OpenBSD 3.7 Released

pgilman writes "It's official: OpenBSD 3.7 has been released. There are oodles of new features, including tons of new and improved wireless drivers (covered here previously), new ports for the Sharp Zaurus and SGI, improvements to OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, OpenNTPD, CARP, PF, a new OSPF daemon, new functionality for the already-excellent ports & packages system, and lots more. As always, please support the project if you can by buying CDs and t-shirts, or grab the goodness from your local mirror."

How's the install?

[m50d]

Manually creating a BSD disklabel is not to be taken lightly. If you're experienced you can do it, but it's very far from friendly. Anyone know if they've done anything to make it easier?

Re:How's the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

buy the CD. Dedicate 1 HDD to OpenBSD. Then follow the printed instructions. i avoided OpenBSD for a lond time because of FUD like this. Found out that it is probably one of the best *nix distros there is. Simple, well documented, and WORKS. Also the pors tree is clean and smooth. Almost as easy as apt-get.

Re:How's the install?

[ignorant_coward]

Yes, people who say OpenBSD is hard because of the non-GUI installer just end up making themselves look lame. OpenBSD really is not that hard to install, and I actually prefer it to Red Hat's do-as-we-want-you-to-do installer.

making themselves look lame

[xtermin8]

I think the point is to get "lamers" (MSCs maybe?) to be willing to install OpenBSD. They have to be willing to try it first, then you can criticize them.

Re:How's the install?

[m50d]

It's not FUD. There are plenty of cases where dedicating a HDD is not an option, requiring a separate disk is unacceptable. I installed slackware from zero non-windows experience, hadn't used any disk partitioners at all, ever. When I nuked that (that was my learning not to run as root stage, but that's another story) I had an openbsd cd around, so I tried to install it. Had a windows partition on the disk I couldn't get rid of, but enough free space if I could figure out how the hell to partition it. Never managed to.

Re:How's the install?

[SquadBoy]

Did you read the install docs? Can't speak to back then but now they cover that scanario in *detail*. All you have to do is read and think. Oh wait that'll never be mainstream.

Re:How's the install?

[m50d]

It won't be. It won't even be popular non-mainstream. A program that requires reading the docs to use is a flawed program. If you're doing something really complex, sure, one should expect to read the documentation, but installing alongside an existing partition is not complex.

Re:How's the install?

[Caligari]

Its really not hard, especially after you read the excellent documentation [openbsd.org].

The installer might not have shiny graphics, but its actually extremely simple. It fits on a single floppy and can be used remotely. Same goes for upgrading.

Re:How's the install?

[rpdillon]

Someone mod this offtopic; we're talking about OpenBSD, not FreeBSD. =)

Re:How's the install?

[someonehasmyname]

Like, OMG. You're so right. I bet back in the day, more people would have been running DOS if they didn't have to know what fdisk was.

How do they expect us to use this super advanced UNIX if we can't figure out how to install it?!

It's not like we're computer geeks or anything!1!!1

Re:How's the install?

[Caligari]

I'll assume you meant OpenBSD and not FreeBSD.

Thats cool if you don't like reading documenation. Stick with MacOSX/Windows/Linux/Whatever.

Nobody says OpenBSD is for everybody.

Re:How's the install?

[Caligari]

It's only "hard" if you don't understand what you are doing.

Of course, OpenBSD is not for people who don't understand what they are doing.

Read the docs so you understand properly, and it is no longer hard :)

Re:How's the install?

[Homology]

Manually creating a BSD disklabel is not to be taken lightly. If you're experienced you can do it, but it's very far from friendly. Anyone know if they've done anything to make it easier?

It is confusing when you come from i386 and have used Linux. It was, at least for me, quite confusing the usage of the word "partition".

To simplify, on Linux on i386 for each file system there will be a partition (DOS type). On BSD you commonly create a primary DOS parition using fdisk, and then use disklabel to create different filesystems on that particular DOS partition. "Primary" beacuse BSD may only boot from a primary DOS partition (at most four of those).

Now, when you enter fdisk you are asked to "parition" your harddisk(s). Then you enter disklabel and are asked to create new partitions. WTF? I just did that! Enter the term "slice" that is not quite the same across the BSD. Erh, you won't see the word "slice" in the man pages, though.

Not sure if OpenBSD 3.7 still have this usage of partition, though.

In any case, I'm a happy user of OpenBSD since 3.2/3.3.

Re:How's the install?

[conteXXt]

"Primary" beacuse BSD may only boot from a primary DOS partition.

Are you sure about that?

I mean that BSD will only boot from a Primary partition.

As I understand it, That is an i386 problem, not limited to BSD.

If I am wrong please feel free to enlighten (but not ignite) me.

Re:How's the install?

[TheRealMindChild]

The boot sector must be loaded from a primary partition, this is true. The bios first looks at the MBR, then the boot sector of Primary Partition 0 on disk 0, and so on...

Now, booting an OS that resides on a non-primary partition requires what is called a two-stage boot loader, and it does exactally what you think it would. Both NTLDR and lilo (among most others) work this way. The boot sector contains JUST ENOUGH code to find the second stage boot loader (reading a file, looking on the root of all partition, whatever), load it, and set the execution point.

Hope this helps

Re:How's the install?

[Homology]

Yes, on i386 OpenBSD may _only_ boot from a primary parition, and that is what I wrote. On other architectures there are different rules.

Re:How's the install?

[arete]

You're right that these are i386 limitations (although not all BIOS's are actually limited like this) But you're overstating how big of a limitation it is.

I think the way you said that is misleading, because it sounds like you're saying "OpenBSD must be installed in a primary DOS partition to be bootable"

That is definitely not true. OpenBSD does not necessarily have to touch a primary partition to be bootable.

The limitation is really "SOMETHING has to pick what boots" usually (but not always) the i386 BIOS is pretty dumb about this, so something somewhere has to be on a primary partition.

One of the primary partitions on the first drive must be marked active, and that partition must contain a bootable OS OR boot loader that can find your OS - but that's trivial these days. - THE BOOT LOADER DOESN'T HAVE TO MATCH YOUR OS -

So you could have OpenBSD in a logical partition and have a linux boot loader in a primary partition that lets you select on boot which partition - primary or logical, on any drive - gets booted. You could also have this selection be automatic. You could have it boot OpenBSD if it's Thursday, if you wanted. Except for that last part, this is all very, very common freeware.

http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/BOOT/PARTITIO.HTM [yale.edu]

Re:How's the install?

[Homology]

I think the confusion came from the fact that you called it a "primary DOS partition". Primary partitions are a i386 thing. DOS partitions are partitions created to hold a DOS filesystem (FAT,FAT32,etc).

Exactly the point of my first post ;-)

Re:How's the install?

[conteXXt]

Actually I wasn't really playing on the "DOS" part.

I was more trying to get the point across that it isn't only OpenBSD that is limited to this.

Another poster described the boot process very accurately (and as I understand it).

So no OpenBSD CAN boot from any partition. But its BOOTLOADER must reside in a primary partition (dos or otherwise) Same as linux winnt etc.

P.S. I have used OpenBSD in production (firewalls mostly) for years now.

Re:How's the install?

[whois]

Just ignore fdisk and use disklabel.

Here's the process we use for pxeboot/custom cd installs:

echo "Wiping drive.."
echo y | fdisk -i wd0 > /dev/null

echo "Running disklabel.."
disklabel -E wd0 /dev/null
d
*
a
a

400M

a
b

400M
swap
a
d

2G

a
e

w
q
EOF

echo -n "Creating filesystems.. a "
newfs wd0a >/dev/null
echo -n "d "
newfs wd0d >/dev/null
echo -n "e "
newfs wd0e >/dev/null
echo "done."

This creates 3 partitions and a swap partition, then puts the fs on them. You can mount them whereever you like.

Re:How's the install?

[DrSkwid]

aw come off it

partitioning HD's is Computer Building 101

spend an evening to understand it and it will put in good stead for the rest of your life

Re:How's the install?

[Homology]

aw come off it partitioning HD's is Computer Building 101 spend an evening to understand it and it will put in good stead for the rest of your life

Perhaps you should widen your experience beyond i386 and Linux. It's confusing because the same word partition (on i386) is used to refer to both DOS partion (fidsk) and filesystem (disklabel).

Re:How's the install?

[DrSkwid]

yes perhaps I should

no, wait a minute, I run BSD on Sparc & plan9 on x86

I only run Linux by force !

Re:How's the install?

[Homology]

Good for you! Why are you still confused? You must have put quite some effort to have plan9 up and running.

Re:How's the install?

[DrSkwid]

I'm not confused, the original poster was

plan9 is easy to install, it even boots from the CD into graphical desktop mode
I had it up and running the first day I tried it, when Ver 3 was announced here on /.

I have the auth server running on a stock VIA EPIA 5000 fanless board, my fileserver is a stock IBM Netfinity 5000 and my terminal is an Athlon with an nvidia gforce

I have put in quite a bit of effort in the meantime though, it is a bit to learn but being consistent, everything is a file, makes learning one aspect tranfer on to an other.

I did trawl ebay for suitable parts for a while but people's contributed drivers since ver 4 have made life much simpler, esp. the addition of the nvidia driver

Re:How's the install?

[maita]

Don't worry, it is just another added security layer for your safety. Now, you have to agree, it works well!

The installation lures you into thinking all is going well until it hits you with OpenBSD's most reliable security method: the Dumb Sysadmin Prevention System [linux.org] . In short, OpenBSD's install is so hard that you need to be genius to complete it, thus eliminating the cause of the majority of security issues -- dumb sysadmins.

Re:How's the install?

[Homology]

You don't need to be a genius to install OpenBSD. Assuming that you can read English, the installation instructions are more enough.

Actually, the (almost) main reason why I use OpenBSD is because it's easy to install, configure and maintain in a secure way. Yeah, I know, I'm lazy ;-)

Seriously, its amazing

[alexhmit01]

The first time I installed it, it took a few attempts. Had to figure out the networking, etc. (I had problems with Redhat 6.2 as well, the installer was great, but no tools that I could find to edit them until I learned my way around the text files).

However, after 3 attempts when we got the hang of it, I looked at my partner (it was our first webserver for our little company) and we were like COOL. Once you get the handle of the installer and ports, its a DREAM, much EASIER than the Redhat what do I want and where is it problem.

That said, RHEL 4 is pretty slick, but nowhere near as impressively simple as OpenBSD + Ports. The installed OpenBSD system is SO FUCKING clean its not funny, and then you add the few ports, nice and customized, that you want.

One day I build 4 OpenBSD machines. Build the (customized) packages on one and distributed, and it was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY nice).

It's a great system, but you gotta really be a Unix-lover. If you want the click-click install, the Linux distros are great, but with OpenBSD I understand what is going on with my system.

That said, you can just TRY to get my OS X Powerbook away from me... :)

Alex

Re:How's the install?

[mnmn]

Heres a mistake I made from a recent 3.7 snapshot....

In the fdisk program, if you press a key to reset the partition table, it resets it AND writes it. Most other partition changes require 'W' to write before exiting, so you can back off your errors... but the reset partition table resets and writes permanently... at least on amd64.

I tried it to check if it was completely zeroing out the table, or fixing the MBR, like fdisk /mbr in DOS... and I had to shift-pgup and write down the partition table display, and manually reconstruct it.

Re:How's the install?

[SquadBoy]

I did it a few weeks ago for the first time. Had to read and think about the docs but there is nothing really hard about it. Of course I more and more think that the ability to read and think is a almost lost art so you must might have a point.

Re:How's the install?

[scatters]

Pah! Real men don't click!

Re:Crazy

[trewornan]

Yes I *am* a elitist asshole and damn proud of it

But you don't speak for everybody. I've found no problem with getting help for OpenBSD (I recommend www.bsdforums.org). I think you just need to make some effort to solve the problem yourself first. I can quite understand why people get annoyed with newbs who ask facile questions because they can't be bothered to try the most basic steps themselves. That's hardly unique to OpenBSD users though.

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to install this on all my servers with Adaptec RAID cards! Oh yeah... Damn dirty Adaptec! How's Theo's battle with them going, by the way?

Growl

[iamdrscience]

OpenBSD, OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, OpenNTPD, CARP, PF, OSPF

Do BSD-folk have some strange aversion to pronouncable acronyms? Only 1 out of 7!

Re:Growl

[fr2asbury]

Sure they're pronouncable:
Open-bee-ess-dee
Open-ess-ess-aitc h
Open-bee-jee-pee-dee
Open-enn-tee-pee-dee
Car p
pee-eff
oh-ess-pee-eff

No problem. ;-)

Re:Growl

[moranar]

"Openbuzzd"

"Openshhhhh!"

"Pfff"

Those three are easy :)

Re:Growl

[epine]

Let me read that back for you: oh-pee-ess-off

Re:Growl

[TheRealMindChild]

Pronounceable acronyms are rediculous (almost as much so as the multitude of worthles acronyms).

I want to MURDER people who say "Sequel" instead of S-Q-L, "Say-Taa" instead of S-A-T-A, and especially "ERRRRRK" instead of I-R-C.

If the acronym was intended to be pronounced, the author would have done something like the SAMBA project, where SMB was the acronym, but they filled in the blanks to actually MAKE it a word.

Re:Growl

[someonehasmyname]

Tell me about it... I have a client that tries to pronounce _every_ acronym. It makes me crazy. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "da-nis" instead of D-N-S, or "fipt" instead of F-T-P.

Re:Growl

[Waffle Iron]

Pronounceable acronyms are rediculous

Actually, acronyms [wikipedia.org] are supposed to be pronounceable:

Initialism originally referred to abbreviations formed from initials, without reference to pronunciation, but during the middle portion of the twentieth century, when acronyms and initialisms saw more use than ever before, the word acronym was coined for abbreviations which are pronounced as a word, like "NATO" or "AIDS". The term initialism is now typically taken to refer to abbreviations which are pronounced by sounding out the name of each constituent letter (e.g. HTML).

What you are really saying is you don't like people using initialisms as acronyms.

Re:Growl

[SolusSD]

well as far as SQL goes, the original project name WAS sequel. it is a predecessor to SQL. Also, I advise you to stay away from gnu/linux if you hate pronouncing acronyms. Heck The unix community actually finds names for programs that contain the letters of the acronym to give them more pronouncable names. eg SAMBA for the unix SMB implementation.

Re:Growl

[Excelsior]

I'm sitting in a training class this very minute where the instructor keeps saying "Earl" instead of U-R-L. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard every time I hear it.

Re:Growl

[Alioth]

Say-Tay? Eugh.

I call it Sahtah (ah as in the a sound in 'cat'). And Squil instead of Sequel.

SAMBA couldn't use the name SMB

[parvenu74]

Back when SAMBA was in 2.0 or thereabouts I looked at the samba.org site for the first time and found a bit on how the name "samba" came to be. The original intention was to simply call it SMB but there was concern about using a registered name so the name SAMBA was arrived upon by grepping a dictionary file based on the letters SMB in that order.

It was certainly not the result of an attempt to come up with some cute name for the software.

Re:Growl

[DavidBurns]

Expanding on a previous comment: A 1970's IBM project, System/R, developed "Structured English Query Language" shortened to "SEQUEL", and later changed to SQL. The CORRECT pronunciation of "SQL" is still "sequel". Saying "ess kew ell" is the sign of a newbie. Not that there's anything wrong with newbies, until they get fresh about things they don't know about. See e.g. http://www.faqs.org/docs/ppbook/c1164.htm [faqs.org]

I can't hear you very well through that hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if you are really aware of it, but note that the link you gave mentions the story behind the acronym SQL, which certainly used to be SEQUEL before and had to be changed for legal reasons, but doesn't mention the pronunciation of SQL at all. Actually it _is_ "Es Queue El": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL [wikipedia.org].

If you read the documentation of popular relational databases, it's quite possible that you find a paragraph regarding the pronunciation, and in that case you'll find they follow the ANSI convention. [1 [mysql.com]] [2 [wikipedia.org]]

I know when I started using RDBMs years ago I read about it, and ever since whenever I see someone pronouncing SQL as "sequel" the first thing that comes to my mind is "newbie". I suspect from now on one more thing will come to mind: a prick who wants to sound clever when he's actually an ignorant.

Re:Growl

[starm_]

oh yeah caus " double-yu wiy ess iy double yu wiy gee" is better.

Try the Torrent!

[cjsnell]

Check out the Unofficial OpenBSD Bittorrent Page [somedomain.net]. If the torrent isn't here [somedomain.net], it will be, soon!

Better yet, don't! (Re:Try the Torrent!

[algae]

Selling CDs is one of the ways that the OpenBSD project is able to make money, and as far as I know, they don't provide checksums for the general public to verify the integrity of downloaded .iso's.

So by all means feel free to download some J. Random bitTorrent ISO of OpenBSD, but keep in mind that you have no way of knowing if it's been trojaned, root-kitted, or otherwise compromised If you really need a free install, just use the freakin network floppy. It's super easy, and you download directly from official OpenBSD mirrors.

Re:Try the Torrent!

[Marillion]

Simple: Torrent != ISO

It's true, of course, lot's of ISO images are flung far and wide using bittorrent(BT). ISO has two primary features, they're bootable, and they're structured.

BT can't solve the bootable problem, but BT can manage the structure problem. As near as I can tell, these torrents are structured.

I hope

[Knights who say 'INT]

.. the song is good.

"Systemagic" and "E-railed" are still my favorite ones. They went sillier after that. "The Ballad of Puffy Hood" is okay-ish, anyway.

"Systemagic" is really a nice song to chant, drunk, with nerd friends."Cracking the bedroom, HEY, cracking the vault, cracking the bedroom HEY SECURE BY DEFAULT. CAAAAAAAAAAAAAN'T FIIIIIIIGHT THE SYSTEMAGIC. ÜBER TRAGIC. CAAAAN'T FIGHT THE SYSTEMAGIC! SYSTEMAGIC!.

Re:I hope

[Rylz]

The song is already out... http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html [openbsd.org]

Re:I hope

[Caligari]

The new song has been out for a while, you can get them all on the lyrics page [openbsd.org].

If you like Pink Floyd you'll like this one!

Decent firefox port ?

[DrSkwid]

3.6 is stuck on 0.8

does my head in

I know a page where one can get a patchset against 1.01 and compile but I like my systems and vanilla as possible, ports & packages only, then I can reliably install a new box via script

Re:Decent firefox port ?

[raddan]

Follow -current or upgrade to 3.7 and you'll be happy. It's really not that hard.

3.7 comes with 1.0.2 if I'm not mistaken.

Re:Decent firefox port ?

[ArbitraryConstant]

I don't use OpenBSD as a desktop system so I don't know how well this works, but it might be worth a shot to set up Linux binary emulation and just using the Linux binary from mozilla.org. That might work better anyway for flash and stuff.

I use Debian-testing as a desktop and I avoid apt for the small number of things that I want to be 100% up to date with, including Firefox.

Re:Decent firefox port ?

[dolmant_php]

3.7 comes with 1.01 [openbsd.org]. Current version is 1.0.4 [openbsd.org].

Re:Leading technology for tomorrows computing

[DrSkwid]

* No file name completion.
* No colored directories.
* Update the system by recompilation (yay!)

these are bad things ?

Getting closer

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon it will reach the crucial watershed version 3.11

Intel Wireless

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the new features is Intel Wireless support. I think that's very significant.

I must say that OpenBSD is a joy to work with. It is much cleaner and more consistently designed than everything else out there, including Linux. I have an old OBSD box that acts as a router and wireless access point, hasn't been updated in years, and I know I'll be giving it 3.7 to keep it up to date.

Now that it has Intel Wireless support, I might just switch to OBSD from Debian on my laptop.

Re:Intel Wireless

[Nimrangul]

Just make sure you've got the firmware somewhere handy, it doesn't come with the system.

Hmm

[rsax]

I wonder what's the reason for not signing the checksums.

ftp://mirror.sg.depaul.edu/pub/OpenBSD/3.7/i386/ [depaul.edu]

SMP

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

I haven't followed openBSD in quite some time and the answer wasn't apparent from the "features" link...but... Did Theo get around to supporting SMP yet? Given the avalanche of "cheap" multicore processors coming down the pike, SMP support sure would be nice.

Re:SMP

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenBSD has supported SMP since 3.6 (i386 and amd64 platforms.) Here's the page [openbsd.org] confirming this.

SMP in OpenBSD is slightly different to normal implementations for security reasons. Generally when one processor is in use, the other suspends itself to avoid race conditions. That way you get the full advantages of SMP, not wearing out a single CPU for instance, without the possibility of race conditions causing some kind of security hole.

Re:SMP

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

smp on i386 and amd64 is in-tree. smp for macppc is on a developers box, but hasn't made its way to the real tree. I do not know the status of any other architecture.

OpenBSD clusters make my heartbeat faster...

[Yannic]

Here's the plan:
1. Set up High Availability router with pfsync. (using computers rescued from the trash)
2. Set up a HA Network RAID system using DRBD [drbd.org] or something similar. (using more computers rescued from the trash)
3. Build a Kerrighed [kerrighed.org] or OpenSSI [openssi.org] Single System Image cluster. (using the latest and greatest computers one can rescue from the trash)
4. ???
5. Profit! (and thus, have enough money to actually buy equipment)

I've already set aside Tuesday evening to upgrade my bandwidth throttling [benzedrine.cx] OpenBSD router. I set it up the day before 3.6 came out, so I didn't feel like upgrading until now. I'm tired of the typical hardware failures you tend to get out of computers people throw out (maybe that's why they threw them out in the first place) but mostly I'm looking forward to getting a learning experience hundreds of times more valuable (personally) than getting my MCSE 2003.

\/\/\/

Re:OpenBSD clusters make my heartbeat faster...

[doc modulo]

Great post and good links, thanks.

I'm also learning how to build a clustered server one step at a time.

You might want to look at my post [slashdot.org] about Erlang. It's a functional programming language with all the advantages that come with it. In your case you might be interested in the features:
- It has an automatically clustered database and webserver.
- No buffer overflows
- It can automatically use symmetrical multiprocessing.

Questions for you:
- With the clustering sofware links you posted, do you still need ECC memory or will RAM redundancy be handled by the cluster software?
- What do you think of C-JDBC? It's like RAID-1 for databases instead of drives. I like Java because it has no buffer overflows either.

Good luck with getting the skills, at least we know we're on the right path, like Google.

How long is each release officially supported?

[LibrePensador]

I am trying to create a table of open source software with the respective support deadlines and it has proven difficult.

We are a small shop and in no position to do our own security updates for something like OpenBSD once it ceases to be supported. We are also fairly unfamiliar with the code. Nonetheless, I would like to try the OpenBSD waters, but before I do so, I would like to have some reliable info on how long security updates for each release are offered.

BTW: I know that OpenBSD has a very decent security record, which is why I am interested in it, but knowing how long a release is supported is still important to me.

Thanks.

Re:How long is each release officially supported?

[Nimrangul]

I am pretty sure when 3.7 was released 3.5 stopped being supported.

That's a year's span, as each release is a half a year apart.

Re:How long is each release officially supported?

[wk633]

Nobody is promising anything, unless you have a 3rd party support contract.

I see three options:

1) forget about it and keep paying Microsoft for the promise of support.

2) find a 3rd party to do your patches and upgrades for you.

3) invenst some time in learning how to keep up with latest stable versions.

Nothing is free as in beer. BSD is older than windows, and the patches/new versions will keep coming for a long time to come. If you want a feel-good promise, you'll have to pay someone for a support contract.

Re:How long is each release officially supported?

[LibrePensador]

Well, now I know what to expect, which is not much. If there was/is, a third party that offers OpenBSD support for a minimum of three years, I might be interested in that, but I doubt that it would be as economical as going with Debian.

All of this is under consideration currently. I am honestly surprised that it is only a year, but hey, the OpenBSD developers certainly don't own me anything.

Re:How long is each release officially supported?

[shking]

...knowing how long a release is supported is still important to me

Then why didn't you go to the website and read the FAQ's? http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html#Flavors [openbsd.org]

The two newest releases are supported and a new "stable" version of the OpenBSD is released every 6 months. So, each release of OpenBSD is supported for one year.

Re:How long is each release officially supported?

[tim_mcc]

OpenBSD always supports the current release, and the previous one. This means it now supports versions 3.7 and 3.6

You should note however that the OpenBSD systems are very easily upgraded from the install media. Simply choose the upgrade option and then follow the simple instructions [openbsd.org] to make other changes.

Remember though that only sequential updates are supported. Example 3.6 -> 3.7, if you're upgrading from 3.5 you'd need to: 3.5 -> 3.6 -> 3.7

Hope that helps you,

Tim

T-Shirts? No thanks!

[YetAnotherName]

please support the project if you can by buying CDs and t-shirts, ...

I would love to, except Puffy the logo fish is horribly disfigured [openbsd.org].

Linux shirts are out, too: Tux is overweight. No, I can't buy a FreeBSD T-shirt either: I live in Texas [rmitz.org].

I've got it

[Cally]

I have here a shiny CD of 3.7, complete with Wizard of OS poster with oh-so-hilarious caricature of RMS with a pair of gnu horns... somehow the expression on his face just makes me laugh, it's a moment of cartoon zen's what it is. (And lest the wrong idea be given, tho' I bought an OpenBSD CD, I support the FSF financially too. A little bit). I ordered my CD on monday from the wonderful Holborn Books [holbornbooks.co.uk] whose meatspace shop is a perilous void of stuff you want to empty your wallet for. And the CD arrived yesterday morning.

Trouble is, I just resusitated my trusty old v3.0 machine which has been dormant for 2 years after the PSU let the magic smoke out. For some reason networking's not happy talking to the new LAN, so I can't archive the bits I want to keep*, so I can't vape it with 3.7 ... but... must... run... newest... CODE!!!

* There's no CD burner - it's a Compaq Deskpro P166, c.1996, FFS! - and I only have one (CRT) monitor - & no KVM - switching the cable is a PITA and stressign the VGA socket on the back of my main computer, a relatuively-speaking gleaming new P2/233 from 1997.

I have not yet tried booting the Sun SS2 yet , since you ask.

Re:I've got it

[Alioth]

OpenBSD runs great on Sparc. I have probably the only 64-bit ADSL router for miles - my home firewall/fileserver is a Sun Ultra 5, running OpenBSD 3.6, with a USB-attached ADSL modem that came free with the connection.

Great for your firewall, but...

[Dammital]

My home firewall is an (aging) OBSD 3.3 box that I really ought to upgrade one of these days... but it just runs and runs and runs. The pf stateful packet filter is compact and fast.

But OBSD is more problematic on my web/mail server. The ports collection is nowhere near as comprehensive as FreeBSD's (or Debian & Gentoo for that matter) and so you'll likely scrounge for upstream versions of more obscure packages.

Worse, OBSD's Apache is stuck at version 1 (Theo has issues with the Apache 2 license) and more and more software wants Apache 2. I guess you can fix that, but it's back upstream you go me bucko. Oh, and OBSD's default Apache installation is chrooted, which you'll probably defeat after your first CGI integration experience.

I like OBSD a lot, and I don't mean to suggest that it's only good for embedding in a router. But if your application requirements are remotely bleeding edge (and you want to save yourself some work at the risk of some unquantifiable security exposure) then you might want to look elsewhere.

Re:Great for your firewall, but...

[Krunaldo]

Ummm? What problems do you have with CGI integration? Just simply do _all_ cgi stuff in the chroot enviroment? Well it isn't apache anymore, it's more like "OpenBSD über-secure-patch-set apache". Do you need anything apache 2 specific?

All the "widely" used mailingprograms are available for OpenBSD, what's your problem with them?
Sure there is some stuff missing in ports/packages but they're getting fewer by the day. If you miss something go a head an make a port of it.

Re:Great for your firewall, but...

[Nimrangul]

If you need Apache 2, grab it, it's in ports.

Ports are often behind the most recent releases of things, which is kinda bothersome, but if you want to fix that then get involved and start talking on the ports mailing list. Take over the unmanaged ones and add your own.

That's the best part about a system like this, if you want to, you can change things.

At least the fish is open about it now

[MrSmithers]

See? I told you. I told all of you. I told you FOUR YEARS AGO [slashdot.org] but nobody believed me.

Now take a look at the OpenBSD web page [openbsd.org]. Just try and tell me the fish didn't finally come out of the closet with this release. The raised eyebrow, the pouty lips, the rainbow background. I told you.

Sigh, I hate people.

Re:iso image Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe yes [somedomain.net]

That's irony, right?

[Medievalist]

Fanboy.

Re:Neither irony nor sarcasm

[Anonymous Coward]

The first trollish reference was to the fact that OpenBSD is much more secure by default then any distro Linux. The second was to the fact the OpenBSD is much more stable then any disto of Linux.

How is this a troll? It's true. Anyone who is suffuciently familiar with the innards of both will tell you that, no question.

I'm primarily a Linux user who does some OpenBSD on the side. I don't use GUIs that much, I configure everything by hand, and I do a lot of coding. I've written kernel stuff.

I can tell you that it is clear that OpenBSD is simpler, more consistent, and just plain makes more sense than Linux. Coming from Linux, OpenBSD is more than a joy to work with.

Linux is very ad-hoc. It just sort of "grew." It was developed in many places by many people, few of them working together with the big context of "the Linux system" in mind. The pace of development is very rush-rush-rush, and for example many times, the approach of the kernel developers is "let's shove this out to userland and let distributors worry about writing a script to make sense of it."

OpenBSD is the opposite. People working on OpenBSD core packages have a specific kernel, userland, config script, etc., etc. in mind. There is a concept of "the OpenBSD system" and it is fairly consistent. People are working together to acheive that goal. The pace of development is more relaxed, and the people working on the userland are some of the same folks writing the kernel. So you don't get the sort of ad-hoc interfaces that make no sense to anything but a shell script (i.e. iptables), you get something which at every level, the user can get an idea how it works (i.e. pf).

Or take wireless. Until recently I had a Linux box set up as a wireless access point. To do that I had to play around with different kernel modules, some of them shipping with the kernel, some of them not, ad nauseum until something worked. This was very annoying.

Awhile ago I put the very same wireless card in an OpenBSD box whose software had not been updated in a few years. The card just worked! Without rebuilding or changing any config files, the card was detected.

Then, I put a 2-line file in /etc, made some changes to the DHCPD config file, and much to my surprise, it functioned as a wireless access point. Effortlessly. Having struggled with this in Linux (where it is much more painful to do), I had much appreciation for this.

The fact is, OpenBSD just does things the Right Way. People say OpenBSD's big strength is security, but that's slightly missing the point. OpenBSD's strength is correctness. From correctness yields stability, security, and all around ease of use.

You can call me a fanboy, but I say OpenBSD wins hands down against any Linux distribution, with the only exception being that Linux generally supports more hardware, quicker.

Re:Neither irony nor sarcasm

[guitaristx]

MOD PARENT UP!!! The parent makes a very good point. Correctness is an often-overlooked quality that should exist in every piece of widely-accepted FOSS. I hope for the day that high muckety-mucks in the FOSS community actually start caring about correctness.

Since you insist.

[Medievalist]

You can call me a fanboy, but I say

OK, you're a fanboy.

Re:Yes, you are a fanboy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the typical response of a BSD fanboy when comparing his/her BSD with "Linux", not with a Linux distro. Let's do a real comparison. I'll use RedHat Linux and Debian in most examples.

If you'll look at my post I said I'm primarily a Linux user. I use Debian mostly. I like it a lot. It's much better than most Linux offerings. But it's no OpenBSD. Part of the reason is because it inherits the problems of its upstream sources, including some of the design decisions of the Linux kernel.

You can say EXACTLY THE SAME about the Linux distros I mentioned. Both RedHat and Debian have their own "generic kernels", core pkgs, etc.

This is not the same. Red Hat and Debian mostly pull from upstream sources which do not develop together. For most of OpenBSD userland, the upstream is the same as the package maintainer.

Even the packages that ARE from external sources are better integrated.

(By the way: for every Linux distro I've used, the default kernel always lacks something or doesn't work in some way, and I always end up building a custom one. With OpenBSD, the default kernel is much better than any default Linux kernel I've seen.)

If you disagree with my accessments on integration, I encourage you to look at a base OpenBSD system, and a Debian base system, compare the two, and I think it will be very clear which is better integrated. Look, particularly, at the headers, and the interfaces between kernel and userland, some of the manpages for kernel features, and this is easily apparent.

And remember, I'm writing this all as a Debian user. I use Debian much more often than I use OpenBSD.

As for your last argument, about how many people use Linux: This proves nothing. I can just as easily say, "Look how many people use Microsoft Windows! Obviously, it must be better!"

Re:Disco Stu doesn't advertise

[DashEvil]

I don't even understand why you're fighting with this guy. I use OpenBSD, you use OpenBSD, we both think it's great. If they want to troll in OpenBSD related slashdot threads that's their social problem, not ours. I'd prefer if the trolling/negative crap went ignored and got modded into oblivion.

Re:Good!

[MightyMartian]

BSD is direct Unix herritage, Linux is the bastard COPY.

William the Conqueror was a bastard too, and you'll notice that you don't have anyone on the English throne named Ethelbert or or Athelstan.

Re:Good!

[Skye16]

Why was William the Conquerer standing on your ancestor?!?

Re:But, but...

[hobbesx]

Is OpenBSD a better choice?

Maybe. What color is your mouse?

Probably not.

[arete]

Essentially anything will techically meet your needs, but somethings will make your life harder and some easier. Not to start a flame, but I think your description better suits Linux. If you want to try a BSD I'd try FreeBSD before OpenBSD.

The biggest difference is really in philosophy, because most really important things that any free OS has get shared.

Traditionally:
OpenBSD is ridiculously secure, sometimes at the cost of speed or similarity of structure. It is ideal for important routers and servers.
NetBSD is ridiculously compatible, but probably not better unless you're trying to run it on your toaster - which is probably supports.
FreeBSD is not quite as secure as OpenBSD, but generally faster and more compatible. It is probably the right choice for many serious server applications that may value speed or ease over a usually small increase in security.

Linux has a lot more people working on desktop/workstation applications and a lot more popular mindshare. The most important effect is that there are a lot more tutorials on how to do every little thing using the standard linux tools. BSD can run linux binaries most of the time. But a lot of times something you want to use might not work - or it might work if you know how to make one tiny fix, but it won't be mentioned anywhere because the developer forgot BSD existed.

So from your description I would use Linux because it is vastly more popular as a desktop.

Re:But, but...

[ArbitraryConstant]

I prefer to code C on OpenBSD because the man pages for the C library calls are better. I can port it to Linux later if necessary. I don't use OpenBSD as a desktop OS, so I don't know what graphics support is like. They seem to be running a recent X.org, so it can't be that bad...

I like OpenBSD better in general, but Debian is a lot less work as a desktop OS and I'm lazy. OpenBSD runs my firewall/server and Debian-testing my desktop.

The documentation is MUCH better than any Linux I've used, which may be an edge if you're starting out.

Re:Where did the devil put the .iso images...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to know how to install OpenBSD, then you will *gasp HAVE TO READ!

http://www.wbglinks.net/pages/openbsd/installation .html [wbglinks.net]

Re:Where did the devil put the .iso images...

[grub]

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq3.html#ISO

You can't get them (officially). If it's that much trouble to do that once for an OS that is truly a joy to work with then you're priorities are screwed up.

Buy the official CDs and support the project, roll up your sleeves and make your own or use another OS. It's a free world.

Re:Where did the devil put the .iso images...

[ArbitraryConstant]

"Buy the official CDs and support the project, roll up your sleeves and make your own or use another OS. It's a free world."

It's easier to just do an FTP install.

Well, once the mirrors calm down in a few days anyway.

Re:Where did the devil put the .iso images...

[aschlemm]

Download the appropriate files from a trusted source and make an ISO yourself. I would never download a premade ISO without knowing who created it.

http://www.webengr.com/development/tools/openbsd/t ips/cdrom/ [webengr.com]

Re:Where did the devil put the .iso images...

[__aaclcg7560]

Maybe you should forget Linux too and just stick to Windows - unless of course you're kidding about being that dumb?

Did I leave the smiley emoticon out again? I guess I was dumb enough to do that. ;)

Actually, the last half-dozen new OS releases I been downloading the .iso files and burning them to CDs. I was kind of surprise that there was no CD images to download. I forgot you need to get the "official" CDs for OpenBSD. Of course, it's been ages since I actually had to do "manual" work to get a system going.

Re:Where did the devil put the .iso images...

[Alioth]

It is very easy to install OpenBSD without any official ISOs.

Method 1:
Download the boot ISO (there is a boot ISO available for download), burn to CD, boot, set up your hard disk, then tell it to do an FTP install.

Method 2:
Download the boot ISO, and also download all the basic packages (the ones in the form of base37.tgz etc.) Burn the boot ISO to one CD, then create a normal CD containing all the packages.
Boot the bootable CD, swap the CDs over, then tell it to install from CD.

Using the two CD method, I can go from a blank computer to a working OpenBSD system in less than 15 minutes.

Re:DHCP?

[compass46]

The DHCP client included has always worked. There was a problem in some Comcast markets including my own though. What you probably saw has been fixed, I believe as of 3.5 or 3.6. Essentially some markets were sending back DHCP responses out of spec causing the hosts client to disregard the information.

Re:OpenBSD for a linux user

[ArbitraryConstant]

My setup: I use OpenBSD 3.6 (no upgrade for me yet, mirrors are totally) as a firewall and server (NFS, web, SSH, DHCP, that sort of thing). I use Debian-testing as a desktop on a different machine.

The documentation is second to none. That includes all the Linuxes I've tried as well as the BSDs. The fact that it's actually worth reading the docs means you do it early and often, which is nice.

Installing things out of ports is about as easy as any of the other good package managers I've used on Linux. The one thing to be aware of is that pkg_add can take a filename argument in the form of a URL to the FTP site. It's better to do that because it can resolve dependencies from the FTP site instead of you having to download them manually.

DO NOT ROLL A CUSTOM KERNEL. The generic one supports virtually everything that has been tested properly. If you have a problem with generic, report the bug because they'll want to fix it.

The firewall, PF, rocks. It's easy to set up and very powerful.

Overall, the differences between distros are as big as the differences with OpenBSD. I had to go through a lot of distros before I found the one I was happy with, and if you can wrap your brain around, say, both Slackware and Suse, you'll be fine.