Readers of this thread might find https://why-openbsd.rocks/ interesting.

I’ve been using OpenBSD for years now and still find new and helpful stuff in core on occasion. For instance, this week I wanted to convert some old CDs to FLAC, and found cdio can do the CDDA extraction (and faster than cdparanoia, even.)

I use cwm on my OpenBSD workstations. It is fast, stays out of my way, and does not depend on a whole cockamamie “desktop environment.” It’s not for everyone (especially those who feel the need to “theme” things) but I like that it’s available in core.

The ship has sailed for anything other than Windows or Mac as a mainstream, popular desktop. And it’s sailing away from Windows and Mac too, towards phones and tablets. Mobile devices are “computers” for a profitably large number of people, and I don’t see that changing.

That said, for this (literally) graybeard old UNIX admin, OpenBSD makes a great desktop. I like that it feels very much like my old SunOS, Solaris, and historic Linux machines, and I like administering my systems by editing simple text files instead of dealing with systemd/dbus/etc.* That said, I do still have an iPhone, and use it for the things it’s better at.

* systemd is fine, dbus is fine, they do what people want them to do. This isn’t a rant about those things. I’ve learned to deal with them in my professional life. For my own stuff, though, I want something that I consider simpler and easier to understand. I do enough fighting systems at work; I don’t need it at home, too.

i am spartacus