OpenBSD for 1.5 Years: Confessions of a Linux Heretic

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2 pointsAlexeyBrin3 comments

For a desktop use, openbsd feels super sluggish compared to the same hardware running linux. I love the way things are configured in openbsd, it is very straightforward. But the fact that it is noticeably slower than linux is what made me go back to linux. I wish we could have a linux distro with the same configuration philosophy as the BSDs. I recently started using gentoo and I'm enjoying having bare tools to configure the system, and having no systemd is a plus IMHO.

I wish we could have a linux distro with the same configuration philosophy as the BSDs.

Slackware used to be like that. I haven't used Slackware for quite a few years now, so things may have changed.

You should make sure that you disable "hyperthreading" on the Linux side for a like-for-like comparison. OpenBSD famously removed support for "hyperthreading" at the time of a "Spectre" vulnerability that you may have heard of. (-:

Linux tried the same approach, but it had a severe impact upon Linux performance. So "hyperthreading" got enabled by default again.

* https://mail-archive.com/source-changes@openbsd.org/msg99141...

* https://theregister.com/2018/11/20/linux_kernel_spectre_v2_p...

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