Openbsd .vs. Linux Options

[coreilly]

I bought this C3200 to use OpenBSD... however this week I decided to try various Linux ROMS for the hell of it... and Cacko Lite 1.23 wins. Yes, it is early in my trial period and I may get frustrated but I travel quite a bit and Cacko is a no-brainer to use.

OpenBSD needs to add SD support and get far more packages (I am too lazy to build ports). Until then, I think I will stay with Cacko... saying that I do have OpenBSD still on the system, just in case.

After all it's a PDA, not a workstation or server. I know barryg uses his Zaurus for work and many of you might as well... but the average user may benefit from taking a closer look at Linux. Or not! hahaha

Writing this on openbsd/macppc Powerbook G4,
coreilly

P.S. (forgot) please feel free to flame

[adf]

try adding meanie's pdaxqtrom. It expands what caan be done on cacko admirably

[Ferret-Simpson]

Anyone want to tell me a good graphical package manager for OpenBSD 3.9? I have it on my Sparc64 workstation, and Downloading, Installing a package, downloading and installing it's dependencies, then on and on. . Till I've installed 20 packages just to get one on the system. And I've downloaded Matchbox and can't make it start! ARGH!

[iamasmith]

Personally I'm not really into titles like 'OpenBSD vs Linux' and was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't some kind of shoot-out thread

I have nothing against Linux and if this is your only device that you use as a PDA then certainly something like Cacko is going to be far easier to use as a PDA, be more functional in a number of areas and give better battery life etc.

Your point about SD support is fair enough.. the way things are done in BSD though is to ensure that there is no BSD license ambiguity by only borrowing BSD licensed code and engineering from first principals and data sheets to avoid tainting the BSD license with GPL licensed code from other projects.

The use of OpenBSD is really more about the goals of that project. If you are into new features and rapid adoption of various types of peripherals etc. then OpenBSD is probably not for you. You will not get a rapid adoption, or for that matter in many cases a timely adoption of technologies into OpenBSD if there isn't a consensus that the implementation of that technology within OpenBSD is beneficial and has been performed correctly. This has driven many folks out of OpenBSD in pure frustration but at the end of the day you only have to look at the stability of the environment and cleanliness of the coding within the project to see the long term benefits of this over a system.

At the end of the day the controversy with GPL is a viewpoint of many BSD folks and many believe that GPL is more about imposing ones views and conditions upon others than true freedom to use software exactly as you please.

Personally I think...

if you want to use your Zaurus as a PDA then Cacko is the way to go.

if you primarily want to run X applications on your Zaurus then go either pdaXrom or GPE..
(depending upon the model of Zaurus you have and the type of X application that you want either pdaXrom or GPE could work for you better... I'm certainly not going to join in the fracas of arguing which is better but I think that currently each suit a particular type of user in their own ways).

if you want to use your old Zaurus as a PDA and Sharp gave up developing ROMs for it and your Zaurus is well supported by OZ then run OPIE.
(Note that this is really only one of the very, very many reasons that people would run OPIE on a Zaurus.. it is probably the only reason why I would run OPIE on a Zaurus though at the moment)

and lastly if you don't want your Zaurus to be a games machine or specifically a PDA but want to have desktop equivalent functionality then OpenBSD may be for you.
(other Linux solutions like Pocketworkstation may be more applicable to your needs but this is the niche that OpenBSD on the Zaurus sits in at the moment).

-Andy

[iamasmith]

Anyone want to tell me a good graphical package manager for OpenBSD 3.9? I have it on my Sparc64 workstation, and Downloading, Installing a package, downloading and installing it's dependencies, then on and on. . Till I've installed 20 packages just to get one on the system. And I've downloaded Matchbox and can't make it start! ARGH!

No I can't suggest anything however, look at pkg_add(1) again..

Look at the definition of PKG_PATH environment variable in the man page...

Then you can try things like...

export PKG_PATH=ftp://www.anopenbsdmirrorsite.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.9/packages/arm/all
pkg_add abiword

and this will install all of the dependencies from the specified package location also.

-Andy

[mathemajikian]

I have the solution to your problem! Give me a day to get the files together and you can have the best of both worlds.

I bought this C3200 to use OpenBSD... however this week I decided to try various Linux ROMS for the hell of it... and Cacko Lite 1.23 wins. Yes, it is early in my trial period and I may get frustrated but I travel quite a bit and Cacko is a no-brainer to use.

OpenBSD needs to add SD support and get far more packages (I am too lazy to build ports). Until then, I think I will stay with Cacko... saying that I do have OpenBSD still on the system, just in case.

After all it's a PDA, not a workstation or server. I know barryg uses his Zaurus for work and many of you might as well... but the average user may benefit from taking a closer look at Linux. Or not! hahaha

Writing this on openbsd/macppc Powerbook G4,
coreilly

P.S. (forgot) please feel free to flame

[coreilly]

huh?

[quote=mathemajikian,Aug 26 2006, 05:59 PM]
I have the solution to your problem! Give me a day to get the files together and you can have the best of both worlds.


____________________________

Andy,

You make excellent points once again. First, I agree, the topic title could have been better. I also totally agree with you about the direction of OpenBSD and its focus. I have been going in and out of Cacko and OpenBSD all day today and while I like the thought of OpenBSD on a Zaurus, (to repeat) something needs to be done about the SD support, work on battery life (if possible), and that blasted lag after exiting X. Of course having a few more packages would be nice.

coreilly

[mathemajikian]

http://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21249

[coreilly]

well after playing with cacko for the past few days im back to using openbsd... cacko was so much easier to use but openbsd drew me back! haha blast it all to hell!

[mathemajikian]

Yeah, I know what you mean. It wouldnt be a Z if it didn't have bsd. The only things I miss are SD support, nonchoppy audio playback, and Opera webbrowser.
Hopefully ZBSD will atleast get SD support soon? Is there anyway to check on the status of this?

well after playing with cacko for the past few days im back to using openbsd... cacko was so much easier to use but openbsd drew me back! haha blast it all to hell!

[coreilly]

Yeah, I know what you mean. It wouldnt be a Z if it didn't have bsd. The only things I miss are SD support, nonchoppy audio playback, and Opera webbrowser.
Hopefully ZBSD will atleast get SD support soon? Is there anyway to check on the status of this? 

well after playing with cacko for the past few days im back to using openbsd... cacko was so much easier to use but openbsd drew me back! haha blast it all to hell!

i emailed uwe asking what the status was a month ago and he never replied. guess that means not in the immediate future.

[Sequethin]

Well in a pinch you can always use a usb card reader, right? of course that's not quite the same but it's better than nothing.

[Ferret-Simpson]

Now, I wouldn't mind OpenBSD on my 5600. But of course, that would require a nice 4GB SD card support to actually install it from.