On Fri, 20 Jun 2008, macintoshzoom wrote: > The PC-BSD project claims its style of package management, which is similar > to that of major operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, is simpler than > that of other Unix-like systems.
PLEASE TRIM AND FORMAT YOUR TEXT-ONLY EMAIL TO 72 COLUMNS. This can be done by using the fmt(1) utility. From vi, you can pipe text to fmt(1) using the ! command. Windoze does nothing right. Windoze is not a major operating system. It is browser with a lot of plugins. It has a broken multitasking kernel-oid program kludged from an old version of VMS, without the good parts of VMS, may it rest in peace and obscurity. It is the Abomination of Desolation spoken of in prophecy. It is the Nightmare Made Flesh. (fill in another 8K of vituperation and hatred here: ... ). It has nothing to offer anyone. Windoze is a consumer, not a generator of ideas, it is where ideas go to be perverted into barely recognizable caricatures of their original forms, and then die. People who run BSD are doing so because they don't want windoze or the windoze-way. We don't do things the windoze-way because it is not the Unix way. This is more than just a choice of where binaries are stored. Our system isn't broken, and does not require fixing. One comes to BSD to get BSD, one does not change BSD to be like the havoc of Linux or, worse still, Windoze. This is more than a matter of taste, it is a matter of maintaining one's sanity. Many of us have been using Unix for decades, and do not want to throw out thirty years of experience to be more like windoze. /usr/local/bin suffices. On NetBSD this is called /usr/pkg, but it works the same. I think you will find, as you become more familiar with the ports and packages system(s), that they allow you to do pretty much anything. Windoze attempts to hide complexity behind a glossy facade of eye-candy and ill-conceived "wizards". > .... > > Even if it takes much more disk space (?) or some extra Ram/CPU (?), this is > not a problem when you can get a new sata2 Maxtor 500MB hd for less than 70$. I think you are misunderstanding the sort of people who use BSD. Remember, any "solution" has to work on hardware besides desktop PeeCees. OpenBSD is not really advertised as a desktop/home user/computer-newbie game/email/websurfer Intel-based "solution". > 2- At http://openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html#NoFun it says: > > """"Because no intrusive changes are made in -stable, it is possible to use > -release packages and ports on a -stable system. There is no need to update > all your installed packages after applying a few errata patches to your > system.""""""" > > What does this means? Exactly what it says. The errata that are applied to the ~system~ (kernel + /usr/ but not including packages/ports) will not change during the lifetime of a -stable minor release in a way that will break already-installed packages. I.e. system calls will not be deleted or altered, the core libraries will behave the same, the output and input requirements and formats of utilities will not change due to -release and -stable level patches. A simple example is that the version number of the C library will not be bumped up, which would break all manner of things. As for your remarks concerning the non-updating of -stable packages and ports, yes, you are correct. This is an undesirable situation caused by a lack of funding and volunteers. The alternative is to manually update critical packages (as you have done with gnupg), but this requires a certain expertise with the package subsystem. A second alternative is to abandon OpenBSD for a system with more timely package updates. That might be called "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", since the number of security-critical package updates seems to be small. Since OpenBSD produces a new release every six months like clockwork, on average a failed package has only a ninety-day lifetime. This schedule differs mightily from many competing Unix and Unix-like systems. You will not get one-click updates with binary patches every Friday... nor would you want it. This isn't Windoze. We have source code and a high degree of openness. And a Unix sysadmin is *assumed* (or was in the past) to know C well enough to make changes on his own. A truly severe security issue with a package should stimulate someone to generate a fix, but this fix will be informal. For example, you might have prepared a series of patches for the gnupg source to fix the particular bug that generated your perceived need to update, (not for the whole version change), and submit it somewhere, perhaps being guided by advice from the gnupg port maintainer. For example, the usual buffer overflow bug requires only the easy change of a few lines of code and re-building of a port. I know all this is less than perfect, less than ideal. But I still think the overall system is superior to others. With collegial respect, Dave _______________________________________________ Openbsd-newbies mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.theapt.org/listinfo/openbsd-newbies
