BSD

I noticed some people thought BSD wasn't modular. But Unix, and therefore BSD, is. It's made of so many pieces, which as you can see in a shell script, can be used very modularly. Unix is a collection of tools. By the way, the BSDs often have cool innovations and features like ASLR and W^X. What BSD are you using? I prefer OpenBSD but I've been using FreeBSD the most lately due to having difficulties with some closed-source hardware, a video card. The install for OpenBSD is super fast too, it occurs in minutes with just minor typing and hitting enter involved: the entire process is CLI, not even curses TUI. Also, I'd be happy to see System V, Linux, Minix, GNU, and Hurd threads in the future. Unix is a fun paradigm.

Funny story about OpenBSD I can share: I once tried to install openbsd on my server and had to wrestle with the network connection setup for ~4hours. After that I installed gentoo on it in one go and was satisfied. The thing I don't like about the BSDs for my desktop is the fact that they contain things I don't use, OpenBSD is missing core functionality and is full of stuff I don't use versus my gentoo/funtoo setups which have just the things I want and use with just the settings I want. The minor command differences annoy me as well when I just want things up and running. I concede that OpenBSD is secure as heck BUT that is its drawback as well, due to the design of this secure system (through implementation rather than by principle). People say linux is just for servers but I think I'd like to redraw that line to OpenBSD. OpenBSD is the golden standard of secure servers but in desktop usage it has let me down severely (completely understandable for the type a system it is). I do hope GNU adopts tricks from the BSD teams, Pledge seems promising for one.

>>525 Interesting. DHCP has worked for me each time. >OpenBSD is missing core functionality and is full of stuff I don't use versus my gentoo/funtoo setups which have just the things I want and use with just the settings I want. I have the opposite feeling whenever I use GNU/Linux distributions, which rarely come with ctags or a compiler, yet come with insane DE bloat. OpenBSD comes with so much, including an entire x.org install, yet fits on a CD. Not a DVD, but a CD. May I ask what it is that OpenBSD is missing? What sort of bloat do you think OpenBSD has? >OpenBSD is the golden standard of secure servers but in desktop usage it has let me down severely (completely understandable for the type a system it is). Most OpenBSD developers use it as their desktop: I would too if I had compatible graphics. I do however, as said earlier, use FreeBSD as my desktop. What desktop programs is it lacking?

>Unix is a collection of tools. I would say it's more of a philosophy. It's very close to ideas from areas such as ontology and mereologic constructivism in general. >What BSD are you using? OpenBSD -stable. Desktop. >>525 Too bad it didn't worked for you. It's not missing anything, you probably just didn't RTFM. It has everything you would need for basis, but a web browser (after devs decided that lynx wasn't good enough). >>527 >compatible graphics. What issue are you having? Xenocara starts normally? Try to change the aperture driver level: http://man.openbsd.org/xf86.4 You could also buy a very old thinkpad (<2004) and run it there. You can buy some models for less than $20. Get yourself a crapbook.

I use OpenBSD on my laptop and its fantastic. bioctl is the best method of full disk encryption I have encountered. The fact that OpenBSD can still load with every part of the disk encrypted makes it automatically better than dm-crypt. bioctl is also much easier to use. Geli on Free/HardenedBSD also beats dm-crypt by a long shot but it lags a bit behind bioctl. The only thing I wish OpenBSD supported is ZFS. Maybe one-day once I get better at C I will help restart the porting effort. I also find HardenedBSD fantastic for mass storage devices/network appliances. Currently I run gentoo on my desktop solely for the VGA-Passthrough feature of KVM. Support for this is being developed for bhyve and I will migrate my desktop over (probably to HardenedBSD) after it is completed.

>>534 >Maybe one-day once I get better at C I will help restart the porting effort. Don't waste your time, they will not accept your patches. ZFS is considered harmful to most openbsd developers. Journaling itself is considered harmful. Even a small subset of HAMMER2 that was being worked was discarded, IIRC. FFS is not bad.

>>530 >buy a very old thinkpad (<2004) Funny, I have a Thinkpad X30 (~2003), and the latest OpenBSD release doesn't have compatible graphics drivers. The installer works fine, and the first few seconds of booting look promising, but then the screen turns black and stays black. I can blindly log in and reboot, but not much else.

>>539 heh. Try to disable ACPI on BIOS. That's probably the problem. Also, send the dmesg on misc@ please. It should be running on every IBM thinkpad, since most of the developers worked on it.

>>530 >What issue are you having? Proprietary hardware: Nvidia. But even AMD cards aren't supported either if they're not half a decade old. I thought there was no -stable branch for 6.1 yet as I didn't see any errata. But I see. I'm happy syspatch exists now. >more of a philosophy Quite possible.

>>527 this, i'm always shocked whenever i use a linux distro and find that it doesn't come with a C compiler at least >>537 i genuinely don't understand the obsession with ZFS anyway, most people have absolutely no need for it unless they run a datacenter

>>553 It's so amazing, too. An OS should be able to compile itself in the default install.

>>553 >i genuinely don't understand the obsession with ZFS anyway >most people have absolutely no need for it unless they run a datacenter This is simply not true. Snapshots and boot environments are a godsend on FreeBSD. They make it both easier to backup especially with only changes being sent, and easier to develop the system since you can mess with the stuff like the kernel in one environment and when you break something can quickly boot into the previous environment and fix it. Also there is no reason to not have file system level compression in this day and age. LZ4 actually makes data transfer faster on most semi-modern processors. I know it seems like that makes no sense but its actually true.

OpenBSD is by far my favorite operating system. It has high standards for it's codebase, it is really easy to install, comes with anything I could possibly need (I do install third party software, but could perfectly do with a vanilla install), it is a consistent whole, and most importantly, it is a very simple system. However I do use FreeBSD in my lappy because wireless drivers.

>>562 Okay, it doesn't come with everything I could possibly need, but it is a very complete operating system, and I don't think I'd find myself lacking some very important tool in an emergency.

>>562 >However I do use FreeBSD in my lappy because wireless drivers. Buy a usb wifi... why not? It's really fuarrrking cheap. I've brought a D-link DWL-G122 dongle for about ~$25. Just be sure to work with taiwan (Ralink and Realtek).

I have openbsd on an x201 to learn the differences in BSD to linix I really do quite like it its a very nice lightweight os I'm going to try freebsd on an old desktop box as a makeshift server

>>562 i think the only thing missing from an openbsd install by default really is just the web browser, it's amazing how usable it is out of the box

I love openbsd but i'm stuck with freebsd because of nvidia optimus. I mean, freebsd is fine but it's just not what I want, I like simplicity more than vendor bloat. I wish I had the skills to code optimus support... It should be simple but the entry barrier for driver dev is pretty high.

>>578 Can't you just remove the nvidia and use the onboard GPU?

>>580 According to wikipedia, the nvidia card has a hardware multiplexer that controls the VGA output (the pipeline goes VGA input -> discrete card -> integrated card, where the second step can be shorted by an ACPI call to the discrete card), so I haven't really tried to just take it off as I fear it would just stop rendering anything period. Apparently this let nvidia simplify their firmware by a lot, but they did it by just offloading everything to the OS, which as it turns out can be an issue when said OS has awful nvidia drivers.

Since HardenedBSD was mentioned in this thread I'm starting to wonder: When is it a better idea to use HardenedBSD instead of FreeBSD? Is it true that HBSD tries to fix the lack of security practices in FreeBSD?

>>534 >>537 ZFS has been ported to OpenBSD, it is not wanted. http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/ZFS-on-OpenBSD