[geeks] State of the BSDs (Was: [rescue] Transplanting a Sun Fire V210 motherboard - PSU requirements?)

[microcode at zoho.com]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 02:02:55PM -0800, Bill Green wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 06:46:25PM +0000, microcode at zoho.com wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 01:31:07PM -0500, Mouse wrote: 
> >>
> >>  So far, my perception of OpenBSD has not been enough better than
> >>  NetBSD to override that.
> > 
> > [...]
> >
> > But...I used Free and Net and OpenBSD for a few years each and drew my
> > own conclusions. While I no longer trust Free and Net (and haven't for
> > years) I'm pretty happy with OpenBSD.
> 
> I'd be interested to hear your (and Mouse's) thoughts about the state
> of the various BSDs.  Why don't you trust Free- and Net- (anymore)?

My reasons have been discussed and a lot of the old history is there and I
don't think it will help to dredge it up again. I'll just say what I like
about OpenBSD since personally stability and change control are more
important to me than glamour or having the latest and greatest whatever.

OpenBSD has a fixed release schedule, twice a year. That means you know how
much time you need to spend upgrading, and when you need to do it. The tools
and package management are finally to the point doing this is very close to
painless. The application ports tree is not rolling-release. It is bound to
the OS release. No surprises in the middle of a release. Things are
generally well tested. There is a lot of cooperation on the mailing
lists. Obscure platforms are viewed as important as mainstream
platforms. The guys just love what they do, and they do it well. The flaming
and tourette episodes of the past seem like only a memory. Things have
really improved.

Security updates are applied by source patching and rebuilding the system
from source. You choose when to do this, if at all. Alternatively, you can
track current by installing binary upgrades. Current has its own ports tree.

I like the stability, simplicity, control, and general lack of chaos that
comes with OpenBSD. I'm not wowed by the security issues but I believe
OpenBSD's security is above average and I agree auditing code goes a long
way, and is the right approach.

> I know that Mouse uses older versions of NetBSD, also.  I think I may
> have an idea of why you might not "trust" them -- I've had my own
> problems with recent NetBSD releases -- but I'd like to hear your
> reasons articulated, if you wouldn't mind, especially as you say your
> opinion dates back years.

I'm not a BSD-oldtimer, my experience with UNIX and Linux has only been
since around 2003. And only as a user, since I write very little code on
UNIX. But I do write code for an enterprise platform and I do know what I
like and don't like in an OS and compilers and assemblers, even if there's
not much I can do about it in the UNIX world.

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