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Review: OpenBSD 7.8
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
After just three days it was clear that I wouldn't be able to get my day-to-day work accomplished with OpenBSD. The operating system could handle a good chunk of important tasks (web browsing, e-mail, document editing, and media playing), but it quickly ran into barriers when trying to do anything which required cross-platform functionality. Accessing non-native filesystems, fetching package information, opening popular archive formats, foreign package managers, and desktop operating systems running virtual machines were all outside the realm of functionality with OpenBSD.
On the one hand, I was a little surprised by this because I have generally viewed OpenBSD as receiving more attention and adoption than NetBSD and, while the latter had its limitations too, it generally offered a wider range of functionality. Almost everything I did on NetBSD took manual work and involved some troubleshooting, but I could usually get programs I wanted working or find an alternative. On the other hand I must acknowledge the OpenBSD community has always tended to do its own thing, focus on its own goals, without much concern for the trends of the rest of the world. OpenBSD, more than its FreeBSD and NetBSD cousins, has tended to resist adopting technologies which do not allign with the goals of the OpenBSD developers. Modern technologies such as ZFS, virtual machines, and containers have not been priorities so it's not surprising mounting foreign archives and running desktop systems in virtual machines have not been priorities either.
Put another way, OpenBSD is very good at what it does - being a minimal, clean, well-documented operating system that has managed to avoid remotely exploitable security holes. However, its shine quickly fades when it is asked to do things outside of its key roles of security and networking tools.
Were I to directly compare my experience with NetBSD earlier this year and my trial with OpenBSD, I'd say their philosophies really shone through into their implementations. NetBSD strives to be portable and adaptable. Its documentation was often lacking or out of date, several of its components didn't work as expected at first and needed workarounds, but NetBSD tries to do any task we want to throw its way. It might not do the task smoothly, but it will probably have some method to attempt the task.
OpenBSD has a more precise focus on documentation, security, and networking tools. The tools it provides tend to work very well, efficiently, and as documented. However, OpenBSD doesn't have any interest in attempting some tasks outside of its focus. While NetBSD might require us to tweak a configuration file or compile a tool to get a task working, OpenBSD simply doesn't provide tools for tasks for which its team are not interested. NetBSD attempts to be flexible and is, arguably, stretched too thin. OpenBSD is great at accomplishing its core tasks and shows no sign of wanting to do anything beyond those key features.
I spent more time fighting with NetBSD to get things working; I ended up spending less time with OpenBSD in total because the tasks I wanted to perform simply were not options.