not that compelling to have multiple CPUs in a file server anymore. CPUs are
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Informative)
Privsep: Makes sure that only the code that needs to be root is run as root.
WorX: Makes sure that data cannot be executed as code. (Memory pages are either executable or writable, not both)
There are other features like them, that add to the security of the system. OpenBSD is better at firewalling than FreeBSD because of them; it is harder to break any port or access that is allowed/found into a security lapse. And any security lapse will be as limited as possible.
FreeBSD is descent at thi
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Redundant)
Privsep=privilege seperation. As many daemons as possible either drop priviliges or run as two processes, one privileged and one not. This makes a sucessful attack against a deamon less damaging because the attacker's incfluence will be trapped in a process that's not allowed to touch anything important. It turns a remote root attack into a denial of service.
W^X (the operator is "exclusive or" not "or") makes many kinds of arbitrary code attacks impossible, by making it impossib
Okay, I perused the thread... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
that's very fine until those political beliefs or personality become overwhelming, and just generally too much to ignore. I guarantee you, if Linus became a neo-nazi tomorrow, I'd switch to *BSD in a jiffy, and so would many other devout Linux users.
And I know more than a few people who flatly refuse to try dotGNU because you-know-who, and his special persona
Watch out for the SCO police (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Watch out for the SCO police (Score:2, Funny)
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DARWIN (Score:2, Funny)
Re:DON'T FORGET ABOUT DARWIN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DON'T FORGET ABOUT DARWIN (Score:2)
Re:DON'T FORGET ABOUT DARWIN (Score:2)
Why buy hamburger when the steak is free? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why buy hamburger when the steak is free? (Score:4, Interesting)
it's not "porting" (Score:5, Informative)
SMP touches every aspect of the kernel (scheduling, VM, VFS, etc.). Each OS is different internally and so you can't just rip code out of one and put it into another. It's not simply copying over a sub-directory and changing a couple of kernel system calls.
You have to pour over a lot of the files and make all the data structures are written to and read from correctly.
There's also more than one way to do SMP so how do you know whether he's "reinventing the wheel", or coming up with a novel approach?
Re:Why buy hamburger when the steak is free? (Score:2)
SMP is good, but what about pkg management? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, the main thing that bugs me about obsd is that it uses the ports system. It does the job and all, but when it comes time to upgrade your OS, it's a real PITA. I remember having to manually edit files in
Re:SMP is good, but what about pkg management? (Score:2, Informative)
There's a reason OpenBSD has nice man pages and FAQ - they're for learning how the OS works.
Re:SMP is good, but what about pkg management? (Score:2)
Good god, are you mad? RPM is one of the reasons package management sucks on linux! You don't want to just throw it to the wind! The ports system works in the sense that dependancies are held. Why not write your own script that automatically grabs all the ports you need when upgrading? That still leaves the issue about newer software, how well will it be tested?
Re:SMP is good, but what about pkg management? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, they must be good.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's time for another type of troll.... (Score:4, Funny)
Fantastic (Score:4, Insightful)
--------
Create a WAP server [chiralsoftware.net]
I Will Be Amazed If This Works (Score:5, Interesting)
OpenBSD does not have a good track record of major architecture improvements. For example, in the wake of the PR FreeBSD got for John Dyson's VM work, OpenBSD adopted Chuck Cranor's UVM system, integrating it into the last of the 2.x releases. Cranor is a very smart guy, but OpenBSD's stewardship of Cranor's code has been pretty awful --- lockups, panics, and various other problems remain in evidence, each answered with de Raadt's "UVM was just a research project from Cranor, it's not our fault" excuse.
FreeBSD has years worth of head-start on OpenBSD in SMP right now, and a much larger (and more experienced) core team. In addition, FreeBSD has corporate sponsorship (from Juniper and Apple, to name two). Despite these major advantages, FreeBSD SMP remains a work in progress.
de Raadt has had a religious perspective on SMP ("most modern applications aren't compute-bound! SMP is not the way to scale large applications, lots of individual machines are!") for almost a decade. What evidence do we have that he has seriously changed his mind? This seems like more of a desperation move, trying to ensure that OpenBSD doesn't fall behind NetBSD to become the least-used open source operating system available.
I predict years of instability and excuses.
Re:I Will Be Amazed If This Works (Score:5, Insightful)
The Pentium 4's hyperthreading feature already hints at this. And if you have this stuff anyway (even when you didn't ask for it) you might as well use it.
Re:I Will Be Amazed If This Works (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I Will Be Amazed If This Works (Score:2)
'asking for funding' (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:'asking for funding' (Score:3, Informative)
Is this necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still haven't found a necessity for SMP OpenBSD yet, if I need a box to run X or anything else that would work the CPUs, i'd choose FreeBSD, just for the package system.
What's really lagging in OpenBSD is an easy to use port/package system; SMP is long down the line.
Anybody that uses OpenBSD like I do, please tell me why we need OpenBSD, I use it for security, not for dual/quad/etc processor servers.
gigabit packet filtering? (Score:2)
Re:Is this necessary? (Score:5, Informative)
I am really sorry but have you even used OpenBSD recently? I installed OpenBSD 3.4 last month on a small server at home and installing third-party software was as simple as:
For a package: For a port: And... that's it!
Could you please explain to me how this is difficult?
Re:Is this necessary? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is this necessary? (Score:2)
I've tried both Free and Open's ports and packages. To me, they seemed comparably easy and powerful. Free's seemed a bit more up-to-date, but hey, Open's taking volunteers in that department.
I think SMP is very important for OpenBSD to break out of the old-wimpy-server-repurposed-as-firewall reputation. For example, it won't be long be
BSD to release SMP for the i386..... (Score:5, Funny)
BTW, is an 'SX' OK?
roots (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW: OpenBSD has its roots as a splice from NetBSD; both it and NetBSD very similar, but in some respects NetBSD has "modernised" itself more than OpenBSD, yet OpenBSD has focused on security (and spawned the OpenXYZ series
Compared to FreeBSD, they're different beasts: NetBSD and OpenBSD fit the niche of embedded products, AP's, firewalls, home gateways, etc - all very good nice (NetBSD's portability and OpenBSD's security). FreeBSD is enterprise class, you don't typically see it used for embedded products / etc, but more in hosting and server.
Compared to Linux: Linux strength is that does all of the above across the board (it fits everything) and has a better user/desktop experience, but it doesn't do as well as any in any of the individual niches above.
Re:roots (Score:4, Interesting)
They get that wrap a lot, but you can find a lot of OpenBSD web/fileservers out there. OpenBSD is where OpenSSH started, because it's heavy into any kind of networking, and crypto, not just security. NetBSD isn't used as a server so much, but it's pretty popular with just about anybody running on a platform other than x86. The majority of people that don't like MacOS, seem to go to NetBSD as their desktop.
Linux doesn't do the job of a router/firewall well (no state with IPchains/IPtables).
Linux doesn't run on as many platforms as NetBSD, but worse, it doesn't work WELL on any but very few of them, whereas the BSDs are as well suited to any one platform as another.
Finally, Linux is a real hassle in enterprise situations. Standard Linux is extremely unstable (compared with what the BSD's consider stable) so to get that stability, you need to follow the Debian approach, and extensively test and debug all the programs. That means you are generations away from the new features. Meanwhile, you can just download the latest FreeBSD -stable (usually 1 minor version behind), and it's ready to go. There's a good reason you see FreeBSD in lots of serious enterprise apps.
Feel free to explain this one to me. The installer is probably the only thing anyone can cite where the BSDs are even different (to the casual users) than Linux. You have GNOME and KDE on all the BSDs, and they work just fine.
As for the installers, if you get over your addiction to always using your mouse, they are really much better installers than the GUI ones for any Linux distro.
What makes this situation worse, is that moderators on
Re:roots (Score:5, Informative)
Myth. Linux does (and has for many years) run on just as many platforms as NetBSD. Most of NetBSDs "platforms" are actually just variants on a single architecture. Thus while NetBSD counts atari and amiga as separate ports, Linux just treats them as part of a single Linux/m68k port. In fact, NetBSD runs on two architectures that aren't currently supported by Linux (ns32k and vax), whereas Linux run on five that aren't supported by NetBSD (mips64, ppc64, s390, sh4 and etrax). I'm not trying to put down the worthy efforts of the NetBSD community, but I just get a bit fed up with people claiming that it's more widely ported than Linux. It was true in the past, but hasn't been for some time.
Re:roots (Score:3, Informative)
It is probably true that Linux does run on more systems than NetBSD, but the support is fragmented and disparate at the best. This is the essential and important distinction.
NetBSD ensures that the one overall "package" (kernel + user space) works equivalently across a set of platforms. Your installation (executables, directories, config, etc) are largely equivalent across all platforms: take your custom scripts and system setup and find that it can be dropped onto NetBSD/other with little cost.
This is de
What Will Theo Use Processor 2 For? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's his plan now? Just typical SMP, I'd guess -- but I thought his other idea was cooler. On-the-fly encoding and decoding and hiding of jpegs from wives and whatnot. Very useful to... ahem... some of us. Not me of course.
Just wondering about the current prospects for something to keep my uh.. important financial documents... from, uh... the government? Yeah, the government, that's it.
Re:What Will Theo Use Processor 2 For? (Score:4, Informative)
If he were going to use the extra processors for nothing but crypto, (a) he'd be wasting them since crypto doesn't take that much CPU by today's standards and (b) it wouldn't be called SMP.
Re:What Will Theo Use Processor 2 For? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to disagree with you there. SCP'ing something over a fast network maxes out even very fast processors. 3DES is a real CPU-hog, even by today's standards.
If you don't think crypto is CPU-intensive, you must not be doing much of it.
Re:What Will Theo Use Processor 2 For? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a very valid reason, but not the only one. DES is tried and true, and 3DES is as theoretically as secure as anything can get.
The hardware thing is quite a valid issue though... If you're connecting to a server that does a lot of crypto, chances are it's using a hardware crypo accelerator, so it won't want to waste CPU power doing blowfish or AES when 3DES is even faster on it's end.
Re:What Will Theo Use Processor 2 For? (Score:2)
Yes you can use OpenBSD as a super secure server and not just a firewall. Its supposed to be a multi-puprose secure OS.
However it has been lagging in performance recently behind net and freebsd.
SMP + jail would be perfect for any apache based server with minimal maintance and hacks.
Re:What Will Theo Use Processor 2 For? (Score:3, Informative)
I really can't see the point. For $100 you can buy a PCI crypto card that would do 3DES as fast as most would ever need.
Or they can just act as an incredibly fast random-number generator (something CPUs aren't very good at) if you are doing some crypto that the card doesn't support (blowfish isn't popular in hardware, yet).
I thought THEO spoke out agaisnt smp (Score:2)
I think Dillions DragonflyBSD will encourse the other BSD hackers to scale there distro's.
To bad the FreeBSD group rejected Dillions patches and SSI.
Re:Netcraft confirms... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Netcraft confirms... (Score:2)
Re:smp? (Score:5, Funny)
because you've been to lazy to do it?
Re:smp? (Score:4, Informative)
How they'll get around this, I don't know. It's good to see the coding and experience getting out there and used all the more however.
Re:smp? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bad SMP can be done in a couple of weeks by anyone, good SMP is a little harder and its nice to see OpenBSD joining in the game as SMP is now at the on processor level so it is becoming important.
Re:smp? (Score:2)
Re:smp? (Score:5, Informative)
-Truth
Re:smp? (Score:5, Informative)
1. All potential security-relevant race conditions must be handled. A single processor system can never do two things at exactly the same time. A dual processor one can. OpenBSD wouldn't be OpenBSD if that would be allowed to affect the system's integrity.
2. Given the choice of an small project, that increases security, and a big one that probably will lower it, Theo will choose the one that increases security. Dual-processors are not a major concern to OpenBSD's core users, so support can wait until other things get done.
Re:smp? (Score:2)
You provided what is the most relevant answer to this whole discussion, and if anyone else takes your lead we may just for once have some interesting and useful perspectives on technology from this place.
Essentially: what are the core issues surrounding SMP and security - inter-processor race, memory and buffer conditions; similar problems with co-operative applications, etc.
Anyone want to make this a really useful discussion ?
Re:smp? (Score:2)
Re:smp? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:smp? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does your boss make you live at work? Go home and play around with other systems there!
Re:Yesterday's Technology, Tomorrow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yesterday's Technology, Tomorrow! (Score:2)
Now what if they just dropped it and spend 100% of their time on the security of FreeBSD. That we we could have a secure OS (imagine, 100% of their time to making the whole thing secure) and a lot of features (Imagine again, the core of the FreeBSD can now focus on new features).
Let's just not fake it. They are two different OS because their respective maintainers cannot stand working together. This is really
Re:Yesterday's Technology, Tomorrow! (Score:2)
Re:In other news.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Essentially, good security relies on good architecture. Once you have an architecture from existing features, it may not be reasonable to make it secure because it may be architected for different goals.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:2)
Yet another modern OS feature is being added to *BSD, which have many features not even found in the best of commercial operating systems. *BSD isn't dying, it's setting the standard for other operating systems to follow.
Odd it's been taking them this long. Both FreeBSD and NetBSD have had SMP for a while.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:3, Interesting)
As I understand it, OpenBSD diverged from NetBSD before SMP was available for any nonproprietary BSD. The divergence in the codebases that has taken place since then makes it impossible to simply import much of another strain's implementation.
Maybe there will be some re-use of code (and ideas), but I suspect the OpenBSD team will be building this thing from the ground up.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:2, Insightful)
FreeBSD is the clear technological leader in the BSD family, and it's little wonder Apple built upon it. OpenBSD's "space" is less about areas where SMP is necessary (i.e. because FreeBSD is typically enterprise class web host / etc; yet OpenBSD and NetBSD are typically more compact uses - embedded products, etc).
What this news really says is more about the overall state of the BSD family: OpenBSD finally hitting the rungs.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:5, Informative)
However, I'd have to disagree with FreeBSD being the technological leader of the bunch. It's an excellent system, and is the most widely used/commercially supported of the three (or six, with ekko, DFly, and Darwin). However, I see NetBSD being much more advanced for a few reasons:
The point is this: NetBSD is the `forgotten' unix in many ways, and I, for one, find that sad. I think all the BSDs, along with Linux, will be around for some time. NetBSD, though, is simply the bliss that I, too, nearly overlooked.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:2)
Where NetBSD really shines is on older hardware. This used to be true of linux, but it's not anymore. NetBSD on something like an old sun is worlds ahead of dealing with solaris frustration, or OpenBSD's horrid performance.
I think a big reason more people d
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:2, Insightful)
At least with the BSDs in general and OpenBSD specifically, I don't have to run out and add a security patch every couple days.
Some of us actually use opensource and "compile" the binaries on our systems rather than relying on vendors and strangers to give us RPMs and the like.
(okay, that's not fair. I'm using NetBSD's pkgsrc on Linux (a
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:3, Informative)
Qualify that: FreeBSD has had "mergemaster", which semi-automatically upgrades your /etc (and even walks you through merging changes) for a long time. I'm not sure with Open and Net haven't imported it yet, or at least hadn't when I last looked, but at least one BSD currently enjoys easy /etc upgrades.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's pretty fast, given that it's doing much more than most other systems. All that crypto and random goodness doesn't come for free. From "Practical Cryptography": "There are already enough fast, insecure systems. The world doesn't need another one."
Even on UP systems, it's still slower than almost everything else in key areas (disk performance being the big one).
Have you tested that with softupdates enabled? OpenBSD's default disk performance reminds me of FreeBSD's old performances before softupdates became a standard setting. It's another security-vs.-performance tradeoff: the BSDs mount their filesystems in synchronous mode and highly discourage using async, while most Linux systems use async by default.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:2, Informative)
All that crypto and random goodness doesn't come for free.
True enough, but with a ~US$90[0] Soekris crypto accelerator [soekris.com] it's damn close
[0]- when I bought mine in mid 2002
What a looney (Score:2)
I guess first post or something is more important then facts.
BSD may be many things but people like this are only hurting it as anyone with a clue about operating systems knows that SMP is old stuff by now. Of course there is a good reason OpenBSD is late. SMP brings a whole lot of issues regarding security with it and OpenBSD is about security, not speed.
Re:Yet another modern feature added to *BSD (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree that it's a little "laggy" of OpenBSD to be finally getting around to adding SMP support, I would also concur with others who suggest that the general application of OpenBSD doesn't often require multiple processors. As a result, SMP support hasn't seeme