Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

OpenBSD itself is a very capable and secure, but also very clean operating system. Everything feels as if it's out of "a single mold", much unlike e.g. Linux which is, in a sense, clearly cobbled together from many different pieces.

Changing the system is a breeze, documentation is extremely clear and detailed, and it just "doesn't get in the way".

That doesn't mean it's the OS for you. There are disadvantages with using a less common operating system, and it does require a certain mindset of liking to tinker with a UNIX-like operating system. I don't use it as a desktop OS, but for various servers.




My concern is lack of support for certain things and flexibility.

To be fair, I have very little knowledge of what's supported and what's not. If it help, here's 2 things I love about Linux:

1. The dev experience. This is obvious. Great package managers, native container support, etc. It all works great and feels snappy.

2. Ability to do obscure things. For example, a family friend may want a bunch of pictures archived. I can mount his google Drive with rclone, grab all of his pics and burn them to a blu-ray. Obviously, this is not an everyday use case but I appreciate the ability to do these types of things if I ever need to. I don't want to have to spin up a VM to support these odd one offs.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: