It is hard for me to quantify why the openbsd install is so good. But as an anecdote. when I need a linux I keep going back to void linux, mainly because the installer is modeled directly off the openbsd installer.

void linux in general is great if you are looking for a “no-magic” linux install where you can conceivably control all moving parts of the system.

Totally agree, and that's where I landed when I started doing stuff to my computers that violated the 'magic abstractions' of ubuntu et. al.

I definitely want more BSD in my life. But I also like, for example, Docker containers. BSD seems like a better OS overall, but I already know Linux quite well and I don't have enough of a compelling reason to switch (yet).

I also have this fear that Linux is gonna rot if Linus Torvalds dies or retires, so it's good to have a nice, clean alternative waiting in the wings.

Linux is not going to die if Torvalds retires. The worst thing that could happen is it splits into multiple competing forks such that there’s no meaningful notion of “upstream”, but even that I think is unlikely.

If Linus got hit by a bus gregkh would step in the next day.

isn’t he basically the reason there’s no official/upstream hdmi 2.1 support on Linux, with his little symbol wars?

between hdmi 2.1 and zfs he’s basically single-handedly reverted more useful, basic features and code than anyone else on the kernel team, all in the name of… DRM’ing symbols that have been “”mis-licensed”” for decades?

doesn’t really seem like a fight he had to pick, or anybody asked him to pick - the status quo was adequate for everyone involved (including users).

so why is that guy being in charge of Linux a good thing?

doesn’t seem that complex to not go around starting trouble when the status quo is stable and fine. Maybe Linux just appreciates boat-rockers more than the Unix world though - there are no Poetterings or GKHs eagerly churning everything in that part of the world.

What if gregkh was the one driving the bus?

What if the moon collides into the earth?

Linux is a well-funded open-source project in use by every major tech organization in the world, as well as the US government. Linux is the last open source project I expect to see die by attrition specifically. IIRC, and as someone mentioned, there are people ready to step up if certain higher-ups retire or perish.

Not die - rot. All those major tech organizations want their own stuff in the kernel, and I'm skeptical they have the long term viability of linux at heart - rather than, say, the needs of their internal tech, quarterly stock, or even a promotion or two. I've seen examples surface even here on hn of Linus taking down e.g. google engineers for submitting bad code. What happens when Linus isn't there, with the leverage to insist on technical excellence? Linux won't die, but it will ossify and rot.

not sure if it's possible to make a comparison between Linux / OpenBSD. Maybe only time this problem presents itself is when one is asked to design the hardware+OS for a network appliance.

Linux, as it stands in terms of security, is an absolute joke. Historically we have Torvalds calling every security conscious user a master-debating monkey. And even more recently (few days ago) we got the LKML / CVE process debate - under which logic anything could technically become a security bug so we should drown ourselves in CVE because it isn't our job to think about whether something might be security relevant. This seems like a bad-faith argument from the Linux community - and I hope they lose it.

Docker ... is really just a bit of glorified buggy networking around namespaces/cgroups. I still remember the days when the docker documentation asked users to curl random sh&it into | sudo bash while talking about the security-benefits totally without blushing. Dockerhub has always been the petridish of choice for malware across critical infra and supply-chain attackers. Yet the community pretends Linux security is great while Windows security is terrible. That old meme was true 20 years ago. Today even Microsoft as shit as they are are miles ahead in terms of Linux security.

Linux is great in embedded domains because here nobody cares about security. What is left then is cloud infra which security-wise is a joke as we all know.

BSD understands that complexity is the enemy of security. And Linux essentially offloads any responsibility for the mess they create to the users. This is also because Linux still considers itself as just the Kernel. BSD has more control and is able to keep the entire system logically coherent (and secure). Linux security in comparison is best described by Grugq's slide nr. #35 of his "COMSEC beyond encryption" talk: https://grugq.github.io/presentations/COMSEC%20beyond%20encr...

So much true, but being downvoted. A pitty

predictions for the futures of linux : more intrusive control, locking and phone-home at BOOT time; more opaque binary blobs that enable that and other things; more restrictions on international distribution for sanctions and other political reasons

BSD ++

OpenBSD has blobs too.

blobs are closed source drivers, executable software that runs on the host CPU.

openbsd has no blobs, only firmware, executable software that runs on the device chip. It still sucks, but there is a difference.

Not everyone defines the words that way. And by your definition— Linux doesn’t have blobs, either, in mainline.

(Microcode, I guess, is one other category)

pf has had bad breaking changes at times, about which the BDFL says “we’re in a better place” but in general it’s stable.