Quick run down of major BSD differences? reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- altiris28048 · 2015-08-19 18:38 Mostly targeting only FreeBSD and OpenBSD... 1. Is OpenBSD really a lot slower/not as performant as freebsd or a Linux distro? 2. I read on a post made here from 2013 that getting minecraft (I guess java runtime) was difficult or not possible or something, but when I check a openbsd repo mirror I see jdk and jre, although is believe that is closed source? This also related to #1 as maybe openbsd isn't as performant enough? 3. How much change occurs between open and freebsd releases? Would something like changing the init system happen in a release like Debian 8 or centos 7 did? I think that's pretty much it, anything else I assume I can find in documentation. I haven't read a lot due to time constraints. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kagxtr · 2015-08-19 18:46 FreeBSD: General purpose. Really good with networking. Alright as a desktop, but I personally wouldn't. OpenBSD: Security-focused. Really good with networking (firewalls, routers, etc). NetBSD: [Runs on a toaster](https://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm- netbsd-toaster.php). Although, [SDF](http://sdf.org/) runs NetBSD. 1. No, not that I've noticed. If it is, it's probably some weird hardware support issue. 2. There are issues with things like Java, Flash, etc. But those things are evil anyway. There is OpenJDK, but I'm not sure if a OS like OpenBSD would prioritize java. Java is [supported](http://www.freebsd.org/java/) on FreeBSD. 3. Look at the [FreeBSD History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_FreeBSD). Some things they do a bit slower, like how they deprecated GCC and slowly got things working with Clang, and other releases have a lot of new stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanthiel · 2015-08-19 19:54 I get about half the performance on JavaScript benchmarks in Chromium on OpenBSD compared to my Arch Linux install, on the same major version of Chromium. But I haven't delved into it deeper. Maybe the compile flags were different or something. I installed Chromium from packages in both cases. Maybe the remaining big lock in some syscalls in OpenBSD has that effect. I'm really not knowledgable in this regard. It's just what I noticed. I also noticed Arch's pacman and FreeBSD's pkg are faster than OpenBSD's pkg_{add,delete,info}. You get an immediate list of packages to be installed and how much space they need. On OpenBSD, you have to simulate the download to get that information. But it's not a gamechanger. And I might've messed something up as well. I will also mention that I'm still contemplating switching to OpenBSD for desktop use. The system is really lean and simple. And the manpages are just amazing. They're just terrible in the Linux ecosystem though. If they even exist, they're often incomplete. I still don't see a mention of any namespace related flags in mount(2), like MS_PRIVATE, and they are defined in /usr/include/sys/mount.h, and they work in practice. This is undocumented and pretty much kernel- level, where you would expect the most precise docs. And these flags have existed for 3 years now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LyndonSlewidge · 2015-08-19 19:55 I've used OpenBSD far more than FreeBSD, and I haven't used NetBSD at all... That being said: - FreeBSD works with binary blobs, such as the proprietary Nvidia Drivers. - OpenBSD will reject anything that is a binary blob (i.e: anything that isn't open) from their build and repos. Even with this statement, a lot of things work out of the box using OpenBSD that may not even work in Linux (such as suspend/resume). Answers: 1. Boot times are slower than Linux. Performance outside of this depends on many things, but using OpenBSD on my work laptop I haven't noticed any performance issues driving my day to day SysAdmin tasks. 2. If the OpenJDK JRE can drive Minecraft there shouldn't be an issue... Although I never had the pleasure so I can't help you here 3. For OpenBSD specifically there can be pretty big changes. nginx got pulled as the default web server for **httpd** for instance. Changes such as dropping OpenSSL for LibreSSL can happen. I don't imagine an init system change is in the mix for OpenBSD though. I haven't touched a proper FreeBSD system since before they had a package system, so I can't tell you about sweeping changes there... I have a feeling that they can be quite large ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrFaucyPaunts · 2015-08-19 20:08 It'd probably be interesting to note that Arch Linux's package-manager is [written in C](https://projects.archlinux.org/pacman.git/tree/src/pacman), whereas OpenBSD's `pkg_*` tools are [written in Perl](http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/cvsweb/src/usr.sbin/pkg_add/OpenBSD/?hideattic=1). One's compiled to a binary, and the other is interpretted at run-time, so that could explain some of the performance differences. Not to imply that one is inherently better than the other, though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cacatl · 2015-08-19 20:13 LWJGL uses native libraries for rendering. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ben_bai · 2015-08-19 20:15 1.) No, I'm running it as my main Desktop OS, as well as server OS. OpenBSD will always go with doing it correct even if it means being somewhat "slower" but you rarely will notice anything. 2.) There is a OpenJDK 1.7 package. I run JDownloader and SweetHome3D with it. Also LibreOffice uses some Java and runs fine. 3.) Well FreeBSD I hear tries hard to always be backwards compatible. OpenBSD will throw away backwards compatibility if there is a good reason. That said in OpenBSD init/rc go way back (so 1980) and FreeBSD at least talks about launchd to maybe replace their init? Try OpenBSD, and PC-BSD (Preconfigured FreeBSD for the Desktop) Differences between OpenBSD 5.6 and 5.7: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade57.html and http://www.openbsd.org/57.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanthiel · 2015-08-19 20:41 I don't think one's inherently better either. But I would guess network transfer times and disk access takes more time in a package manager than a language difference. I think FreeBSD's pkg uses an sqlite database for packages, and Arch does use some sort of database as well. I'm not sure if OpenBSD uses something like that as well or is just checking each individual package with the mirror, which would explain the difference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- habys · 2015-08-19 21:01 Just a data point, I ran a minecraft server on OpenBSD for years. I'm sure it's performance as a client would vary greatly between hardware. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2015-08-19 21:11 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrFaucyPaunts · 2015-08-19 21:24 You are correct in that the database format also plays a significant role. FreeBSD does indeed use SQLite now, after switching to [pkgng](https://wiki.freebsd.org/pkgng). And as far as OpenBSD (and FreeBSD, before pkgng), it uses a flat-file database format in `/var/db/pkg`. I can't remember the *exact* structure, but I believe it had one folder per package, and each had a number of files representing different information, such as the list of installed- files (and their accompanying mtimes & hashes), dependent-packages, and pre/post-installation scripts, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mioelnir · 2015-08-19 22:10 1. the OpenBSD kernel is still mostly under one kernel lock, so MP performance is simply not good; although it is slowly getting better in recent years. Personal bias, I do not consider OpenBSD for anything above 2 cores. 2. no experience on OpenBSD. For FreeBSD, both minecraft server and client have ports, so I'd assume them to work without problem. 3. changes between OpenBSD releases may be small, big or "breaking"; depending on what is currently being worked on. Changes between FreeBSD releases of the same major version are either small or compatible, changes between major versions may be anything; although compatibility is not broken as liberally as OpenBSD does. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mioelnir · 2015-08-19 22:17 > That said in OpenBSD init/rc go way back (so 1980) init/rc go way back in any of the BSDs, since the rc command was introduced in 4.0BSD, a common ancestor to all of them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- petrus4 · 2015-08-20 02:09 While OpenBSD was originally designed to specialise around security, the main reason why I like it now, is because of the level of integrity of Theo and the rest of the developers. OpenBSD is, to the best of my knowledge, quite literally the last open source UNIX operating system in existence, which has not sold out to either corporate interests, or the usual obsession with gaining popularity with visually oriented end users. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- veritasserum · 2015-08-20 04:04 Open - security out of the box Net - research and multiplatform Free - production quality for data centers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AnthonyJBentley · 2015-08-20 05:43 Minecraft on OpenBSD is as easy as `pkg_add minecraft`. https://i.imgur.com/PMLkUTO.png ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ben_bai · 2015-08-20 07:58 LibreSSL is a drop in replacement, no adaption needed from the user side. The nginx to httpd switch needs some work on upgrades (install nginx from packages) but other than in linux land it is very well documented and should not surprise you. All in all OpenBSD and FreeBSD are very well documented. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ben_bai · 2015-08-20 08:04 "Do it correct, do it securely, do it with as little code as possible" http://www.openbsd.org/goals.html http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/from-distribution-to-project ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bceverly · 2015-08-20 14:49 OpenBSD now has OpenJDK 1.8 available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- statethatiamin · 2015-08-20 18:22 NetBSD sold out? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- traxislyte · 2015-08-20 20:19 What I like about OpenBSD is that things become simpler with time, core programs are rewritten to do the same job better, and peoples' (or corporate interests') pet features don't just randomly appear. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- petrus4 · 2015-08-21 11:09 One word; Pkgin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- calrogman · 2015-08-21 12:40 It has nothing to do with the language used. pkg and pacman repositories have a file that stores metadata about all the package in the repository. You keep a copy of this and if you want to know how much space a set of packages will need, you look at this file. OpenBSD's package tools don't do this, because Marc Espie decided they shouldn't, and so you have to download the package metadata (which is stored in the packages) from the repository each time you want to find out how much space a package will need. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3G6A5W338E · 2015-08-22 18:38 [Dragonfly](http://dragonflybsd.org/) is a fork of FreeBSD, by who used to be its technical leader. It took a pretty interesting design direction. It is very active. Bringing it up because on a glance nobody else had mentioned it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rockworldmi123 · 2015-08-24 11:30 Try both and see which works out well for you then stick to it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- statethatiamin · 2015-08-24 14:18 Give me more words. Why is pkgin selling out? Is it because it install binaries? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BumpitySnook · 2015-08-26 03:39 > and peoples' (or corporate interests') pet features don't just randomly appear. Counter-example: [tame](https://lwn.net/Articles/651700/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ben_bai · 2015-08-26 08:39 1.) To clarify: it depends on the use case. Used as router/firewall you are right. Used as Workstation or Server, the more cpus the better. User space profits from more cores, and the Kernel is slowly changing to reduce the KERNEL_LOCK needed/used, especially in the network stack.