OpenBSD
Ever wonder what the legendary OpenBSD is for? Me too!
(This old laptop still works fine, even with the original spinning platter HDD and 32-bit CPU!)
Here’s two draft pages I started and need to complete:
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Reasons I like OpenBSD (stub/draft)
Dave’s OpenBSD Blog
2026: I’m full-steam-ahead on OpenBSD this year. I completed my switch from
Slackware Linux to OpenBSD as my main home server (articles pending!) Having
freed up some hardware in that move, I’m building a gateway/firewall with
OpenBSD and the built-in pf packet filter. Extremely happy with how this is
going.
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2026-02-16 I needed to do this to get the Vim default behavior I’m expecting in OpenBSD: Loading defaults.vim
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2026-01-24 11. Disabling Direct Rendering Manager on OpenBSD
2025: I’ve slowly converted my main personal server setup from Slackware Linux to OpenBSD! I have not written that up yet, but I really want to. I’ve got my stuff down to a slim little core that I really like and I can explain the whole setup much better four years later.
2024: It’s been two years since my last foray into OpenBSD. And you know what? I pined for it that whole time. But I felt I needed to let other projects have priority. But OpenBSD time has come again and I’m so ready for it.
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2024-11-29 10. ksh profiles and startup automation
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2024-11-25 9. OpenBSD httpd (ACME client for certs)
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2024-11-24 8. OpenBSD httpd (Rewrites/Redirects, PHP)
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2024-11-14 7. OpenBSD httpd (basics)
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2024-11-13 6. VM Setup for future Web hosting
2022 Era: My book-lead tour of OpenBSD has concluded! TL;DR: I’d like to switch to OpenBSD for my Web server and possibly a little box to serve the home network someday. Linux will remain on my desktops for the forseeable future.
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2022-12-31 5. Tour conclusion
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2022-12-30 4. Servers and X
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2022-12-27 3. More!
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2022-08-26 2. Sysadmin Basics and filesystems
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2022-08-02 1. Installation disklabels
I’m going to dedicate about 25 minutes per day to exploring OpenBSD and documenting my experiences.
I’ve got a paper copy of Absolute OpenBSD, 2nd Edition (nostarch.com), which will give me some structure.
I’d like to use nothing but the book and whatever documentation is installed on the system itself to test the claims about OpenBSD’s superior documentation.
My Story (2022)
I currently run Slackware Linux on 90% of my computers and Alpine Linux on the rest. Oh, and I guess a couple copies of Raspberry Pi OS. :-)
Anyway, I like the "BSD-like" Linux distros.
So why not embrace the real deal? Well, the first trick is to figure out which of the BSDs to try:
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FreeBSD - I’ve run this on my own computers. Arguably the most "general purpose" of the BSDs, probably the easiest to use as a desktop OS.
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NetBSD - I’ve run this on my own computers. Purports to run on the most platforms, seems to focus on being clean and lightweight. I first encountered NetBSD as a user of SDF, the public-access UNIX system!
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DragonFly BSD - I have not run this on my own computers. My understanding is that it focuses on technological experiments and performance enhancements.
And finally, there’s OpenBSD.
Note: Like Linux, there are tons of other BSD forks (like MidnightBSD), but I know nothing about them.
I’ve had a long-running fascination with OpenBSD.
You hear things like:
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Best documentation
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Most self-contained
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Most secure
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Origin of OpenSSH
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Origin of PF (Packet Filter)
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Sometimes has a song to accompany releases!
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Creator Theo de Raadt is a legendary monstrous entity!
This is the stuff of myth.
And I aim to find out how easy or hard OpenBSD really is.
(If I like it enough, maybe I’ll switch from Slackware?! I better not say that out loud.)
My Setup (2022)
I’m testing it as a headless "server" and as a physical install for daily driver "desktop" use.
Server: I have an OpenBSD 7.1 VM live on the Web here: http://openbsd.ratfactor.com
Desktop I also have OpenBSD 7.1 installed on an old 32-bit x86 (aka "i386") laptop for the full installation experience and "desktop" use (as opposed to the headless.