Hello All Anyone [else] out there trying OpenBSD? Well; this forum is titled all things UNIX, so we ought to try something that isn't GNU/Linux at least once. I've just installed the minimal system with X packages plus Firefox on the testing machine (x61s). Puggling about now to add a proper desktop and LibreOffice. Edit: got wifi working using a config file on my local router; will have to see how the OpenBSD people do random connections in coffee bars. Installing libreoffice package now. Will try XFCE4 later on in the week. I'm buying a CD-ROM set as a form of contribution
I am sad to see that I am the first to answer ! I am planning to install OpenBSD but for a live-USB use only (live-SD-disk, exactly) but I must learn more about Linux first. OpenBSD looks a little but scaring at the first sight. My purpose is to "build" my own live-OS based on a very secured distribution (as OpenBSD is) with all stuff (and nothing more) I need for browsing Internet anonymously, privately and safely.
I've used OpenBSD at times, but never as a main OS - mostly due to lack of decent printing configuration software. BSD lpd would be great if it had a decent frontend or two, but it doesn't. (I know, I know... I can do shell scripting... Maybe I'll write a frontend myself, if/when I have the time.) Also there are issues with the stock kernel having iffy hardware support. OpenBSD is generally better about this than other BSDs, but still not good. BSD strategy is to provide a stock kernel that will support most hardware, but not with full features, and tell people to build their own kernel if they want everything to work. IMO this is dumb. It's better to avoid supporting the occasional buggy hardware than to eschew important features for compatibility reasons. Granted that building a kernel is much simpler and faster in BSD than in Linux, it's still a waste of time. (In particular I'm thinking of things like ISA PNP support. Many, many computers can't do wireless without ISA PNP. And yes, I know that this is supposed to be ACPI's department, but pretty much all laptops implement ACPI badly or incompletely.) So yes - I like OpenBSD, a lot, but I think it's even less ready for the desktop than Linux. This is where elitism gets you.
It's good to known, thanks ! I already found it was too difficult just to find the good .iso file to create a bootable USB stick on their website ! I am just scared it is a too high challenge ! Isn't PC-BSD another good alternative / compromise ? (for security issues)
For OpenBSD I think you want the install55.fs file; I believe that can be dd'ed to a USB stick, not sure though. It does require more familiarity with the UNIX command line than most Linuxes, and gives you less to start with. It might not be a good fit, depending on how much time you have to mess with these things. Re PC-BSD, last I tried it, it locked up before the install could complete. I was not impressed. Not sure at any rate how it is in terms of security.
I've tried it, don't remember which version though, it was couple of years ago. I did like its security oriented concept, and it's obviously for servers. For desktop usage it's not so convenient. Out of the box it has an ugly and minimal system interface and to pull down DE and other software is quite tricky; demands your typing long and weird commands just to pull down something from their repos. Dependencies have to be downloaded separately. How it has been worked out now, I don't know. Also, third-party software has not been scrutinized for bugs/security issues by the OpenBSD team.
All the BSDs have had automatic package dependency resolution for a long time. On OpenBSD you just have to export your preferred HTTP or FTP mirror as the PKG_PATH shell variable, and pkg_add will take it from there.
I stand corrected. I remember the trouble with PKG_PATH which didn't work out smoothly for me in spite of re-checking the mirror paths. I must've confused it with the "dependency hell"!
Hello, I'm using OpenBSD as a network gateway, and I would love to use it for desktop, but I found it inconvenient to start with. I was not successful to make a working a desktop manager and a browser, to simply display youtube videos. If you want to try it yourself there is a good guide at BSDNOW : http://www.bsdnow.tv/tutorials/the-desktop-obsd I remember having read a test of PCBSD (FreeBSD based) from Mrkvonic here, and he wasn't impressed. Last but not least, it is generally easy to install Linux alongside Windows to make a dual boot, however the steps to achieve that with OpenBSD seems harder from what I read. Regards, Guillaume.
I finally gave up on OpenBSD on the X61s because of the apparent absence of acpi and thinkfan. The banshee howl of the fan running at 2800 rpm all the time (blowing cold air) was strangely distracting. I just installed the default + gnome and had quite a nice desktop with Firefox and all. Noticebly snappy as well.
Thanks, Gullable. I'll try that one over the summer. Googling my particular test box does not look hopefull
