OpenBSD 4.4

Every 6 months, the new version of OpenBSD is released (on May 1 and November 1).

OpenBSD is known to be the most secure operating system, and that's why I use it as a router/firewall (on my fit-PC).

OpenBSD 4.4

Today's version is 4.4. New stuff in this release:

• More platforms supported, better support for some existing ones.
• Lots of drivers updates.
• Updated shipped softwares (like OpenSSH, OpenSSL).
• Lots of improvements.

You can also have a look to the full list of changes.

Upgrade

Upgrading OpenBSD is very easy. In my case I downloaded the installation ISO, burned it on a CD and booted on it.

After some questions (for most of them I just had to press enter), a check disk, 10 minutes to copy the files and reboot, the system was up again, working fine.

Upgrading took 20 minutes in total (from the moment I powered down the router and the moment it was operational with the new version). Most of the time was used to copy and install files, boot and disk check (the fit-PC is not a very fast computer). The upgrade software asked me around 15 questions, most of them the default value was the right one, for some other I had to enter either yes or done, that's all.

Theme and Song

Each version of OpenBSD has a theme. For 4.4 it's inspired by Star Wars:

And with every release, there is a song: "Trial of the BSD Knights" (sounds a bit like Cantina Band).

Lyrics are available as well as the songs files (as MP3 and OGG Vorbis).

Donations

OpenBSD is a very good operating system, open source, all that for free.

You can help them by coding, filling bug reports, translating documentation, giving hardware to developers, buying OpenBSD CDROM, audio CD, or simply by giving money.

I had my first OpenBSD by buying the OpenBSD 3.4 CDROM 5 years ago (I also bought a T-shirt).

This year I gave a small amount of money via PayPal.

Helping them will help the overall security of the internet. Several tools from OpenBSD are now widely used on other operating system (like OpenSSH which his now shipped with nearly all *nix systems (including Apple's Mac OS X)).