Why use openbsd

[xathras]

Hi peeps, why do people use openbsd, is it helpful, is it easy to use, what does it have to offer?

Asus A7V8X-X, Chieftec Scorpian Blue Case PSU 340W, Floppy, Maxtor 60Gb/Seagate 20Gb 7200RPMS, DVD, CDRW, Geforce 4 420MX, Athlon XP 2600 333 FSB, 512MB PC333 DDR, 19" Monitor

 

[tsmullins]

The quality of OpenBSD is excellent. It has excellent security features. For me, it makes a better secure internet server platform. Mail server, web server, ftp server, makes a firewall second to none among others. However as a desktop, I use FreeBSD. Both are great. FreeBSD is a bit easier to use and easier to install. If you need a good book check out AbsouteBSD (FreeBSD specific) or Absolute OpeNBSD.

Hope this helps,

Shane

 

[enthusiast]

dear xathras,
as tsmullins mentioned before, it has great security features.
the thing i like most is it's pf (packet filter).
besides i'd not install openbsd on the system you have (60/20gb).
try to get an old pentium 133 mhz (price@ebay starting with $1 ) and play with it.
it wouldn't be nice if you would crash your running (win?) system due to wrong partitioning ;-)

 

[enthusiast]

of course you can install openbsd on your 'live' system too, but be very careful.

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Install

 

[dazer1cali]

Old PCs are great for putting Linux/BSD on, however, if you're into compiling your own kernels, the older machines are very slow. I like at least a 233mhz myself

 

[OpenBsdRulez]

I absolutly go with enthusiast :
Go for an old machine first and build a good firewall
And then as i did find out that you also can install a good

File-server (samba)
Web-server (Apache)(already installed)
DNS-server (BIND9)
Time-server (NTP)
Database-server (MySQL)

I mean i heard about ISP's running their services on these kind of machines together with a cisco or something.But don't expect anything from the graphicall side. I myself even don't go for Linux on this one and stick to Windows ( Maybee I'll manage sometime).

Hope I made you just as entusiast as Enthusiast.

It's realy an adventure to run al these services your self
At the moment I'm practicing my PHP/MYSQL wich i was unable to doo without a database and a PHP server installed.
Wich to me is great fun.

 

[dilettante]

The important thing about OpenBSD is that it installs as a very secure box by default.

At its best (most secure) you avoid installing multiple services on an OpenBSD box. That's what makes it so secure, the few default services. Well, that and the careful effort the OpenBSD development team goes to, to clean up and secure every bit of code, and throw it all out there for examination and testing.

It takes a lot of time and effort to comb through code and clean it up to be truly "OpenBSD" code. That's why there are unguaranteed "ports" of things that will run on OpenBSD, some of them under a "Linux emulation" mode. But the caveat is that running these ports opens you up to potential hacks. Other 'nix code is nowhere near as clean and trusted as true OpenBSD code today. It gets better every day too, with constant efforts at improvement and expansion.

That said, most people will find OpenBSD to be a pain as a desktop OS, and may be happier using FreeBSD, some flavor/dist of Linux, or even Windows as their desktop OS. OpenBSD wasn't really targeted to the desktop market. It makes a very nice network appliance OS though.

Plus it has cool posters and T-shirts. ;-)

http://www.openbsd.org/images/poster9.jpg

 

[Faroon]

Yep, it's no where in royal hell meant to be used as a desktop. But it's a kick ass server machine. You want to host your website, do some database, info warehousing, and even programming using perl or php or stuff, this is what you want. Forget solaris, forget other stuff. OpenBSD's capable of doing everything other stuffs can, and it's more secure. It also got the best packet filtering capability, so you can use an OpenBSD box as a router if you want. Heard somewhere that it beats the hell out of some cisco box.. of course the low boxes. Lastly, it's very compact. The whole os takes 300MB.

 

[U92]

All those are good responses but what you really need to ask yourself, xathras, is what do you need it for?

I've been an avid OpenBSD user for several years and want to know why I use it?

My very first concern is: What does it have in it?

OpenBSD is definitly a minimalist operating system, for which I thank the developers from the bottom of my heart, it doesn't have much to it. This makes it ideal to use it for just about any application server you can think of. As for using it as a desktop, sure it can and is used as a home user desktop to those of who take the time to setup XFree86 and make sure they have the proper drivers for their hardware.

Is it easy to use you ask? Indeed it is, as long as you spend a few moments to read up the FAQ on the openbsd website (

http://www.openbsd.org).

You should already be familiar with man pages, they are an excellent resource.

One thing about OpenBSD that you should thing about. Don't use it if you don't have a use for it.

imho