My current OS progression has gone from XP > Slack > Gentoo, and now I think I'm ready to take another plunge and give BSD a run. (Although I'm still basically a newbie with anything not XP). I really like the philosophy of OpenBSD, but I'm not too sure how usable it is for daily (desktop-type) use. I run a little apache server with geeklog (gonna move to cgi though) and that's not an issue between OS'es, but it's more the little things, and more accurately, current versions of the little things. Two little examples of this, Gaim and Firefox. Current versions of these from OpenBSD, respectively, are .79 and .8. Is it possible for me to build current versions of these myself (painlessly?) or should I be more turning my head to FreeBSD?

OpenBSD will work fine as a desktop if you just use a web browser and an e-mail client, etc. If you want things like 3D acceleration and fancy graphics, will OpenBSD is not about those things. Also, for security reasons OpenBSD chroot's httpd (Apache) by default. This means that without careful tweaking, PHP and CGI scripts won't work. You need to have all the interpreters that you would use for CGI installed inside the chroot environment. It's been done before, but it takes some thought to get it done.

for the most part, all i need is web browsing and email, but for example what if i want to use firefox rc1 and/or 1 when it gets released, or stuff like gaim and an irc client?

thanks

You could build from source, but that would cause collisions with files that the Ports system tries to install. OpenBSD is about stability, not bleeding edge. It's highly recommended that you stick with what the Ports system provides so that you don't muck up your system. If you want bleeding edge, then you will probably want an OS that releases more than twice a year.

I'd say go with FreeBSD. damicatz said this in another topic :-

Of the 3 flavors of BSD, FreeBSD has the most applications available from ports and the best multimedia support. If you've never used ports before you are in for a treat as it beats things like RPM hands down in terms of package management and software installation.

I'm not worried about bleeding edge really, more about bugs and/or exploits. With each question I ask i suppose I show why I shouldn't be using BSD, but would these exploits affect BSD as well? I can't remember what it was but just as an example there was a Firefox exploit that affected Linux as well as Windows.

Thanks again for your help

The only way to avoid exploits completely is to turn off your computer.

What you want to look at is how quick exploits are fixed.

Personally, I would use FreeBSD on a desktop.

Just search for exploit/vulnerability reports. They're always popping up so you're bound to find a load. BSD systems are pretty secure, so I've heard, one extra reason to go for it.

I've used freebsd as a desktop and I find it to be excellent.Games like doom3 and all the Quakes run like a top with nvidia geforce acceleration.Doom3 is slower on linux and bsd as of right now but it's a very new and somewhat touchy game probably best played on win2k or xp.

Anyhow,back to the topic of which bsd-I can't say I've used the other BSD'S but I have little doubt that FreeBSD is the BSD for Joe desktop and the developer user as well.

Generally most exploits that affect some Open Source application will affect it if it's installed on Linux or BSD. In OpenBSD's case it's a little bit different, because they maniacally patch the software they import into the base OS and watch the ports pretty closely too. For instance there are a whole boatload of security fixes for httpd (Apache) and it's modules in OpenBSD that were never included by the Apache project. OpenBSD also has stack and other memory protection that limits most buffer overflows to DoS attacks rather than allowing arbitrary code execution. So in that respect, even the same software running on OpenBSD tends to be less vulnerable than running on a different OS.

You're making some conflicting statements though, because you want the latest version of each software package and you're willing to compile it from source instead of using the patched version that's available in the Ports system, yet you want reliability and stability. That's the exact opposite of cutting edge. OpenBSD is definitely about fixing bugs and maintaining the highest reliability, but it's not really a bleeding edge OS that distributes the very latest version of every package.

Did you use like KDE or Fluxbox or something? I heard FreeBSD can run apps quite fast, like faster than Linux would. I'm goin to try it when I get my new drive.