OpenBSD-related websites

[bienc]

As well as the links listed in the sticky for this subforum, I figured some more resources might help people. Many of these sites have guides which should come in handy:

http://www.openbsd.org - The OpenBSD home page.

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/index.html - The official FAQ. Lots of helpful information here. Your first stop for information.

http://www.openbsd101.com/ - An excellent site for beginners.

http://marc.info - Mailing-list archive, which includes OpenBSD's mailing lists. Helpful to find topics that have already been discussed.

http://undeadly.org - OpenBSD journal

http://openports.se/ - Port tracking.

http://openbsdsupport.org/ - General documentation and guides.

http://www.bsdguides.org/guides/openbsd/ - Guides

http://www.nomoa.com/bsd/ - More guides!

http://www.weirdnet.nl/openbsd/ - Guides/tips.

http://opendoc.lindesign.se/ - More guides/scripts.

http://www.seifried.org/oag/ - Seifried's OpenBSD Administrator's Guide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD - Wikipedia coverage

http://vendorwatch.org - Information on the open-ness and contributions of hardware vendors to opensource developers.

http://openbsd-wiki.org - Unofficial wiki. Guides/tips.

http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/faq/openbsd - FAQs from the Phoenix BSD user group.

http://www.sanitarium.net/golug/OpenBSD.html - Great guide to installation and maintenance.


Feel free to add your resources.

[ocicat]

This contains additional information not found in this section's FAQ:

http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=51

Yet, caution is required.

What was seen countless times on BSDForums is that people would take any information found on the Internet, & apply it as presented, & then come screaming to us demanding why did it not work. There are several reasons:

• Information not originating officially from the OpenBSD project may use an antiquated version of the OS, & not state the version number. This obviously can lead to problems if someone applied out-of-date information to a newer version of OpenBSD.
• Authors don't state what their assumptions were or the problem to be solved. Invariably nothing found in the wild does not answer all questions so people take chances hoping that what they will answers their own problems. Maybe, maybe not. Research is required.
• Authors may not have done all necessary research needed to understand the problem.
• Readers haven't taken the time to understand their fundamental problem(s), & don't verify the information found.

Because of these factors, we highly recommend people first start with the official FAQ from the OpenBSD project:

http://openbsd.org/faq/index.html

...followed by studying relevant manpages. Unofficial information can be factored into decisions, but information found in the wild doesn't absolve people from understanding the fundamental problem(s).

[lvlamb]

2.3 - Manual Pages

OpenBSD comes with extensive documentation in the form of manual pages, as well as longer documents relating to specific applications. Considerable effort is made to make sure the man pages are up-to-date and accurate. In all cases, the man pages are considered the authoritative source of information for OpenBSD.

http://openbsd.org/faq/faq2.html#ManPages

[ocicat]

...but if you don't believe in the FAQ, how can you believe in this statement?

[BSDfan666]

It should be noted, http://ports.openbsd.nu/ is the old address, (but redirects to the new location..).

http://www.openports.se/

Also, http://www.vendorwatch.org/ has been dead for some time now, unfortunately.

[lvlamb]

Originally Posted by ocicat

...but if you don't believe in the FAQ, how can you believe in this statement?

Same as:
Never say never.
It is forbidden to forbid (mantra of May 68).
Do what I say, don't do what I do.
Press any key (but don't press return).
Am a liar, don't trust me.

[marcolino]

One more:

All generalizations are false.

[ai-danno]

Originally Posted by lvlamb

In all cases, the man pages are considered the authoritative source of information for OpenBSD.

I think point that can be missed here is that what is considered authoritative and what's considered a good starting point are quite often two different things.

Those who claim to learn anything and everything from the man pages alone... are lying to you. The man pages are amongst the best documentation you will find for an operating system, but if they were that good the OpenBSD project wouldn't need a FAQ in the first place.