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Comment Speaking of what I know... (Score 2) 267

Both OpenBSD and NetBSD come with XFCE, OpenBox, Firefox, mplayer (or equivalent). NetBSD pkgsrc may be a bit closer to Gentoo than OpenBSD ports/packages, but both are excellent package systems. You may get more games with NetBSD, including Minecraft and others but I haven't checked, so don't quote me on this.

If you are used to Gentoo, picking one or the other should not be too difficult, but OpenBSD, while a bit picky when it comes to hardware, is also a bit easier to use: if a piece of harware is supported, it is supported. Period. NetBSD often requires compiling a specific kernel to add this or that peripheral. OpenBSD usually supports everything out of the box, as long as it is in its harware compatibility list. Plus, there is this schweet schweet security goodness, now with LibreSSL gooey core!

Here is a quick example: I have had a motherboard die on me. I just ripped off the main HDD out, put it into a slightly different machine, and OpenBSD just picked up the harware changes, reconfigured, checked the filesystems and worked without making a fuss. I have used OpenBSD for many years in a second-hand laptop, where everything was supported, and it was a pleasure to use as my main machine. The update procedure is quick and easy, and a new version of the OS comes out every 6 months like clockwork.

So there you go, hope this helps.

Comment Re:I hope it... (Score 3, Insightful) 127

Repeals the Patriot Act and shuts down Homeland Security. How many redundant players do we need to keep us safe?

As many as it takes to give tons of money to all the little cogs in the militaro-industrial complex.

Seriously, the USA were already spending more than everyone else in the world on its military (and its security apparatus, including the NSA), before 9/11.

Was this able to prevent the WTC/Pentagon attacks? No. And not just that, but Osama bin Laden was able to hide practically in plain sight for years, communicating all the time with his organization through written and recorded messages (meaning: outside the reach of the NSA).

Will the NSA be able to prevent the next 9/11? Let me go out on a limb and say "No" again. If the hard-core terrorists haven't got it by now, every single telecommunication in the world is being spied upon. The safest way is to organize the next attack by courier and letters, and not through electronic communications at all.

The Iraq war was all about oil, Halliburton and Exxon bottom line. Today's enless wars, conflicts and spying is all about keeping the money machine going strong, and the US Government doling mountains of cash to contractors and sub-contractors.

The whole thing will end very badly.

Comment Question for btrfs users... (Score 2) 42

I am using OpenSUSE 13.1 right now with ext4 partitions and I am pondering migrating to OpenSUSE 13.2 with btrfs or simply updating the distro with ''zypper dup'' and keeping my ext4 fs.

If you are using btrfs, what has been your experience? Better performance? As stable as ext4?

Comment I have said it before... (Score 2, Insightful) 219

... And I will say it again: if the FBI can arrest these people and bring down these ''black'' markets, who are supposed to be on Tor and protected by iron-clad crypto, it means only two things:

1. Tor is not as secure as everybody says it is (because _____ insert your favourite conspiracy theory/security failure here).

2. NSA/GCHQ, etc... justification for snooping on everyone (terrorists! drugs! guns!) is just complete and utter bull****. Hard detective work pays every time, and is probably more cost-effective than the massive surveillance and privacy violations we have right now.

Please note that 1 and 2 are not necessarily opposed to each other. We may well have 1 AND 2 at the same time..

Comment And remember people... (Score 4, Interesting) 228

Slashdot IS social media, which is why NSA and GCHQ created a fake Slashdot to hack into a Belgian Telecom company.

You dirty terrorists, you! Bad Slashdot! BAD!

Seriously, though, this is beyond belief and beyond the pale. Where do they get these morons? Most of these people are guilty of perjury (at best) and outright conflict of interests and gross violations of basic human rights at worst.

When is this going to stop and when are we going to get rid of these idiots? Where is Senator Franck Church when we need him?

Comment Re:Puzzling (Score 1, Interesting) 162

As an avid OpenBSD user and fan, this puzzle me because it would seem like a giant step backwards. Yes, loadable kernel modules do weaken the security some but it makes adding hardware drivers difficult.

Again: compiling the OpenBSD kernel is an emergency measure only. Most of the time, patches distributed by the project require you to compile the userland only.

As for adding device drivers, you usually do not need to: the standard kernel works very well with most hardware configurations.

I have motherboards burn on me, restarting the OpenBSD server usually was a question of taking the drive out of the machine, connecting it into a new machine and powering the system. The kernel just picked up and accepted whatever new hardware was in the replacement machine. Much, much easier than Linux.

Comment Re:Not surprising. (Score 1, Informative) 162

Yes, yes, little troll, you just demonstrated your total lack of knowledge when it comes to OpenBSD.

Straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq...

And I quote the aforementioned:

Why do I need a custom kernel?

Actually, you probably don't.

The only time you need to recompile OpenBSD kernel is when a major security issue has been found and your system is vulnerable.

Comment Re:Djeezus (Score 1) 162

Well, I was surprised by the bitbucket link as well, but a lot of developpers (OpenBSD or not) use git these days. The repo linked to seems to be a copy of the official OpenBSD CVS.

A better link could be, for instance:

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-...

Or:

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-...

The interesting thing is that the diff just before Ted Unangst is more than 11 years old -- which means LKMs really haven't been used for a long time in OpenBSD...

User Journal

Journal Journal: An unbiased comparison of Windows and OpenBSD

http://humorix.org/10566

Freaking hilarious. A bit dated, but definitely still valid... ;-)

Money quote:

INCLUDED PROGRAMS:

Web browser:

OpenBSD comes with a text based browser called lynx, which is limited in functionality. Windows comes with Internet Explorer. Let's face it: Internet Explorer is a hunk of crap.

Winner: OpenBSD

Text editor:

Comment Re:Hilarious (Score -1, Flamebait) 97

Hmmm... NSA_KEY anyone?

Sure, sure, it's just a conspiracy theory BUT... Isn't it surprising (for instance) that Apple and Google both announced full-phone encryption recently, while Microsoft announced exactly... Nothing?

Oh, and one other thing: companies do not exist in a vacuum and have to respect the laws of the different jurisdictions they operate in. Microsoft has been condemned by the US Government in the past for anti-competitive behaviour. Think about this for a second.

User Journal

Journal Journal: I think Steve Ballmer is trying to hack my Linux machine...

I swear in the holy name of Ken Ritchie this is what I am seeing in my Linux server logs right now:

OSSEC HIDS Notification.
2014 Oct 13 16:41:45

Received From: udon->/var/log/messages
Rule: 5712 fired (level 10) -> "SSHD brute force trying to get access
to the system."
Portion of the log(s):

Comment Re:The Russian space program was amazing (Score 5, Interesting) 122

Your comment seems very condescending.

Let's not forget the Russians were the first to send a satellite around the Earth, the first to send an animal into space, the first to send a man into space, the first to send a woman into space, the first to have a space mission that lasted more than a day, the first to have a spacewalk, the fist to send a satellite to orbit the Moon, the first to have fully automated rendez-vous between two satellites, etc., etc., etc.

Sure, their spacecraft may look "ugly" (or at least, "uglier") than western or American ones, but they get the job done and they are reliable workhorses.

I believe the differences between the two is mostly to the "no nonsense" approach to the Russians, and the fact that they like re-using designs and equipment that work instead of constantly re-inventing the wheel.

Think about it this way: the USA created the space shuttle and sank billions of dollars into it. The Russians kept improving the Soyuz rockets and capsules. These days, the space shuttle has been retired, while both Soyuz still fly regularly. Which approach is better? I don't know, but you certainly can't blame the Russians for creating "ugly" machines, as long as they are functional and good at what they do.

Recommended viewing: "The Red Stuff" about the very first Cosmonaut class of the USSR. You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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