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Comment by johnklos | Hacker News Reader

Regarding OpenBSD: I don't know if 32 bit PowerPC support will be around for all that long, if one considers how many platforms have been dropped from OpenBSD in the last few years.

Also, it doesn't look like OpenBSD has binary packages for 32 bit PowerPC:

https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.7/packages/

Although I do see packages for OpenBSD 7.6 from last year:

https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.6/packages/powerpc/

There's always NetBSD, though, which has tons of binary packages and which isn't going to be dropping architectures like PowerPC any time soon :)

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7.7 isn't out yet, and frequently port builds take a while, so this is unsurprising and shouldn't be taken as a lack of support or impending discontinuation.

OpenBSD still supports the Alpha, which is an even older and rarer (albeit 64-bit) architecture.

It’s wild that OpenBSD still supports the architectures it does. I literally learned how to program on a G4 Mac running OpenBSD back in 2000. I think it was version 3.0 but I don’t really remember. It was a wonderful experience, and I chose OpenBSD because it was the only UNIX-like OS I could get to boot on that machine (I struggled to understand Debian’s esoteric instructions for weeks before I gave up). OpenBSD, by contrast, had essentially the same install program it has to this day. At the time, there were no printed books for OpenBSD, but I read the (surprisingly good) man pages and supplemented with a used copy of the FreeBSD handbook I bought on eBay. Good times.

> It’s wild that OpenBSD still supports the architectures it does have you looed at what NetBSD supports if you count the tier 2 ones?

https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/

At least one of the more obscure platforms openbsd supports are often due to someone(one person) willing to step up and do the builds.

I love reading when the luna88k maintainer comes out of the woods a month or two after release to announce that the packages are done building. Realisticly I expect there are a few 88k users. But based on the radio silence I see on the lists it feels like there is one heroic user who really likes openbsd and is willing to make it happen. I find it very inspiring.

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