One thing I noticed talking to BSD users was paranoia or extreme security consciousness, to put it more politely. Is security a big thing on BSD? I thought it was a strong suit for the OS

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In OpenBSD, yes. However, from what I understand that is an offshoot of focus on standards, simplicity, clarity, and correct design.

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https://www.freebsd.org/about/
https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html
https://www.netbsd.org/about/
https://www.dragonflybsd.org/

Excellent solution! I've also bought a USB wireless NIC supported by OpenBSD. They're quite inexpensive.

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Yes, BSD users are practically paranoid and I think that's a good thing. It is a strong suit for the OS. My favourite BSD is OpenBSD. A good read about how to protect your OpenBSD installation is Absolute OpenBSD 2ND Edition by Michael Lucas.

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On my conference laptop(s), I had used FreeBSD for a short while, then OpenBSD as the only "daily driver". Right now, it powers two of my three servers, as I migrated to macOS for most of my desktop work. Don't misunderstand me: I was happy with OpenBSD. But I have an iPhone and macOS is much more comfortable with it. And I'm lazy.

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Just updated my laptop to OpenBSD 7.4. Downloaded the mini img

To mount that and extract out the 7.4 boot kernel ...
vnconfig vnd0 mini.img
mount /dev/vnd0a /mnt
cp /mnt/bsd /bsdrd74
umount /mnt
vnconfig -u vnd0

then rebooted and at the boot prompt boot that kernel
boot bsdrd74

I did a full reinstall - that takes just minutes

My OpenBSD setup just requires tigervnc
pkg_add tigervnc

... and good to go

With my laptop 'docked' to a external monitor (1920x1080 screen via HDMI cable) that's on the left of the laptop screen (1366x768) the default bootup has the two the other way around, so I have to
xrandr --output eDP --right-of HDMI-0
so when I mouse to the left it shifts into the larger screen etc.

From the larger screen ssh into a Linux server that has loads of ram, nvidia etc. and
DISPLAY=:0 Xephyr :1 -dpi 141 -screen 1920x1080 &
DISPLAY=:1 jwm &
DISPLAY=:1 x11vnc -display :1 &

i.e set the size of that X :1 screen to the same as my HDMI connected monitors screen, and load jwm window manager into that (doesn't have cwm installed yet)

Then on the laptop I just run vncviewer 192.168.1.14:5901 to connect to that, and Use F8 to show the menu and select the full screen option.

Thereafter I have my laptop display showing a regular openbsd cwm screen (or whatever window manager you load), and the larger monitor to the left of that showing the Linux box X :1 session, into which I more usually just start up chrome (and for me scaling the chrome menu fonts by 1.4 looks nicer)
chrome --force-device-scale-factor=1.4

When you're hardwired (ethernet) and on the same subnet (192.168.x.x or whatever), then that is near a responsive as actually sitting at the Linux servers keyboard/screen.

My data files on the laptop are secure, just a vnc (screen images) return, outward ssh connection (but no ssh from the Linux/other into the OpenBSD laptop). Where only copies of the data files scp copied/transferred to/returned from the Linux system are exposed. Or maybe sound return as well if you opt to have sound also forwarded from the Linux box to the OpenBSD laptop (such as when viewing youtubes). Firefox is better for that as it supports sndiod (compile/install sndio on the Linux box and start the sndiod on the OpenBSD box, along with starting firefox with a AUDIODEVICE=snd@laptop-IP/0 firefox-esr ... type syntax

A nice feature is that on the actual Linux box you can minimise the Xephyr window (that the OpenBSD laptop is using) and otherwise pretty much use that box as normal, i.e. a Linux box with a regular windows (mate/whatever) interface that might be more preferred by regular windows type family members. It's also all bare metal based, none of the virtualisation (virtual cpu with possible holes, under a actual system that may contain holes).

I'm unsure of what you've done there to upgrade. I always downloaded the new release's bsd.rd from a mirror, booted that from the loader prompt and upgraded that way.

Included it more for demo purposes. Recently been talking a colleague through - about slices (disklabel ...etc.) and how to mount/access .img files, so threw it into that post just as a guide.

conversations/quicksy (xmpp) and SIP (eg linphone) are missing, right?

i can't use a permanent usb port just for tethering or wlan dongle..

all or those are different projects?
no "pdf/slide/documentation" to know a bit for new comers, about the main differences between them?
i know "free" is mostly used for big companies servers (esepecially netflix), i was thinking net/open shared some source code, but dragonfly i dont know much more about it.. even if i opened that thread to discuss a bit about the "open" particularly

it's not that easy to understand/learn from linux to various unixes. I dont even mention plan/front9 : but learn slices and all of this to do just a openbsd installation with a little isotop/dwm interface, is i guess less than 0.1% of the general knowledge awaited from a new engineer/sysadmin of bsd

and this, is still a specific time investment..

last time i tried to upgrade, it firstly failed, because my home is encrypted by bioctl password.
so i commented the rclocal lines about it, and retryied the operation
then it failed because of lack of disk space



for me, the main "issue" with openbsd are just the following :

-bbig lack of just common hardware : graphical card, plus networking ; the both xorg without hw acceleration, everything done by cpu with a low VGA resolution (pikebu nvidia), plus the situation regarding about one over two wlan chipset are not supported, might freak or just even stop the interesting feeling of geeks, nerds or other engineers or general public (passionate guys) to see about it. Have only 1 usb port, can't do with a "usb wlan stick", especially when I have usb storage devices to use..

-the slow experience of the system : in a way, as linux is very known or choosen, especially, for old computers, i still can run LMDE on 2013 laptop without it going "so slow", even with 10 FF tabs opened, a LO or thunderbird with hundred of mails, and a gimp activity : it runs. With openbsd, just FF with 2 tabs and a gimp, you feel the mouse being like not following the movements.. or even freezing until xorg crash

i admit i have to thank for this initiative, the simplicity, purety of code or even the "high-level secured" criteria of that project, who diserves probably the 8.5/10 mark (of 30 reviews) of distrowatch.
i admit i liked the isotop french frog project, whom makes "easier" to taste the desktop/laptop part of that system.
yeah, i do like openbsd.
i do like blogs about it, too.
but i dont use it regularly : with my ~10yo hw laptops army, either hardware (first point) or slowness makes this just a bit unusable for big-web-browsing (and i seriously regret it) [about 10-50tabs simultaneously) that lmde supports without crying.

On another hand, i still enjoy to see that system being developped as a cousin of linuxes, a bro' of *bsd, and to get "still actively developped" where several linux projects just get down and abdandonned over the years. Openbsd looks like just a bit that the "plan/front9" for non devs users : accessible and working. But the thing is well, "basics" usages of openbsd shown on various blogs, shows mainly that they are running basic software for a moderate usage (web/mail) with... recent machines.

and here is a bit why i lost the hope to adopt it, i use old computers with ""recent"" linux (aka >2020), where i experienced slow openbsd running just few tabs/sofwtare compared to linux. Is that unix so different? I dont know, im not an expert I tried to be an user (an i then discovered cwm/dwm with isotop), but those two first point could really discourage lot of win/mac/nux new comers, especially ones, like me, who use their old machine to test it.

i just hope i will see that with "common brands/hw" :
https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=arti...20220126191703


i would really find interesting to see :
*openbsd accepting on demand/optional wlan/graphical devices to be supported by the system (a bit like debian new choices)
*openbsd getting involved in mobile os projects (with linux : sailfish/meego, ubuntu, postmarket... common, only ios does bsd stuff, no alternative?)

then, i think i will try to "quad boot it" with win/lmde/haiku/obsd (have only 2 laptops in that possibility, others are just graphicsboard/wlan unoperate..

thank you for reading, sorry for having launch that debate, even if for new bsd comers (i didnt really tried the free/net, just open) it's still **very** intestersting to see your all participation (i assume largely post this on several boards, i just forgotten reddit )

The way they seem to do feature requests is to begin writing the feature themselves and going from there. That is the single largest difference between OpenBSD and the other BSDs and especially the various Linux distros as it is made by its own developers for themselves. Others can come along for the ride, though.

The mobile market would require backing from a very large company anyway, in all likelihood. If any such companies do have a skunk works backroom project centered around OpenBSD, they are unlikely to say anything until "ready".

OpenBSD is a full OS that runs on a wide range of very old hardware, quickly. It's intended purpose is less towards the gui/graphical user base 'front end', but rather a newsgroup/IRC/mail list/tmux/ssh style 'back end' user base. Primarily a OS written by developers for developers. Not intended to compete with graphical phone/laptop front/mid-end users. A tractor workhorse rather than a Porche street car. tmux into a build server, start a long compile/build, detach, later re attach from another device to see how that's going and detach again ...etc. A phone/laptop (gui) is great for adverts/tracking/profiling - commercialism, that drives the gui development side of things. The tui side is more towards improving security/protecting against snooping. Linux is a good halfway house choice, can serve both, but is sponsored by commercialism so may contain unknown elements within that (BLOBS), OpenBSD insists on all source code being open (or better still, in house written).

There are some big indicators. The front end HTML web pages for OpenBSD can be comfortably viewed equally within a high end gui browser or a low end text browser. The installation process is all textual. The mail lists are where thing are openly discussed. Teams will tend to use IRC groups. Many of the 'show us your desktop' forum sections will present tmux type layouts. Outside of that if you want to chat etc. then use your phone; Or if preparing/doing a presentation then use a system that is better matched to do that. Although you could still use OpenBSD, perhaps via X-forward or vnc into a server. My laptop from which I'm writing this for instance has just OpenBSD + tigervnc - that I use to vnc into a server on which firefox-esr is installed (another box on the LAN that has a OpenBSD guest qemu/kvm system, Linux host (nvidia ...etc.) with sound also forwarded (so screens run near as quick as if I were using the Linux box for firefox). Could just use X forwarding, but vnc is quicker and better supports sound separation (if another family member is using the Linux server for browsing/whatever then the OpenBSD qemu session running in the background is transparent, near totally hidden other than the additional CPU activity). If you want your own web (or other) server, then OpenBSD is a good choice for that, perhaps a pi (low power usage that can otherwise add up when running 24/7). Things are easier when you use the same OS for both your everyday desktop use and servers, common syntax/code/configuration. More so when the documentation is local and specific (man). I found with Linux that there were so many variants that more often I'd be using web searches for how to do/configure things, but where often the instructions found were misaligned to what program/thing/version I actually had installed. OpenBSD expend great effort on keeping the documentation aligned/accurate, so much so that any documentation error is also considered a bug, and where a bad documentation error might even be a security bug (instructions to configure incorrectly could open up a security hole).

hello
if i understand you well, openbsd is :
a server focused
a documentation properly maintained
is not :
a mobile/embedded end-user device ready (today, tomorrow, in twenty years)
dedicated to desktop/laptop common usage

and you are using a server especially for web-browsing running on linux, for your home, with everything in xforwarding under openbsd?
(im trying to understand)
well, in a way openbsd mailing list is not so "accessible" in a way that this : the "openbsd by devs for devs" is already -sorry for that- a bit excluding, bit requiring condition for having answers is already a selective filter, where forums are hopefuly made to ask any type of question..

i have to admit that the proprietary source type of embedded software doesnt make things easier for it.
i will probably open a openbsd for mobile thread, to do not mix it with the desktop/laptop one : i wasnt expecting such practices, like xforwarding or sound forwarding (in my idea, run X is already something) ; does openbsd could run wayland in few years?

You can ask here in the *BSD subforum, to a lesser extent, or over at DaemonForums.org which is specializing in the various BSDs.

Dragonfly BSD was forked off FreeBSD pre-5 because of different preferences for how to do SMP. FreeBSD and NetBSD were directly derived from 386BSD which was the first successful port of 4.xBSD to the Intel platform, OpenBSD was later split from NetBSD. While they probably still share some code, they have all diverged from their roots for a while.