14 DAY TRIAL // OpenBSD is a free, multi-platform BSD-based UNIX-like operating system that aims to have a few important features such as portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security, and integrated cryptograph. A new version, 5.6, has been made available and is now ready for download.
OpenBSD is an open source project that follows a strict schedule and is one of the few that can really manage that. New releases are made twice a year for this distribution. We had the 5.5 branch that landed all the way back in May, so it shouldn't be a surprise that 5.6 is here.
The OpenBSD team always had interesting codenames for their releases and the current version is no different. This one is called "Ride of the Valkyries" and the devs are still making very important changes that are not usually found in other operating systems. For example, in 5.5, they had a fix for the Year 2038 problem, which would cause an integer overflow that made Unix systems that store the system time as a signed 32-bit integer to revert to January 1, 1970.
New OpenBSD releases are never boring
One thing is for sure: the makers of this distro don't waste a single minute between two releases and they are always making hundreds of improvements and fixes. It would be impossible to list them all, but the star of the shows seems to be the LibreSSL version, which has been implemented by default.
Some users might remember that, a few months ago numerous security issues were found with openSSL and a number of devs have forked the library and created LibreSSL in an effort to provide a cleaner, safer, and more modern version. OpenBSD is one of the few projects that actually adopted it.
"The OpenBSD project produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Our efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography. As an example of the effect OpenBSD has, the popular OpenSSH software comes from OpenBSD. OpenBSD is developed entirely by volunteers. The project's development environment and developer events are funded through contributions collected by The OpenBSD Foundation. Contributions ensure that OpenBSD will remain a vibrant and free operating system," reads the announcement.
Besides the LibreSSL package, the devs have also improved the hardware support, they have made a number of fixes to the network stack, the installers should now work much better, and numerous security fixes have been added as well.
Check out the massive changelog for a complete list of updates and new features. You can download OpenBSD 5.6 right now from Softpedia.