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How sucky is OpenBSD installation for the first time? I managed to boot up my old laptop (An 1.8ghz Acer from 2008-ish?), and I thought I’d give OpenBSD a crack on it. What do I need to be looking out for, coming from a MacOS / Linux background?
May 14 · 12 days ago · 👍 norayr
Not very sucky sucky at all! You mostly answer yes/no questions. For first timer, it is the easiest to choose automatic disk partition and use HDCP for network connection which are the default. After install and reboot, read ifconfig(8) pf.conf(5) pkg_info(1), pkg_add(1) and install some software, and edit ~/.xession. since you came from linux/osx background, maybe install bash.
also run pcidump(8) and pcidevs(8) after installation to see what hardware you have. intel and full MAC broadcom wifi cards are better supported. athn(4) works ok too. I did use urtwn(4) for a while, not very stable. nvdia cards are big no no, amdgpu(4) is a massive driver. I run intel(4) which runs flawlessly. oh, turn off intel rapid storage and try poke TPM setting if you have problem booting/installing
💀 requiem [OP] · May 15 at 06:32:
Thank you! These are great pointers. It seems like a familiar but slightly different ecosystem, it will be an interesting learning experience!
Oh no! I made some typos! patch follows --.xession ++.xsession --pcidevs(8) ++usbdevs(8)
💀 requiem [OP] · May 18 at 11:28:
So I gave it a go. I got really stuck with what seems to be some bug with `radeondrm` — it boots fine but as soon as it loads the video driver the display just crashes. I can get FreeBSD to run fine with what I assume to be just vesa. But I really would prefer OpenBSD, it seems more ... "elegant" somehow? Any tips on what I could do to overcome the `radeondrm` problem?
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