It just works. No need to sift through dozens of config files and options and issue a hundred verbose commands just to get the system in a somewhat working state. All my laptop's buttons work correctly out of the box. And it didn't even come at the cost of sprawling complexity maintained by a patchwork of corpo patrons, underpaid code monkeys, and forum users. The system just fits together very well. The documentation is amazing too.

Easily my favorite Unix. If Linux was too complicated or barebones for you, give OpenBSD a try!

  • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    It's my go-to if hardware supports it. Though porting Net/OpenBSD to new hardware is a lottt more approachable than Linux in my experience.

      • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think there are a few X11 window managers in the base distribution, including cwm, fvwm, and twm. I run XFCE though, which is a pkg_add xfce4 and an echo "exec startxfce4" > ~/.xsession from being set-up on the system.

        Xenocara, OpenBSD's Xorg distribution (which comes with the base install) comes with a pretty display manager/login screen that runs on start-up by default, too!

        • YearOfTheCommieDesktop [they/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I like the more straightforward less moving parts approach to starting a window manager honestly.... ubuntu has so many gd moving parts (though it is easyish if you never want to go beyond the limits of the default setup and don't care to understand anything under the hood).

          Also I lol'd at this from https://www.openbsd.org/security.html

          Security information moves very fast in cracker circles.

          Took me a few seconds

          As our resident pinephone enjoyer I do wonder how hard it would be to get a bsd running on that lol

          • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
            ·
            1 year ago

            I like the more straightforward less moving parts approach to starting a window manager honestly.... ubuntu has so many gd moving parts (though it is easyish if you never want to go beyond the limits of the default setup and don't care to understand anything under the hood).

            Yeahh, same. Is why I'm mostly done with Linux these days. It's so hard to do anything outside the default. If you want to you have to be prepared to reckon with miles of config files and millions of lines of interdependent, overcomplicated, unportable code. For example, idk who ever thought GObject and Glib stuff was ever a good idea lol. It's just so much cruft on top of cruft.

            Security information moves very fast in cracker circles.

            Hehehehe, I never read that line like that before lol.

            As our resident pinephone enjoyer I do wonder how hard it would be to get a bsd running on that lol

            I'm a a Pinephone enjoyer too! I'm even maining a Pinephone Pro these days (which is kinda miserable lol). Sadly, it's not too easy. I think there are NetBSD/OpenBSD/maybe FreeBSD kernels floating around in various states of completeness but the many years of work and many lines of code making up Unix GUI stuff/display/input device stuff pretty much assume they're running on a workstation/server, as I'm sure you know. Linux is at least a bit better in this way.

            I'm waiting for the year of the Plan 9 phone lol.

            • SwitchyWitchyandBitchy [she/her]
              ·
              1 year ago

              If I may ask, what OS do you have on your pinephone? I have one of the earlier runs of the non-pro which I’m thinking of ordering an upgraded motherboard for. It seemed like pmOS with phosh was the most usable when I tried it.

              • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
                ·
                1 year ago

                I'm running postmarketOS and phosh. It's not great and the battery life is awful but it's usable.

                • SwitchyWitchyandBitchy [she/her]
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  That’s the impression I got when I tried it. pmOS with plasma was nice but most apps just didn’t suit the screen size and touch screen. Plus running it off an sd card was slow as hell.

    • daisy
      ·
      1 year ago

      if hardware supports it.

      Which is often a rather big "if".

      I do respect the work that goes into it. but saying "it just works" is a phrase that needs an asterisk.

      • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I said that because I use a lot of strange hardware. OpenBSD will work great on pretty much any PC you can find. Maybe even better than Linux if it's particularly old.