openbsd or netbsd alpha firewall

Hi,
    I have an alpha server DS10 which I intended to use for a
firewall.  Originally it ran debian linux on it a long time ago but I
tried to update it recently using the debian package manager and it
was too far and decided to really screw up the system.  This had
actually just happened to me on another older computer so I decided I
was sick of debian.

    I had a netbsd 1.5 cd lying around and I decided to install that.
This was heinously buggy but I figured I could learn something from
getting it to work.  I even sent a patch to the netbsd people for some
of the network code, but they just redid it better.  At any rate I was
"tracking netbsd current".  Now every time I updated and recompiled,
it took days and usually failed for something silly.  I think I
realize now that it was ridiculous of me to expect a cvs repository to
be compilable all the time.  The last time it did this, it kept
failing because some manifest list of files was wrong.  And I've had
numerous problems since 1.5 is an old version and put some cruft on
the system that other setups don't like.  That's why I was tracking
current in the first place, to just replace it all.  But so I was
tired, and I just wanted to get it done, and I went and deleted a
bunch of "extra" libraries that it was complaining about.  I thought
these were in an object directory that was later copied to the root,
but it was a link, and, like I said I was tired, but it borked the
system.  Things like libpam are missing.

   I feel like I have two choices.  I'm not messing around with netbsd
current anymore.  So I'm either going to order a netbsd 4 cd or
whatever, or I'm going to switch to openbsd.  I ran openbsd on another
computer and it was fine, but the hardware on this one is a little
stranger.

   Anyway, I'm writing for suggestions on which OS I should go with.
Like I said its a DS10, I'm using it as a bridging firewall, it has a
pci usb card and two tulip-type dec chip ethernet cards.  I was using
ipf to do things, but I've also used ipchains.  I'm buying something
so if anyone has time, it would be nice to have some assurance that
one of these OSs is better for what I'm trying to do.  I'm not even
sure netbsd 4 has bridge-ipf support, so that's an issue for me.
Thanks for reading all this.

              - Peter