OpenBSD 7.4 Released With New Hardware Support, Security Improvements

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenBSD 7.4 Released With New Hardware Support, Security Improvements

Theo de Raadt released OpenBSD 7.4 today as the open-source BSD operating system project's 55th release...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenBSD-7.4-Released

[timofonic]

What about supporting ZX Spectrum and Pentagon? The world needs 8bit security!

[mxan]

What about supporting ZX Spectrum and Pentagon? The world needs 8bit security!

This article is about OpenBSD, not NetBSD

[andyprough]

One of the bigger changes appears to be this:

In cron(8) and crontab(5), add support for random offsets when using ranges with a step value in cron. This extends the random range syntax to support step values. Instead of choosing a random number between the high and low values, the field is treated as a range with a random offset less than the step value. This can be used to avoid thundering herd problems where multiple machines contact a server all at the same time via cron jobs.

Sounds useful. I'm assuming this may have found its way to GNU/Linux since the commit was made by OpenBSD's Todd Miller in May 2023, but I don't regularly follow the cron news so I'm not certain.

[vladpetric]

Honestly it's too bad that the number of Fs given about OpenBSD is following an exponential decay curve.

[andyprough]

Honestly it's too bad that the number of Fs given about OpenBSD is following an exponential decay curve.

What are you basing this on? I've heard far more buzz about OpenBSD in the past 2-3 years than at any time in the past.

[ThomasW]

Really impressive that OpenBSD runs on Apple Silicon M1/M2 CPUs.

[vladpetric]

What are you basing this on? I've heard far more buzz about OpenBSD in the past 2-3 years than at any time in the past.

Nothing scientifically (properly) collected.

I'm aware of exactly one device that runs it, out of tens of thousands that I'm either directly or indirectly associated with - remarkably, my electrical oven (big, 4kw), which has wifi functionality.

[kylew77]

New OpenBSD releases always excite me. They bring so much to the table with each release!

[CommunityMember]

Sounds useful. I'm assuming this may have found its way to GNU/Linux since the commit was made by OpenBSD's Todd Miller in May 2023, but I don't regularly follow the cron news so I'm not certain.

systemd timers have supported steps and randomization for quite some time.