OpenBSD Desktop in about 30 Minutes

[hidden_forest]

Finished install yields OpenBSD 6.0, Lumina DE, Firefox, mplayer

Install base system # https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html

### As Root

# Increase resource limits vi /etc/login.conf:

:datasize-max=2048M:\

:datasize-cur=2048M:\

# Execute commands as root:

vi /etc/doas.conf:

permit nopass username_created_during_install

# Package mgmt: PKG_PATH and pkg.conf

# Edit .profile to add package path:

export PKG_PATH=http://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/6.0/packages/amd64/

vi /etc/pkg.conf:

installpath = http://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/6.0/packages/amd64/

# Improve disk performance

vi /etc/fstab:

Append ”softdep,noatime" to all entries with filesystem type ffs after rw

Ex: .... rw,softdep,noatime 1 1

# Get wireless working w/ or w/o WPA

# Determine wireless interface name (ex. iwn0) with ifconfig:

ifconfig -a

# Establish wireless w/ WPA, substituting own interface name:

ifconfig iwn0 nwid network_id wpakey password

dhclient iwn0

#Establish wireless w/o WPA, ex: guest network

ifconfig iwn0 nwid network_id -wpa

dhclient iwn0

# Make wireless perm:

vi /etc/hostname.iwn0

dhcp nwid network_id -wpa # Without WPA

dhcp nwid network_id wpakey password # With WPA

# Reboot

reboot

### As mortal user

# Install packages:

# Ex: pkg_add -v <package>

# mplayer plays media, esp. YouTube in browser

doas pkg_add -v firefox lumina mplayer # Installs Firefox, Lumina DE, and mplayer

# Start xscreensaver daemon to use Windows-L xlock

# Activate tap-to-click for trackpad (skip if desktop computer)

# Configure Lumina DE to invoke with “startx” under own user

vi .xinitrc in own directory:

synclient TapButton1=1

syndaemon -i 1 -d

xscreensaver -no-splash &

exec Lumina-DE

[finid]

I haven't used OpenBSD in a long time, so this is worth a go.

[iyn]

Can somebody comment on how good/bad is the driver support in the BSD land? I'm interested specifically in wireless and graphics.

[chrisp_dc]

I tried using FreeBSD 11 and XFCE as my development platform.

Good: XFCE worked OOB with Intel graphics outputting displayport to a 2560 x 1080 display.

Bad: Video playback in VLC and FireFox was choppy.

Not sure if the AMD FirePro or AMD Quadro have better support than Intel graphics. I ended up switching back to Debian.

[ullarah]

Any reason why you chose Lumina over many of the other ones? Just curious.

[peller]

Not the author, but from the FAQ[0] it says Lumina was specifically designed for the needs of TrueOS (aka PC-BSD aka desktop FreeBSD), and "works very well for the BSD community at large." It also does not require a lot of the "typical" dependencies found with more Linux-oriented desktop environments (DBUS, policykit, systemd, etc), thus I imagine making it easier to build/install on OpenBSD.

[0] https://lumina-desktop.org/faq/

[hidden_forest]

Sure. It's BSD-licensed. Given the choice for similar software, I will always opt for maximally free software. I'm not opposed to other licenses, but if possible, I choose and support the BSD and similar licenses.

In addition, it uses almost zero resources. I'm running OpenBSD on a Lenovo T520 with 12GB RAM. Everything works out of the box, which is typical with OpenBSD and Lenovo/older Thinkpads. I don't have the time to compile kernels and mess with tracking down binary blobs, which I won't use as a matter of freedom. Nothing in OpenBSD is a binary blob.

[eb0la]

Lumina claims it needs about 150MB to run - maybe that's the reason. I wonder how much other desktop/window manager weight (before you ask: I'm on windows 10 - my window manager eats all the RAM it can get ;-).

[vectorEQ]

just started playing with OpenBSD. really nice project. Thanks for posting this, interesting to play around with for sure and get oriented a bit in BSD land!

[KiDD]

All my servers run FreeBSD so why not!

[Zelmor]

Sure, but why?