Reasons I like OpenBSD

Page created: 2024-11-14
Updated: 2026-02-16
Draft!
 This page is a draft and may be incomplete, incorrect, or just a stub or outline. I've decided to allow myself to put draft pages on my website as an experiment. I'm hoping they will:
  • Help me address my backlog of article ideas.
  • Serve as a "living" TODO list of things to work on.
  • Be useful to myself or others in their incomplete forms.
As always, I'm happy to accept feedback on anything I publish including draft content.

Back to my OpenBSD pages.

A Complete System

One of the truly great things about OpenBSD is that it is a complete system. It’s highly opinionated and minimalist and nothing goes into it until it’s been stripped down and made fast and secure. I really like that. In fact, that’s exactly what I want in a server.

(By contrast, Linux is unopinionated and cosmopolitan. Famously, it’s only really a complete operating system when paired with libraries and tools such as those provided by the GNU project (and is thus sometimes called "GNU/Linux"). It’s not that there is a lack of opinions around Linux (ha!), but these are often relegated to the distributions. On the plus side, you can find a distro that best matches your exact needs - but don’t "distro hop" too much or you’ll never attend to those original needs. On the minus side, Linux distros can be wildly incompatible with each other, making software packaging a real challenge.)

Great defaults! It’s not just secure by default, it’s also minimal by default.

I love the practice of having starter configs in /etc/examples/.

I’ve only needed to do it once, but I thought the OpenBSD kernel configuration system was neat, see my OpenBSD Blog #11: Disabling Direct Rendering Manager on OpenBSD.

I like this description: OpenBSD is a Cozy Operating System (btxx.org)