[rescue] OpenBSD

[Derrick D. Daugherty]

It's rumored that around Sun, Jan 27, 2002 at 08:54:23PM -0500
Linc Fessenden <linc at thelinuxlink.net> wrote:
> > on any external box i 98% of the time run openbsd..the other 2% would be
> > freebsd
> 
> OK, I don't know much about the politics in Open -v- NetBSD, and I am not
> a long time BSD runner - only about a year.  My question is why would a
> person run OpenBSD instead of NetBSD?  It's painfully obvious to me - a
> relative BSD newbie, that OpenBSD is not too much more than a copy of
> NetBSD which run's fantastic in it's own right.  In fact there are even

yup.  obsd is pretty much a copy and then security update.  it's not
ported to as many archs but that's not their goal, security is.  it's
pretty much the same userland experience but you know that security
focused people went over the code.  Ever worked with a dev team that
isn't security focused?  I find that every programmer I know isn't
concerned with security but just getting it done.  They don't have
devious thoughts on how to break things, I do.  So do the guys that work
on obsd.  again tho, i don't get as much wood from security anymore...i
dig highend sexy hardware now.  it's been probably a year since i've
done a pin-test of a network.

a few years ago it was also the least known/used unix...while i don't
believe in security through obscurity, every little bit helps.  simson
garfinkle made that argument to me at lunch one time when i brought up
the topic of obscurity and i thought it was utter shite..but i concur,
every bit helps, and he's fucking smart.

install issues being discussed.

i've never had a problem with fbsd's at all...from 5 years ago to now
(last i used was 4.x..this desktop was 3.x-4.3 before i moved to
debian).  my bedside terminal is a p90 with some variant of 3.x on it..

obsd i had minimal troubles with..it was basically it would crap out on
you if things weren't perfect and annoying that i'd have to restart the
install process..but other than that clean as could be.  I agree, the
network install is sexy.  debian takes about 4-5 floppies to do a
network install :\  although those pocket-sized cdroms are always
handy...  i always wanted to make a trinoo/corner's toolkit on one of
those.

reason i switched from fbsd on my desktop:  i have some shitty hardware
that was given to me...don't recall the manufacturer since i didn't buy
it...but it's a popular board..dual celeron 500 with a high point
technologies ide controller?  for some reason the string BP6 comes to
mind...but i don't recall the manufacturer.  anyway, fbsd would have
hard lockups _all the goddamn time_ after going from 3-4.. the APIC on
this board blows...but the linux kernel seems to handle it a lot better
(at that time when i converted, it's still dual boot but i haven't uped
fbsd).  the linux kernel will just spit out an error on the apic and not
hang..most the time.  every once and a while it will if i'm doing too
many things..like mp3s and tv and a dvd then open an app..  if there was
sound coming out of the card at that point it gets stuck in a happy
dma/irq loop...  the dma seems to write the sample in repeat because the
soundcard interrupt hasn't acked..but i'm not good with device drivers.

obsd doesn't have SMP support so that was never an issue.

give it a whirl and see what you think
^D