
Year of the OpenBSD desktop - tdurden
http://blog.tintagel.pl/2016/04/22/year-of-the-openbsd-desktop.html
======
Sanddancer
I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out
software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix. From the
link on page about porting Dart -- [https://github.com/dart-
lang/sdk/issues/10260](https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/issues/10260) \--
people have gotten it working, but upstream is completely silent on porting
patches and working with people on getting the required alterations in-tree.
Even starting with the basics, like the shell interpreter, too much software
assumes that bash is part of the base user space, instead of a package that
will be somewhere other than /bin. It just feels that after Linux hit a
certain amount of market share, too many developers decided that portable
well-written code wasn't worth it, and ignored the millions of systems that
run other operating system, to the detriment of everyone.

~~~
nickpsecurity
"I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out
software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix."

That's true. The biggest takeaway, though, is the assumption that people will
care to port mainstream software to OpenBSD when virtually nobody using that
software runs OpenBSD & their community discourages amateur programmers. It's
not a wise expectation. Instead, they should expect to have to port it all
themselves to their particular OS of choice while being thankful when people
do it for them with great portability.

In that case, you'd have a bunch of semi-functional desktops out there running
OpenBSD with a ton of features and options on Linux desktops. (Pauses.)
Exactly what happened.

~~~
mulander
> That's true. The biggest takeaway, though, is the assumption that people
> will care to port mainstream software to OpenBSD when virtually nobody using
> that software runs OpenBSD & their community discourages amateur
> programmers. It's not a wise expectation. Instead, they should expect to
> have to port it all themselves to their particular OS of choice while being
> thankful when people do it for them with great portability.

You got it a bit wrong or didn't read the linked github issue in detail. I run
OpenBSD and I ported Dart to OpenBSD. I tried to work with upstream (Dart team
at Google) to incorporate my changes or work on a way that allows them to take
the changes and for me to maintain the code long term. In this specific case
the upstream works behind closed doors which makes it hard to cooperate on
things like this.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Oh, I read it right:

" I ported Dart to OpenBSD. I tried to work with upstream (Dart team at
Google) to incorporate my changes or work on a way that allows them to take
the changes and for me to maintain the code long term. "

You wanted _them to work_ so that _your unpopular OS_ is supported. My claim
was that you'd have to fork it and do the work yourself in many cases since
the OS project is for benefit of you and small niche of developers/users. The
irony is that comments like that deride non-OpenBSD FOSS for not going through
trouble of OpenBSD support while the LibreSSL commits mocked and stripped
OpenSSL's support of VMS, etc. as crap that's not worth the effort users be
damned. Same attitude in place.

The Dart team is probably targeting Windows, Mac, and Linux (w/ Android).
Those are THE desktop OS's in terms of uptake and capabilities available.
Adding PC-BSD, OpenBSD, eComstation OS/2, Syllable, BeOS, MorphOS, MenuetOS...
these could benefit someone but represents lots of work with almost no gain
due to near-zero market share. So, for niche projects, it's on you to get the
work done if your goals and theirs aren't compatible. They're doing nothing
wrong even if a bit non-optimal given benefits of portable code tested on many
toolchains.

------
ams6110
OpenBSD has been my full-time desktop at work since 2011, and I used it
intermittently before that.

I have also used it on laptops but you need to be a bit selective on what you
try for those. OpenBSD does not include any "proprietary blobs" so devices
that don't have open source drivers generally aren't supported.

I love its rock-solid stability, consistent and sane configuration, easy
installation and low frustration.

It's not what you want if you're seeking to wring every bit of performance
from your hardware, but it keeps improving and it's always been more than
adequate for me.

------
themartorana
Sad Netflix is missing. The web should be standard and identical everywhere,
which means Firefox and Chrome et al should operate the same everywhere.

There was just a comment by someone in a recent thread about apps in browsers
being the size of the original Doom, which stated that the web is the only
real, true cross-platform production development and consumption environment
(looking for it) and it's almost true... Except for where lobbying is strong
enough to even break the open, standard web with proprietary software.

Boo.

Edit: found the comment, by @dasil003
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11552598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11552598)

Edit 2: despite the contentious conversation dasil003's comment caused, I
agree with it, but you could already tell that.

~~~
Sanddancer
Should be, perhaps. Much like Java should be standard and identical
everywhere. Differences are inevitable, priorities depend a lot more on real
world constraints than fleeting desires. Those proprietary standards exist
because the web continues to be rather terrible if your problem's not easily
explicated in javascript.

The Javascript monoculture that exemplifies the modern web is perhaps the
greatest thing holding back good cross-platform development. There's no way to
experiment with other languages on equal footing, there's no way to easily
extend browsers to provide hooks to native libraries and functionality in a
reasonable manner. If the web is the only cross platform environment, then
give me my walled gardens, because they're gonna be the only place open enough
to actually get things done. The web's a greenhouse, with only the illusion of
freedom until you get next to the glass walls.

~~~
Mordak
> The Javascript monoculture that exemplifies the modern web is perhaps the
> greatest thing holding back good cross-platform development.

I dunno, there was a time when javascript wasn't the only game in town, and it
sucked. ActiveX controls for hooking into native libraries, Java applets that
assumed you had a JVM installed, subtle differences between javascript and
jscript, VBS in the browser.. It was terrible, and the web is better now that
they are largely a thing of the past.

I'm not a superfan of javascript, but building cross platform stuff in the
browser seems easier now that you can count on its ubiquity and everyone is
generally on board. Getting things done might be easier in walled gardens, but
those gardens aren't usually cross platform.

------
nickpsecurity
Basically, it's a real desktop once it can be used for a limited set of day-
to-day activities. By that definition, it's the year of FreeDOS and Atari
desktops. Yay!

Edit to add: The Year of the Amstrad 8-bit desktop!

[http://www.symbos.de/](http://www.symbos.de/)

~~~
dijit
I actually didn't like the post, I hate the notion that one person using
something means others should, but that's besides the point.

I use openbsd daily as my work machine, and sure, it has some quirks (chrome
used to lag something fierce and it's still slow even now, wifi will randomly
start lagging out and dropping packets etc;)

While I personally can get around all day every day on openbsd with only
marginal problems, I wouldn't push it on everyone like I did with linux,
because while I can do everything I want to do with openbsd I'm fully aware it
can't do the more 'advanced' things which have just made it over to linux
(games, for example).

and that's ok. I'm definitely not crippled or even hindered by using it, so
it's not comparable to freedos in my opinion.

~~~
mulander
> I actually didn't like the post, I hate the notion that one person using
> something means others should, but that's besides the point.

I'm sorry if it came out that way. The intention of the post was totally
opposite. I was referring to the fact that Linux on the desktop already
happened for a lot of people (including me) and that OpenBSD for a lot of
people is already on the desktop in the same way. I'm happy with people using
whatever system suits them, the whole thing was just a comment on recent
tweets & comments online about 2016 being the year of the OpenBSD desktop.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Already said why it was inaccurate. That said, had it just been "Whose using
OpenBSD on the Desktop!?," then it would've made a good write-up and list. I
still enjoyed seeing the list and your community's little triumphs of having
the desktop despite the challenges you all face getting there. I respect that.
:)

------
RaleyField
Do releases receive security updates on packages? Looking at package list it
seems all packages have dates going back to version release. I'm not sure
superior mitigation technology and auditing necessarily outweigh 6 months
hackers have on outdated version of a package.

~~~
tobik
They are provided by M:Tier. See
[https://stable.mtier.org/](https://stable.mtier.org/) and
[http://www.mtier.org/index.php/solutions/apps/openup/](http://www.mtier.org/index.php/solutions/apps/openup/)

~~~
RaleyField
Really wish there was official channel for this. Has OpenBSD team said
anything about M:Tier?

