Talk:OpenBSD

From iA wiki

Personal Review:

Installation is easy provided one has got enough free space and the basic hardware (SCSI controller, network, and maybe other obscure things) are supported. The base system which is only about 130mb with a graphical GUI (X Window) is heavily audited against security flaws. The system provides reasonable defaults (well some could say they are paranoid) and offers the curous user everything he/she need for accessing the net. Makes a great OS for sufring stations as well as servers. This system is as their slogan says: free, functionally and secure.

Flaws:

Hardware support: Because of the lack of hype the BSD Distributions are getting, there is less hardware accessible than with Linux for example. But if you don't need printer, scanner or web cam support for every model out there this is a safe choice.

ISDN support: It seems to be easier to get PPPOE working than ISDN

Please note that many printers, scanners, web cams, etc. do work just fine. Just not possibly as much "fringe hardware" is supported under OpenBSD than under Linux, or Windows. -schvin

One can also check the supported hardware list to find out if the hardware runs on OpenBSD (click on an architecture). A good thing to do before you're gonna put an OpenBSD box in function, or plan to buy a piece of hardware. dpi

Yep, i had Open installed on an old Pentium 75 a few years ago, and it was fantastic as a firewall/gateway. The install took about 20 minutes, and it detected all my hardware without me having to do anything. Certainly you shouldn't install it if you have esoteric or specialized hardware, but that's equally true for Linux. That said, OpenBSD often gets support for the latest hardware cryptography boards before Windows, even, so if you're into security you can't go much better. -- Amw