OpenBSD 6.9 Released In Beginning To Support Apple's M1 SoC

[microcode]

Even with just 16GB of ram, an M1 Mac Mini would probably be a nice testing buildhost.

[DrYak]

Oh, I was talking purely about the CPU. The more important part IMO.

Ah, okay. Then yes, indeed, it's your garden variety Aarch64 CPU running a prettz standard Aarch64 instruction set.

That still means you need to adapt to the new chipset, new GPU and new basically-everything-else beside the CPU core.
Whereas on the userland side, it's just boils down to "compile applications to aarch64 target", on the kernel side of things, it require a bunch of new drivers.
So porting to M1 is non-trivial (even more so, because ARM based hardware tend to have a lot less standardized way to enumerate and auto-detect hardware compared to PC-platform. Apple M1 machine aren't UEFI based).

[kpedersen]

So porting to M1 is non-trivial (even more so, because ARM based hardware tend to have a lot less standardized way to enumerate and auto-detect hardware compared to PC-platform. Apple M1 machine aren't UEFI based).

Almost certainly (unfortunately). But I suppose this hard work was done earlier by the Linux teams. I don't know if their documentation helped the OpenBSD guys. Hopefully Apple's (and I suppose ARM) non-compliance with standards will remain at that, rather than actively trying to lock people out.

Without the GPU support it would be pretty useless as a workstation replacement. However like the Raspberry Pi (which was RS-232 only for a long while on OpenBSD), it could make a great build server.

[kvuj]

It's light years behind Linux, so keep dreaming. OpenBSD is far from secure outside the base system which is worthless on its own. It's shaping up from a research OS to meaningless OS. That's for sure.



This sums up bsdsism nicely.

While I agree that OpenBSD has a flawed approach (keeping things fundementally insecure [monolithic vs micro, no system-wide MAC, etc], but remove as many bugs as possible), I think it's pretty decent at every day security.

pledge() and unveil() are super easy to use, and are now used by Firefox/Chromium (which are the biggest problems in the security space) and them turning SMT off has prevented a bunch of exploits from affecting them.

By your logic, no mainstream operating system is even remotely secure, and we should all use Genode and Theseus which requires relearning from scratch how to use an OS.

I personally quite like the OBSD utilities (they are minuscule compared to the GNU coreutils and they remind me of toybox) and their malloc() implementation. I just refuse to use a modern unix-like operating system that doesn't use wayland or a wayland-like protocol in 2021. It blows my mind how the OS that wasn't afraid to break compatibility in the name of correctness hasn't acted even a bit in that departement.

[Volta]

By your logic, no mainstream operating system is even remotely secure, and we should all use Genode and Theseus which requires relearning from scratch how to use an OS.

My opinion lays between. I think Linux and OpenBSD could benefit from each other from security standpoint. It was a bait toward some anti Linux fanatic.

[reba]

By your logic, no mainstream operating system is even remotely secure, and we should all use Genode and Theseus which requires relearning from scratch how to use an OS.

Thanks, those were good reads.

[DrYak]

Hopefully Apple's (and I suppose ARM) non-compliance with standards will remain at that, rather than actively trying to lock people out.

Yup, for once it's about tablets/laptops/mini PCs.

Not smartphone where the boot loader (and even some hardware features) are designed from the ground up to make it impossible for the end-user to run anything beside a manufacturer's sanctioned OS. (even when that manufacturer has disappeared and isn't providing much needed OS updates and bug fixes).

[kpedersen]

I just refuse to use a modern unix-like operating system that doesn't use wayland or a wayland-like protocol in 2021. It blows my mind how the OS that wasn't afraid to break compatibility in the name of correctness hasn't acted even a bit in that departement.

Luckily there is much more to computing than pushing pixels to a screen. That problem was happily solved back before the 90's.

Also, the word "modern unix-like" is daft here. If you want modern, go and slurp on some cloud webpage service. The whole point of the unix design is to provide a solid gimick free workhorse.

[aht0]

My opinion lays between. I think Linux and OpenBSD could benefit from each other from security standpoint. It was a bait toward some anti Linux fanatic.

Then whine in some other thread, bitching about "people spreading FUD about Linux". Nice going dude, hypocrisy at it's best!

[kvuj]

Luckily there is much more to computing than pushing pixels to a screen. That problem was happily solved back before the 90's.

Also, the word "modern unix-like" is daft here. If you want modern, go and slurp on some cloud webpage service. The whole point of the unix design is to provide a solid gimick free workhorse.

Mhmm, good point. I guess I didn't convey the message that I wanted, so I'll rephrase a bit.

OpenBSD is an OS that takes itself very seriously in terms of security (just go read their website) but seems to be fundementally missing the point (in my humble opinion).

While their libc is pretty nice, it doesn't really compare to a heap allocator like Scudo. While pledge is cute, it doesn't compare to fully enforced MAC. While their kernel has outsanding readability, it's not resilient to a compromised driver like newer OS are (heck even Windows has been pursuing a hybrid kernel approach). The OS doesn't enforce application specific trusted computing base like so many academics projects these days.

So In my mind, it was never a security OS but always the new technology adopter. It's gotten RISC-V support when there's not even a usable dev environment. It's gotten a quality wireguard implementation very quickly. It adopted LLVM before many projects for the supported architectures. You can imagine my disapointment (after 9 years!) when there's no frame perfect display protocol when Linux has been moving towards it slowly but surely.

If for you OpenBSD is a "solid gimick free workhorse" then all the power to you, but it doesn't fulfill my technology or security scratch and it is too inconvenient for my everyday usecase.