• OpenBSD as a workstation

    From MeaTLoTioN@21:1/158 to All on Mon Jul 12 20:27:03 2021
    Hey All,

    I am writing this message to you using SyncTERM which I compiled on my new OpenBSD laptop. I have been messing with OpenBSD for work on servers for a few years, and I finally decided to give it a go to see if I can make it work as a workstation too.

    I have installed OpenBSD 6.9, i3-gaps, i3blocks (from source), SyncTERM (from source), and a few other things so far and it's working fantastically up to this point.

    I will need to use it for a good month or so to fully figure out all the applications I would like to use, and my work flow, but this is looking good so far.

    It's super quick on my laptop, very resource friendly, and much less bloated than any Linux installation I have used thus far.

    Currently, neofetch tells me I have 245 packages (from pkg_info), so very light weight compared to my desktop running Ubuntu 20.04 with 3322 packages installed (dpkg).

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    Would love to see what you all think about this (brave/stupid) project I have started.

    ---
    |14Best regards,
    |11Ch|03rist|11ia|15n |11a|03ka |11Me|03aTLoT|11io|15N

    |07── |08[|10eml|08] |15ml@erb.pw |07── |08[|10web|08] |15www.erb.pw |07───┐ |07── |08[|09fsx|08] |1521:1/158 |07── |08[|11tqw|08] |151337:1/101 |07┬──┘ |07── |08[|12rtn|08] |1580:774/81 |07─┬ |08[|14fdn|08] |152:250/5 |07───┘
    |07── |08[|10ark|08] |1510:104/2 |07─┘

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  • From Zip@21:1/202 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 13 07:40:22 2021
    Hello MeaTLoTioN!

    On 12 Jul 2021, MeaTLoTioN said the following...
    I am writing this message to you using SyncTERM which I compiled on my
    new OpenBSD laptop. I have been messing with OpenBSD for work on

    That's great!

    very light
    weight compared to my desktop running Ubuntu 20.04 with 3322 packages installed

    I just checked my Debian Buster installation -- lots of packages there, too -- 803 of them -- despite the fact that it's a non-workstation installation...

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use
    it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    :-D

    I think I'll stay with Debian for some time to come. I've been running it for the past 20 years or so and it's been stable (and I've always found it to be "no-nonsense" and "serious").

    Would love to see what you all think about this (brave/stupid) project I have started.

    Always good to explore new paths. :-)

    Best regards
    Zip

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 13 04:26:33 2021
    Re: OpenBSD as a workstation
    By: MeaTLoTioN to All on Mon Jul 12 2021 08:27 pm

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    Would love to see what you all think about this (brave/stupid) project I hav started.

    I use OpenBSD for running a bunch of servers at work. I like it because you can run a very complete, solid web and mail stack using OpenBSD specific tools. unveil() and pledge() also beat the guts out of other common isolation/MAC/security techniques because they work fine with no administration overhead whatsoever.

    Also their custom CVS server implementation is awesome.

    For workstations it is a bit hit or miss. The OpenBSD policy is that it is better to have no function than to have bad function, so if they think they cannot implement a feature properly they don't even activate it by default. This means certain common USB printers may need some kernel fiddling to work, for example. Also, if your GPU is Nvidia then you are better off trying with FreeBSD instead.

    Also the OpenBSD libc is not totally compatible with glibc, so desktop software developed for Linux is not guaranteed to compile on OpenBSD without modifications. The current port collection is quite ok, but if you expect to be able to run random stuff from the Internet you'd better know a little bit of C. Porting programs from Linux to OpenBSD is often trivial but you need to be familiar with the way OpenBSD does things.

    Actually they are publishing a Linux Magazine article about this same subject later this year.


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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to All on Tue Jul 13 04:48:27 2021
    I just checked my Debian Buster installation -- lots of packages there, too 803 of them -- despite the fact that it's a non-workstation installation...

    I don't think comparing package numbers applies. Debian has a tendency to split everything in subpackages. Lots of things in Debian come with the docmentation in one package, the development components in a separate package, and the core utility yet in another package.

    Meanwhile in OpenBSD you have package flavors, so things tend to come in different versions with different things included, and you just install the one which includes the things you want. This means a single OpenBSD package may be equivalent to 2 or 3 Debian packages.

    Also a lot of OpenBSD utilities are not distributed as packages. Linux distributions are made of packages, while OpenBSD is made of sets on which you may install packages later. This means the OpenBSD kernel + the coreutils equivalents + core libraries won't show up in package counts.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 13 07:04:00 2021
    MeaTLoTioN wrote to All <=-

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use
    it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    Since we've all been working from home, I've been exposed to people's home systems as I assist them. I was surprised at the number of people using OpenBSD at home - mostly our engineers who grew up in a non-package environment where you build from source and end up with a much leaner system than the current state of affairs.


    ... Move towards the unimportant
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    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From gcubebuddy@21:4/129 to Arelor on Tue Jul 13 16:32:14 2021
    I don't think comparing package numbers applies. Debian has a tendency
    to split everything in subpackages. Lots of things in Debian come with
    the docmentation in one package, the development components in a
    separate package, and the core utility yet in another package.

    Meanwhile in OpenBSD you have package flavors, so things tend to come in different versions with different things included, and you just install the one which includes the things you want. This means a single OpenBSD package may be equivalent to 2 or 3 Debian packages.

    Also a lot of OpenBSD utilities are not distributed as packages. Linux distributions are made of packages, while OpenBSD is made of sets on
    which you may install packages later. This means the OpenBSD kernel +
    the coreutils equivalents + core libraries won't show up in package counts.

    interesting. i have not successfully installed OpenBSD. i am interested in tnkering with it, as the people who created OpenBSD was "Cult of the Dead
    Cow".

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

    telnet --<{bbs.hive32.com:23333}>--

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    * Origin: Hive32 (21:4/129)
  • From gcubebuddy@21:4/129 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Jul 13 16:58:23 2021
    Since we've all been working from home, I've been exposed to people's
    home systems as I assist them. I was surprised at the number of people using OpenBSD at home - mostly our engineers who grew up in a
    non-package environment where you build from source and end up with a
    much leaner system than the current state of affairs.

    Back in the early days of linux it was like that too. and slackware / gentoo
    / arch linux is still very much like that as well. we would have to compile a kernel from scratch in order to custom make it for each system. its been a
    long while since i have had to do that. it might be a good thing to get back into on a VM system. however with alot of the major distros (RHEL / SUSE / Ubuntu / Debian) theu are so tied to the packages, that it can mess up the OS if you compile a custom kernel. dell will not support it as it is considered
    a "non-suported configuration... so if any does it jsut remember to create a back up kernel on hand and have it listed in grub and probaly make sure u
    have a bootable cdrom to fix stuff.

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

    telnet --<{bbs.hive32.com:23333}>--

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Hive32 (21:4/129)
  • From MeaTLoTioN@21:1/158 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Jul 13 23:30:12 2021
    Since we've all been working from home, I've been exposed to people's
    home systems as I assist them. I was surprised at the number of people using OpenBSD at home - mostly our engineers who grew up in a
    non-package environment where you build from source and end up with a
    much leaner system than the current state of affairs.

    Ah so the likes of Gentoo and similar? I have always been fascinated with Gentoo, but not so much as I have a need to install and use it lol, we have/had some gentoo machines at work, and I never got to use them but they were there.

    I wanted to try BSD, specifically OpenBSD, instead of what I'm used to, i.e. Linux. So far, for what I have been using it for, everything is working out sweet. I'm sure there will come a time where I will try and do something and find I can't (easily), at which point I will re-evaluate my decision for trying it no doubt, but for now, i'm pretty happy with how it's turning out.

    ---
    |14Best regards,
    |11Ch|03rist|11ia|15n |11a|03ka |11Me|03aTLoT|11io|15N

    |07── |08[|10eml|08] |15ml@erb.pw |07── |08[|10web|08] |15www.erb.pw |07───┐ |07── |08[|09fsx|08] |1521:1/158 |07── |08[|11tqw|08] |151337:1/101 |07┬──┘ |07── |08[|12rtn|08] |1580:774/81 |07─┬ |08[|14fdn|08] |152:250/5 |07───┘
    |07── |08[|10ark|08] |1510:104/2 |07─┘

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2020/12/04 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (21:1/158)
  • From Adept@21:2/108 to gcubebuddy on Wed Jul 14 05:05:09 2021
    interesting. i have not successfully installed OpenBSD. i am interested
    in tnkering with it, as the people who created OpenBSD was "Cult of the Dead Cow".

    I'm going to try to make this as "no politics" as possible, but there was a politician who ran in a primary, and the fact that he was a member of Cult of the Dead Cow in his youth was a _huge_ plus in considering his candidacy.

    He wasn't one of the coders, though, so I doubt he could take any of the
    credit for OpenBSD.

    (and, again, trying to make it "no politics". Let's all ignore his opinions
    and the opinions of any and all politicians. But it'd be nice if more politicians were in techie groups.)

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 13 12:29:00 2021
    Am 12.07.21 schrieb MeaTLoTioN@21:1/158 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo Meatlotion,

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use
    it? Should you use it? Should I use it?
    Would love to see what you all think about this (brave/stupid) project
    I have started.

    I regularly think about switching to other systems like Gentoo or FreeBSD, but I always return to Devuan/Debian/KDE Neon (=Ubuntu).

    My biggest problems are...
    ...package management: I'm really into aptitude (not the commandline, but
    the ncurses part of it) which in my opinion is the best way to manage packages. It shows the package groups and for each package shows depencencies, "reverse dependencies" (which other package depends on this one) etc. pp. And all of this without having to know commands with various parameters, just with a handful of keys and a menu.
    I've used Gentoo for quite a while as a workstation OS at work (some years ago) and I regularly fell into dependency hell (usually around KDE and Qt packages), so I stopped using it.

    ...hardware support: This isn't such a big problem with Linux but more
    with *BSD: Especially when using notebook hardware, often some parts of
    the hardware (sound, LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, Suspend-to-RAM ...) won't work.
    Thus the system is not that usable on-the-go and/or the battery won't last that long.
    The only option here seems to be to search for very specific hardware
    which is supported well.

    To your questions:
    "Should you use it?" - I shouldn't, because it's my decision :)
    "Should I use it?" - That's totally your decision :)
    "brave/stupid" - neither, if this system is working for you and you can do everything with it that you like, it's perfect for you.
    It might be a little brave to use a more "exotic" OS; it's totally NOT stupid. :)

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.50
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to acn on Wed Jul 14 11:04:44 2021
    Re: Re: OpenBSD as a workstation
    By: acn to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 13 2021 12:29 pm

    My biggest problems are...
    ...package management: I'm really into aptitude (not the commandline, but the ncurses part of it) which in my opinion is the best way to manage packages. It shows the package groups and for each package shows depencencies, "reverse dependencies" (which other package depends on this one) etc. pp. And all of this without having to know commands with various parameters, just with a handful of keys and a menu.

    I used to like apt-styled package management. If you are doing nothing fancy with your system and only use official software sources it is the most comfortable and trouble free way of managing a _Linux_ distribution.

    The problem comes when you need to install an external piece of software that generates conflicts with the stuff in your repositories, which is way more common than people pretends it to be. Say, if you want to upgrade a certain package because it has a deal-breaking bug of deadly data loss, it may require to upgrade a certain library in your system, and upgrading that library in your system may pull other components with it until you find out you need a full distribution upgrade to fix a misserable bug. Source code and port based distributions have the advantage of letting you recompile the bugged package with a patch or of upgrading the package to a newer version without having to recompile the whole world. You can compile your own fixed package on Debian, ofc, but making a clean, compliant package is a headache when compared to using a simpler package format (Slackware) or an automated package builder (Gentoo, OpenBSD).

    I learnt all this on Debian Lenny trying to fix a massive data-loss bug involving PCManFM.


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  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to Arelor on Thu Jul 15 13:33:00 2021
    Am 14.07.21 schrieb Arelor@21:2/138 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo Arelor,

    I used to like apt-styled package management. If you are doing nothing
    fancy with your system and only use official software sources it is the
    most comfortable and trouble free way of managing a _Linux_
    distribution.

    The problem comes when you need to install an external piece of
    software that generates conflicts with the stuff in your repositories,
    which is way more common than people pretends it to be.

    That's true. Although I have to say that I'm using some third-party repositories in my sources.list and did not encounter such a problem up
    till now.
    My biggest problem is that some package maintainers won't include standard init scripts (for SysV init) any longer - although it is still a supported init system on Debian (and I'm using Devuan on my servers).
    So sometimes, I have to search in the source repositories for the scripts
    of older versions or write my own...

    Source code and port based distributions have the advantage of letting
    you recompile the bugged package with a patch or of upgrading the
    package to a newer version without having to recompile the whole world.

    Yep. Unless (in Gentoo) the dependencies between the packages are so
    tangled that you have to resolve this by hand and decide which package to recompile first to tame emerge...

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.50
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From gcubebuddy@21:4/129 to MeaTLoTioN on Fri Jul 16 14:59:33 2021
    Ah so the likes of Gentoo and similar? I have always been fascinated
    with Gentoo, but not so much as I have a need to install and use it lol, we have/had
    some gentoo machines at work, and I never got to use them but they were there.
    I wanted to try BSD, specifically OpenBSD, instead of what I'm used to, i.e. Linux. So far, for what I have been using it for, everything is working out sweet. I'm sure there will come a time where I will try and
    do something and find I can't (easily), at which point I will
    re-evaluate my decision for trying

    there is also NetBSD as well. that distro has to most arch ports. i have
    heard of people actually installing the OS on toasters. which i guess would officially make them Cylons.

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

    telnet --<{bbs.hive32.com:23333}>--

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Hive32 (21:4/129)
  • From gcubebuddy@21:4/129 to Adept on Fri Jul 16 15:02:27 2021
    I'm going to try to make this as "no politics" as possible, but there
    was a politician who ran in a primary, and the fact that he was a member of Cult of the Dead Cow in his youth was a _huge_ plus in considering
    his candidacy.
    He wasn't one of the coders, though, so I doubt he could take any of the credit for OpenBSD.
    (and, again, trying to make it "no politics". Let's all ignore his opinions and the opinions of any and all politicians. But it'd be nice
    if more politicians were in techie groups.)

    oooh ya Beto Raork (Spellin?) ya i read that not to long ago. i was really really supprised. they should have mentioned that more in the news about him,
    i probably would have voted for him if i knew that he was from "cDc" lol.
    my guess, is if they are going into the political sphere, their specialty was probably social engineering.

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

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    * Origin: Hive32 (21:4/129)
  • From gcubebuddy@21:4/129 to acn on Fri Jul 16 15:18:35 2021
    I regularly think about switching to other systems like Gentoo or
    FreeBSD, but I always return to Devuan/Debian/KDE Neon (=Ubuntu).

    My biggest problems are...
    ...package management: I'm really into aptitude (not the commandline,
    but the ncurses part of it) which in my opinion is the best way to
    manage packages. It shows the package groups and for each package shows depencencies, "reverse dependencies" (which other package depends on
    this one) etc. pp. And all of this without having to know commands with various parameters, just with a handful of keys and a menu.
    I've used Gentoo for quite a while as a workstation OS at work (some
    years ago) and I regularly fell into dependency hell (usually around KDE and Qt packages), so I stopped using it.

    ...hardware support: This isn't such a big problem with Linux but more with *BSD: Especially when using notebook hardware, often some parts of the hardware (sound, LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, Suspend-to-RAM ...) won't
    work. Thus the system is not that usable on-the-go and/or the battery won't last that long.
    The only option here seems to be to search for very specific hardware which is supported well.

    To your questions:
    "Should you use it?" - I shouldn't, because it's my decision :)
    "Should I use it?" - That's totally your decision :)
    "brave/stupid" - neither, if this system is working for you and you can
    do everything with it that you like, it's perfect for you.
    It might be a little brave to use a more "exotic" OS; it's totally NOT stupid. :)

    Regards,
    Anna


    one thing i noticed that i did not like about FreeBSD, is that when ever you try to uninstall or install a package, it will also uninstall or install a
    ton of other packages which it does not give you a choice to exclude any of them. that was onething i liked about slackware was you could choose which packages to install or reject. note i still use ubuntu which does the same thing that FreeBSD does but if i had the time i would be using more
    slackware. mostly due to how light weight / streamlined it is.

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

    telnet --<{bbs.hive32.com:23333}>--

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  • From gcubebuddy@21:4/129 to Arelor on Fri Jul 16 16:10:35 2021
    I used to like apt-styled package management. If you are doing nothing fancy with your system and only use official software sources it is the most comfortable and trouble free way of managing a _Linux_ distribution.

    The problem comes when you need to install an external piece of software that generates conflicts with the stuff in your repositories, which is
    way more common than people pretends it to be. Say, if you want to
    upgrade a certain package because it has a deal-breaking bug of deadly data loss, it may require to upgrade a certain library in your system,
    and upgrading that library in your system may pull other components with it until you find out you need a full distribution upgrade to fix a misserable bug. Source code and port based distributions have the advantage of letting you recompile the bugged package with a patch or of upgrading the package to a newer version without having to recompile the whole world. You can compile your own fixed package on Debian, ofc, but making a clean, compliant package is a headache when compared to using a simpler package format (Slackware) or an automated package builder (Gentoo, OpenBSD).

    I learnt all this on Debian Lenny trying to fix a massive data-loss bug involving PCManFM.



    ya the depenacy hell issue. i think eventually things will be moving more in the direction of snap packages, or applications that are all pre-compiled
    with all the libraries that it needs to run on different systems. both ubuntu and redhat are moving in that direction. i call it the Apple approach, as
    MacOS uses that method for their packages. it makes installing and
    uninstalling alot easier for sure.

    if i had to design an OS from the ground up. i think i would probably give
    the BSD kernel a look, as the arch of their kernel makes a distinction
    between root space / and user space. if a kernel module is interfacing with a process a user is running say like sound cards or something, the module runs
    in the user space. at least from what i have read. i may have it wrong... anyways i would then create directorys this way


    boot: - which would be one install package with all the items used to boot
    the system.

    kernel: - the dir that houses the kernel and device modules, also 1 install
    package.

    bin: - basic OS commands, also contained in a package like busybox.

    apps: - directory for installing all the major apps the system uses. each
    app would be a complete whole separate package. if a package needs
    reinstalling, you just delete the file/folder from the app dir. with no
    deps, it will not matter or hang anything, as nothing in the OS is
    contengent on the package to work. everything the OS would need to boot
    is all contained in the 1st 3 package / Dirs.

    home: - user space

    proc: - processes run by the kernel

    etc: - OS config area

    var: - storage for application data.

    share: - consolcates mnt, media, cdrom in to one location. inside the dir
    it would have seperate sub dirs for nfs, cifs, samba, usb, cdrom,
    and share drives. this way it keeps it in one area.

    games: - simular to apps, but i though i would create a seperate folder
    for that so it can be put on a seperate drive or storage location.
    that way it doesnt mess with the apps dir, and you can alot as
    much space as you need to it.

    this is just kind of some things i was thinking about if i was to ever design my own distro. lol

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to gcubebuddy on Fri Jul 16 19:22:37 2021
    Re: re: OpenBSD as a workstation
    By: gcubebuddy to MeaTLoTioN on Fri Jul 16 2021 02:59 pm

    Ah so the likes of Gentoo and similar? I have always been fascinated with Gentoo, but not so much as I have a need to install and use it lol we have/had
    some gentoo machines at work, and I never got to use them but they were there.
    I wanted to try BSD, specifically OpenBSD, instead of what I'm used to, i.e. Linux. So far, for what I have been using it for, everything is working out sweet. I'm sure there will come a time where I will try and do something and find I can't (easily), at which point I will re-evaluate my decision for trying

    there is also NetBSD as well. that distro has to most arch ports. i have heard of people actually installing the OS on toasters. which i guess would officially make them Cylons.

    Thanks
    - Gamecube Buddy

    telnet --<{bbs.hive32.com:23333}>--

    NetBSD is fine. Most of their architectures don't get premium support though, so while they may work you should not expect the operating system to work as well on a weird arch than on a popular one.

    Modern NetBSD still runs on PDP-11s I think.

    They also do premium work maintaining some teminal games of old such as Rogue Clone III, Larn etc. Most every bsdgames package in the Linux world is derived from their source code tree.

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to gcubebuddy on Fri Jul 16 19:32:05 2021
    Re: re:OpenBSD as a workstation
    By: gcubebuddy to Arelor on Fri Jul 16 2021 04:10 pm

    if i had to design an OS from the ground up. i think i would probably give the BSD kernel a look, as the arch of their kernel makes a distinction between root space / and user space. if a kernel module is interfacing with process a user is running say like sound cards or something, the module runs in the user space. at least from what i have read. i may have it wrong... anyways i would then create directorys this way


    Which BSD are you talking about? OpenBSD at least does not use modules anymore. It is monolythic.

    You may want to check Gobolinux, which is a Linux distribution that ditches the traditional filesystem hierarchy and just puts every program (and associated files) in its own directory.

    I personally think the Open/NetBSD approach to filesystem hierarchies is close to perfection already. Linux used to be as clean as those BSD but now they have polluted everythign by mounting filesystems under /run and placing required-for-boot items in directories whose purpose was specifically to hold non-essentials. Such a bummer.

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Arelor on Sat Jul 17 06:50:00 2021
    Arelor wrote to gcubebuddy <=-

    I personally think the Open/NetBSD approach to filesystem hierarchies
    is close to perfection already. Linux used to be as clean as those BSD
    but now they have polluted everythign by mounting filesystems under
    /run and placing required-for-boot items in directories whose purpose
    was specifically to hold non-essentials. Such a bummer.

    I'm seeing more people moving to NetBSD/OpenBSD for that very reason. I've
    got one of each BSD {Free,Net,Open} running in Proxmox VMs to play with; FreeBSD is an old favorite of mine and is in the lead at this point.


    ... Towards the insignificant
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to gcubebuddy on Tue Jul 20 02:31:51 2021
    On 13 Jul 2021 at 04:32p, gcubebuddy pondered and said...

    interesting. i have not successfully installed OpenBSD. i am interested
    in tnkering with it, as the people who created OpenBSD was "Cult of the Dead Cow".

    That's not true. The OpenBSD project was started by Theo
    de Raadt, after he was kicked out of the NetBSD project.
    OpenBSD has nothing to do with the Cult of the Dead Cow.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to gcubebuddy on Tue Jul 20 02:35:50 2021
    On 16 Jul 2021 at 02:59p, gcubebuddy pondered and said...

    there is also NetBSD as well. that distro has to most arch ports. i have heard of people actually installing the OS on toasters. which i guess would officially make them Cylons.

    That's not true anymore. At one time, NetBSD ran on basically
    everything, but that time is past. Linux runs on far more
    architectures total these days.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Tue Jul 20 02:40:40 2021
    On 16 Jul 2021 at 07:22p, Arelor pondered and said...

    Modern NetBSD still runs on PDP-11s I think.

    That's _definitely_ not true. Probably the closest
    is the VAX. The list of supported CPU architectures
    is here: https://www.netbsd.org/ports/ (scroll down
    to the bottom of the page). Note that they
    differentiate between e.g., big- and little-endian
    versions of a CPU as different architectures, even
    though those presumably share the same ISA. They
    also differentiate between the 68k and 68010, which
    is a little wonky, but the exception handling is a
    bit different so I can see giving it a pass.

    Basically, "modern" Unix is almost impossible to squeeze
    onto a PDP-11. The closest is probably 2.11BSD.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 20 02:53:24 2021
    On 12 Jul 2021 at 08:27p, MeaTLoTioN pondered and said...

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use
    it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    I've run OpenBSD in various places almost since that project
    was forked off of NetBSD. Should you use it? I think it
    really depends on what you want to use it for. In a lot of
    ways, it's the modern Unix variant that "feels" closest to
    what I'd consider a "traditional" Unix environment a la 4.2
    or 4.3BSD. Certainly, it's probably the closest you'll find
    to 4.4BSD as distributed by UCB back in the early 90s. As a
    nostalgic timesharing system, writing software in C or a
    scripting language, it's fine. I have a RISC-V box running
    OpenBSD down in the basement just for that.

    But a lot of third-party software doesn't support it, or
    supports it on a second or third tier basis. If you want to
    use it as, say, a Haskell development platform I think you're
    better off looking elsewhere (Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD,
    probably in that order). They've also been very conservative
    about things like supporting SMP, which is still quite buggy
    and large chunks of their kernel are (still!!) run under a big
    kernel lock. If you want to scale on large numbers of cores,
    look elsewhere: Linux, FreeBSD, or Dragonfly; possibly even some
    illumos fork, but most of those are targeting the server side.
    My workstation at this point has 32 threads, and even laptops
    are increasing core counts.

    As an interactive machine supporting an end user it may be
    just fine if you don't care about the stuff in the last
    paragraph. So "should" you use it? Sure! If it meets your
    needs, why not? If it doesn't, then take a look elsewhere.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 20 03:01:44 2021
    On 12 Jul 2021 at 08:27p, MeaTLoTioN pondered and said...

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use
    it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    Oh PS: if you want to read about some BBS-esque explorations
    on OpenBSD, you may find this interesting: http://fat-dragon.org/
    I should get back to that project at some point; I've just
    been super busy.

    Also, I wrote https://github.com/fat-dragon/ginko on OpenBSD.
    Caveat emptor, I have it on good authority that the concurrency
    primitives OpenBSD ships with their threads libraries probably
    aren't completely correct. Again, the price of being a third-tier
    platform.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From JoE DooM@21:1/230 to MeaTLoTioN on Tue Jul 20 18:56:19 2021
    I am writing this message to you using SyncTERM which I compiled on my
    new OpenBSD laptop. I have been messing with OpenBSD for work on

    noice.

    What are your thoughts about OpenBSD? Have you used it? Would you use
    it? Should you use it? Should I use it?

    I've used it many years ago and really enjoyed it, but stuck with linux
    because I'm a linux engineer :)

    I would consider it again, but am giving serious thought to going back to
    my real roots... the Amiga.... haha :)

    But I am very interested in OpenBSD and be interested in seeing how far
    it's come.


    --- Talisman v0.24-dev (Linux/x86_64)
    * Origin: Lost Underground BBS (21:1/230)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to tenser on Tue Jul 20 03:59:15 2021
    Re: Re: OpenBSD as a workstation
    By: tenser to Arelor on Tue Jul 20 2021 02:40 am

    On 16 Jul 2021 at 07:22p, Arelor pondered and said...

    Modern NetBSD still runs on PDP-11s I think.

    That's _definitely_ not true. Probably the closest
    is the VAX. The list of supported CPU architectures
    is here: https://www.netbsd.org/ports/ (scroll down
    to the bottom of the page). Note that they
    differentiate between e.g., big- and little-endian
    versions of a CPU as different architectures, even
    though those presumably share the same ISA. They
    also differentiate between the 68k and 68010, which
    is a little wonky, but the exception handling is a
    bit different so I can see giving it a pass.

    Basically, "modern" Unix is almost impossible to squeeze
    onto a PDP-11. The closest is probably 2.11BSD.

    Interesting.

    I remember finding a reference of NetBSD running on early PDP hardware but I cannot find it anymore. Gunkies lists BSD 2.11 as the most recent BSD you can reliably run on it.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Wed Jul 21 00:20:13 2021
    On 20 Jul 2021 at 03:59a, Arelor pondered and said...

    Interesting.

    I remember finding a reference of NetBSD running on early PDP hardware
    but I cannot find it anymore. Gunkies lists BSD 2.11 as the most recent BSD you can reliably run on it.

    There was an abortive effort at one point to port it
    to the PDP-10, which is a very different architecture
    than the PDP-11 (word-oriented, 36-bit architecture, etc).
    I don't think it ever got very far; there's still a
    web page on a NetBSD UK mirror, but no updates since
    2002, and it's no longer listed on the main NetBSD
    site: http://www.uk.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to tenser on Wed Jul 21 13:23:36 2021
    Re: Re: OpenBSD as a workstation
    By: tenser to Arelor on Wed Jul 21 2021 12:20 am

    On 20 Jul 2021 at 03:59a, Arelor pondered and said...

    Interesting.

    I remember finding a reference of NetBSD running on early PDP hardware but I cannot find it anymore. Gunkies lists BSD 2.11 as the most recent BSD you can reliably run on it.

    There was an abortive effort at one point to port it
    to the PDP-10, which is a very different architecture
    than the PDP-11 (word-oriented, 36-bit architecture, etc).
    I don't think it ever got very far; there's still a
    web page on a NetBSD UK mirror, but no updates since
    2002, and it's no longer listed on the main NetBSD
    site: http://www.uk.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/

    I know of the PDP-10 effort, but I was not thinking about that one. I have this idea that I read somewhere that NetBSD was working on PDP-11 specifically.

    Well I suppose you cannot believe everything you read on the Internet.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Thu Jul 22 07:00:48 2021
    On 21 Jul 2021 at 01:23p, Arelor pondered and said...

    I know of the PDP-10 effort, but I was not thinking about that one. I
    have this idea that I read somewhere that NetBSD was working on PDP-11 specifically.

    Well, Steve Schultz was still maintaining 2.11BSD at least a few years
    ago and perhaps still is. He would occasionally pull in bits and
    pieces from 4.4BSD or perhaps NetBSD?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)