Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 1st Nov 2007 22:51 UTC, submitted by Earin
OpenBSD 4.2 has been released. "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 4.2. This is our 22nd release on CD-ROM (and 23rd via FTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than ten years with only two remote holes in the default install." Update: A what's new article at ONLamp.
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Member since:
2006-10-08
"Anyways, this is semantics."
Sure, I agree with you, the terminus technicus "OS distribution" can be applied to OpenBSD, too. As we agree, OpenBSD follows a more minimalistic approach regarding what's included in the basic install. For example, media players, instant messengers and games are not included by default. I think OpenBSD's goal is that only software is provided in the basic install that has been checked by the OpenBSD team to be secure by default.
There are some criteria defined in DIN 44300 what's an OS: a sorted collection of means (kernel system, programs, libraries etc.) that:
- administrate and control the hardware,
- provides user interfaces,
- provides standardized and documented programming interfaces (editor, assembler, compiler, linker included here),
- protects against external manupulation and abuse,
- executes and monitors programs and handles their parallel execution,
- provides tools for harddware and software care, installation, update and deinstallation of software, error analysis and damage elimination.
This can be applied to Linux distributions, too, allthough most of them provide much more functionalities in the basic install. Same is true for Solaris which leaves the user with a highly functional system after first install. Instead, OpenBSD lets select the user what he wants to be installed afterwards.