The BSD family (OpenBSD, FreeBSD etc.) is missing from your list.
I prefer OpenBSD and Debian, I try to avoid Ubuntu and all Redhat based distros since Redhat decided to cripple openssl in them. Though the switch to systemd makes me enjoy more and more OpenBSD installations over Debian.
I've never used Mac and my last Windows WS was Win2000.
Thank you for pointing to the BSD family, i forgot to add it, i am also thinking about adding solaris, but i don't think that much people uses it.
I never used OpenBSD, could you tell me what advantages it have over linux/debian ?
OpenBSD comes with a secure-by-default setup and it is lightweight. Though, if you did not already setup linux at the time when you had to partition your disk yourself and configure your network manually you might find it very painful to get started with OpenBSD (but there is excellent guidance out there [
1,
2] and the effort pays out if you want a highly secure and stable platform!).
The setup/install has been simplified a lot since I started with version 2.6 sometimes 1999 but it is still not "insert disk and click OK three times to accept some defaults"
On the plus side:
- High quality man pages (Linux improved there in the last years, but so many man pages in Linux are still just useless and I have yet to find a bad one in OpenBSD).
- Most system components are audited and fixed by highly capable people in the OpenBSD team.
- Integrated firewall (pf) that I would argue is the best open source packet filter out there and compared to the huge mess that iptables ruleset are it is almost natural to read the rules.
- OpenBSD is the home of OpenSSH and comes with strong and robust crypto
- OpenBSD team is strictly commited to Open Source principles, they never accept borked license agreements, things that do not comply with their BSD license are kicked out.
- OpenBSD team boasts about "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!". This is impressing compared to every other OS.
Personally I'd recommend OpenBSD for servers or workstations that need that extra bit of security and confidence meaning you are ready to go an extra mile (or two, sometimes three
) to get the job done and you value security and stability over performance and bleeding edge features. But then you can lean back and just let it hum along. The OS might look ancient because it lacks a lot of features, but then again everything that's in OpenBSD has been done right from the beginning.
I'd say OpenBSD is the most secure OS in the world. But like with the most secure car for example, you should not expect it to be the fastest or the most beautiful car. If you have an old pc or can launch a VM with 256MB RAM and 4G disk I'd recommend to give it a try. It's not just a different linux distro - it's BSD and it can be fun.
HTH
Will definitly give it a try, you know, i am not impressed by appealing GUIs, i feel conftable in cli interfaces, so the appearances doesn't matter for me as long as i know where i am, and what i am doing.
You are right regarding iptables, it is a big mess, tricky, hard to understand, i will have a look at pf.
For sure you can't have ervery thing in one OS, devs can't create the perfect OS, you have to do some sacrifies to get benefitso n other parts of the system, the thing with ubuntu is that it is easy to use, easy to understand, can easily find solutions on internet, BSD looks like to be more professional then ubuntu, yet i i think it is more made for internet then compiling/coding.