OpenBSD 7.1 is out, including Apple M1 support
- Reference: 1650650947
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/04/22/openbsd_71_released_including_apple/
- Source link:
OpenBSD is the security-focused member of the BSD family. Project leader Theo de Raadt co-founded the NetBSD project in 1993, but after disagreements with other core team members, he left and forked the NetBSD 1.0 codebase, releasing OpenBSD 1.2 in 1996. As a generalization, OpenBSD focuses on robustness and security, NetBSD focuses on supporting as many different platforms as possible, and FreeBSD focuses on providing a rich modern OS for the most popular platforms.
Version 7.1 is the 52nd release since then, in which time only two remote holes have been found in the default installation.
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As with Linux distros, it's hard to measure usage numbers, but according to surveys such as [3]BSDstats both it and NetBSD trail fairly distantly behind FreeBSD in popularity – then again, installing a data-collecting survey app is the kind of behavior one might expect an OpenBSD user to assiduously avoid.
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It supports a surprisingly wide range of hardware: x86-32, x86-64, ARM7, Arm64, DEC Alpha, HP PA-RISC, Hitachi SH4, Motorola 88000, MIPS64, SPARC64, RISC-V 64, and both Apple PowerPC and IBM POWER. Notably, "Support for Apple Silicon Macs has improved and is ready for general use."
The Reg FOSS desk ran up a copy in VirtualBox, and we were honestly surprised how quick and easy it was. By saying "yes" to everything, it automatically partitioned the VM's disk into a rather complex array of nine slices, installed the OS, a boot loader, an [6]X server and display manager, plus the FVWM window manager. After a reboot, we got a graphical login screen and then a rather late-1980s Motif-style desktop with an xterm.
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It was easy to install XFCE, which let us set the screen resolution and other modern niceties, and there are also KDE, GNOME, and other pretty front-ends, plus plenty of familiar tools such as Mozilla apps, LibreOffice and so on.
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The XFCE 4.16 desktop on OpenBSD 7.1 – a familiar, friendly face
Taking it for a spin
Under the hood, it's all a bit strange. It's not very much like Linux or even macOS: this is a different branch of the Unix family tree, and it's not aimed at newbies. For instance, there's a doas command in place of sudo , but by default it's not configured and doesn't work.
Despite a 16GB virtual hard disk, the automatic partitioning left /usr , /usr/X11R6 , and /usr/local distinctly on the small side: 2 GB, 0.5 GB, and 1.8 GB respectively. That meant there wasn't enough room to install Firefox.
[9]New Linux kernel bolsters random number generation
[10]OpenZFS 2.1.3 bugfix brings compatibility with Linux 5.16
[11]Pop quiz: The network team didn't make your change. The server is in a locked room. What do you do?
[12]helloSystem: Pre-alpha FreeBSD project chases simplicity and elegance by taking cues from macOS
Overall, though, we were rather impressed. We were expecting to have to do a lot more work. Yes, OpenBSD is a niche OS, but the project gave the world OpenSSH, LibreSSL, the PF firewall as used in macOS, much of Android's Bionic C library, and more besides. It is more significant than raw usage numbers might suggest.
In a world of multi-gigabyte OSes, it's quite refreshing. It felt like stepping back into the early 1990s, the era of Real Unix, when you had to put in some real effort and learn stuff in order to bend the OS to your will – but in return, you got something relatively bulletproof. If you take the time, this is a good environment in which to improve your Unix skills. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.openbsd.org/71.html
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YmMll0ZhK1J1Cucs-H1-mAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://bsdstats.org/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmMll0ZhK1J1Cucs-H1-mAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmMll0ZhK1J1Cucs-H1-mAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/28/x_org_1_21/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmMll0ZhK1J1Cucs-H1-mAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/04/22/openbsd-71-xfce-screenshot.png
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/21/new_linux_kernel_has_improved/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/12/openzfs_213/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/24/who_me/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/12/freebsd_that_looks_like_macos/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
If you can, always build on a strong foundation
This is still one of my preferred platforms for deploying the services it supports. One of the few consistently reliable and nearly bulletproof distros, so if I need to deploy something that is public facing it's a good tool. Harder to set up, but easy to maintain once it's configure.
Got to say though, that having a windowing system would feel a little weird to me after all of these years. Usually each box only has one or a handful of services deployed, so I am usually tunneling in from a more user friendly work environment. I can't say that having to install all of the kitchen sink stuff plays to it's strengths but it IS there for you if you want or need it.
With regards to not being able to install Firefox due to the splitting up into partitions, I suspect that was a consequence of having a small VM disk and multiple partitions. If it was installed directly on hardware with a much larger disk this wouldn't have been a problem.
I use OpenBSD as one of my testing VMs and installed the new version yesterday and started using it with no problems. I've been using it for testing for years and didn't find it any more difficult to get used to than say a new Linux distro.
The one complaint that I have about it is that when run in VirtualBox shutdown won't actually shut it down. It announces the shutdown process but then doesn't actually do it. I have to issue an ACPI shutdown via the VM control to shut it down. I don't know if this is an issue on actual hardware or in other VM systems.
shutdown won't actually shut it down.
I have the same issue in kvm/linux host. Poweroff works.
OpenBSD still rocks.
One thing I love about OpenBSD is the secure by default philosophy (no daemons/services are enabled during insall). Oh and [1]CARP , is still mind blowing ('... Left with little choice, we proceeded to reinvent the wheel or, more correctly, abandon the wheel entirely and go for a "hovercraft".').
[1] https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35
I am a big fan of the *BSDs, in particular FreeBSD
I have used Net/Open/Free/Dragonfly to see what each has to offer, and I agree with your assessment and pigeonholing of the first three.
In your review you mention the number of slices (particularly for /usr*) in the default install. I agree, It seems odd to me. On FreeBSD I have /usr and /usr/local. That's sufficient to keep things tidy. If I want to build the whole OS or a kernel I can still do that. I'm glad that you mentioned the size of the installation too. The *BSDs seem very tidy in comparison to other OSs.
While I have used Linux for a long time, I gravitated to FreeBSD. I have a few complaints about Linux. One of them is the ridiculous number of wafer-thin-differences-between-them number of distros. Another is far deeper - it is how the Linux developers seem to have gone down a path of making things as complex as possible. We all know about systemd, but that is not the whole story. It is merely symptomatic. FreeBSD seems remarkably clean and straightforward in comparison.
I will give the latest OpenBSD a spin but it won't be going into production.
Learn once
There may be a lot to learn but it's a long term investment, the BSDs are indeed structured as traditional Unix, the skills learned don't change.
I've been a NetBSD for 25 years, it's been my primary system for 20. If I had gone to sleep 20 years ago to wake up in front of a modern system it would still all look familiar. If I needed to install on a drive over 2TB sure I'd have to read up on that newfangled GPT stuff, may even need to spend a few minutes reading up on the rc.d system (systemd could learn a lot from it), but the bulk of the system would function just as you expected.
Of course there have been plenty of developments and improvements in that time but not the back and forth breaking changes of other systems. The rate of change may be slower compared to Linux but it's also surer and more considered.