Hi,
h...@mailo.com wrote:
i have tested "recent" openbsd releases, since 2022, and almost all of them are
a bit slow with xfce/firefox etc.
i was wondering, for laptops range of 2013/16 years old, what would you
recommmend them for a common web browsing using openbsd?
I like to run BSD and Linux on a variety of older hardware, so I have
some experience here.
First, OpenBSD is nice, but essentially, given "the same userland", that
is the same X11, same desktop setup, same browser will be reasonably
similar in performance to NetBSD or a good linux. Do not expect some
"magic speed" in average user. What helps, usually is that you have a
clean setup and install selectively what you need. So, usually, I have a
a very clean system on NetBSD and OpenBSD, while perhaps on e.g. Debian
you start with a big "gnome desktop setup" and then customized later,
but removing is harder than adding. A good Devuan setup (no systemd)
with basic X11, wm and firefox performs for me similarly to a NetBSD and
OpenBSD system for browsing.
Other differences? Hardware support. On your system you might have the
luck that the OpenBSD driver for some of your chips (e.g. network) works
better than others. FFS is just faster than certan journaled file system
you get as default elsewhere.
Also "old".. it might be a low-end system with some crippled processor
and low on ram.. or a good i5 with 8GB of RAM (top of the line back
then). Key for browsing is RAM in any case. Under 3/4GB you cannot often
open more than one or two tabs nowadays!
"common web browsing" can be an incredibly demanding task. Graphic and
intensive website can kill current and top systems. Using chrome with 10
GitHub Tabs open and then open YouTube?
Or browse some manpages, use wikipedia and duck-duck-go... that you can
also on an old Centrino.
Given that... on selected systems OpenBSD works just very well. My aging
HP laptop has suspend-to-ram support, wifi support... just everything
out of the box. Easy to configure too!
Riccardo
