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by morganvachon 3826 days ago
That's the only thing stopping me from running OpenBSD 24/7/365 on my workstation. It's getting marginally better with each release, but even on a system that screams under any other OS, OpenBSD just lags and lags, even with tweaks.

I've found a great use case for it though; older, slower hardware (think P4 and older) actually benefits from running OpenBSD versus most modern Linux distros. For example, I have an ancient PIII laptop that refuses to run anything other than OpenBSD, Slackware, and Haiku OS. Out of those, OpenBSD is the fastest and least buggy. Granted, it's just a toy/hobby device, but I found it intriguing nonetheless.
2 comments
zmyrgel 3826 days ago
Could you be more specific on what problems you have? Usually OpenBSD has been running quite smoothly. Only issues I've experienced have been on video use. Like I haven't been able to get smooth playback of HD material. And firefox seems to be bit choppy but that is probably my "gazillion tabs" I keep open.
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morganvachon 3825 days ago
Those are some of the issues I've experienced, even with SD video and only a few tabs open in Firefox.

There's also a general choppiness to X itself. All of this with accelerated Intel graphics, so it's not necessarily driver related. I just figure that given the project's focus on security and clean code, desktop OS performance takes a necessary back seat.

Even with all of that, I give every new release a thorough test run on my old workstation and laptop, just to see if things have improved in that area. And they have been steadily improving!

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na85 3826 days ago
Multiple-second system freezes when opening programs or changing workspaces, etc.

It's just laggy and runs hotter than Linux. I get a solid hour and a half more battery life on Linux too.

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zmyrgel 3826 days ago
When did you try it? They fixed ACPI power management issue in 5.8. So if you tried it before that it might explain the battery life issue. I haven't seen any multiple-second system freezes ever. Did you report those issues in bug tracker or mailing lists?
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na85 3825 days ago
5.8 was what I tried and the new acpi did not help.

Obviously I reported it.

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geggam 3826 days ago
using minecraft as an example...

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/fujitsu-lifebook-s7...

The above ~5yr old laptop will give 60fps running minecraft with no hiccups / glitches. Installed an SSD and frankly its a perfect workstation for anything I would use and I see no lag.

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