OpenBSD 3.8 improves hardware support

The latest version of the Unix-like operating system OpenBSD, which was released on Tuesday, offers improved hardware support and RAID management capabilities.

Theo de Raadt, the founder and lead developer of OpenBSD, said the latest release includes enhancements in various subsystems: "Version 3.8 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system," said de Raadt, in an email announcing the release.

OpenBSD, which celebrated its tenth birthday on 18 October, offers improved hardware support in its latest version, including support for the accelerometer found in some IBM ThinkPad laptops and for additional Ethernet adapters.

Developers have also added a number of new utilities, including a RAID management program. The tool only carries out basic administrative functions to make it easier to support all types of controllers, de Raadt said in an email last month.

"The functionality supplied is very basic, almost minimal. But this is done like this on purpose, since we believe that we could support this functionality on all RAID controllers in the same way, without special 'but that controller is so different' mindsets entering the picture," said de Raadt.

The tool will only work for AMI RAID controllers initially, but de Raadt hopes that support will be added for controllers from other vendors at a later stage, according to the email.

Earlier this year, de Raadt criticised the quality of the code in the Linux operating system, claiming that it was full of "cheap little hacks".

"It's terrible," de Raadt reportedly said. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realise how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"

You can download the latest version of OpenBSD from here.