1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
|
---
title: "Friendship ended with GNU/Linux, OpenBSD is my new best friend"
date: 2022-07-31
lang: en
categories: [ blog ]
tags: []
translationKey: "2022-07-31-trying-openbsd"
---
## Previous experience with openBSD
I tried to revive my old machine a while ago with various Linux
distros---Debian, Alpine, Void, but none quite sticks. Graphics wasn't its
strong suit. I don't know how it came to be, I was sure 8 years ago it could
render stuff just fine. Now even typing on tty feels sluggish. I even
remember being able to play Skyrim on it. I decided to turn it to be a server
instead.
I don't find Void to be fitting for server, nor any other rolling distros. So
I'd install something else on it. I could install NixOS, but installed openBSD
instead, since it has [honk][honk], a fedi software I was thinking of
hosting[^1]. To my surprise, it was quite neat: typing feels much more
responsive than any on other Linux distros I tried before, and startx works out
of the box with the pre-installed FVWM (not a big fan of the WM, but it's quite
easy to get used to). The OS is said to be friendly to old machines, after
all.
Another thing I like about openBSD is the installation process. While not 100%
non-tech friendly like Debian, installation is quite straightforwards with a
series of questions. After installing NixOS on my laptop twice, I really
appreciate not having to partition disks and configure boot manually.
[honk]: https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk
## New computer, new troubles
Yes, I bought myself a new computer. I'd rather have my laptop reserved for
carrying around and my old machine as server only. The price for the set was
acceptable, but I was a bit annoyed that they stole from me the joy of
assembling it and tainted it with Windows *cries*.
Anyways, I digress. I planned to keep on NixOS: with a configuration file,
replicating the settings and packages would be quite simple. Except when it
doesn't. I don't know why, but the boot stucked at loading initrd. I guessed
it might be some bug of systemd-boot (which [NixOS manual][nixos-manual] states
that I *must* use for UEFI, and [legacy boot is not available][no-legacy] as I
don't have a dedicated graphic card).
[nixos-manual]: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-installation-installing
[no-legacy]: https://lr.vern.cc/r/ASUS/comments/s68b25/psa_enabling_legacy_boot_aka_compatibility/
I tried booting into its cousin [GNU Guix][guix]. It can boot nicely without
any trouble. What it couldn't is loading graphical interface properly: unlike
NixOS, Guix doesn't provide an option to use `startx` for starting X, but
rather push me to use gdm instead, which just shows a black screen for me. I
tried several off-manual guides from mailing lists to forums---someone else
surely had the same problems as me. None of them worked. Looking into the
log, it says something along the line `cannot load module fbdev... cannot load
module vesa`, even though I installed those xorg modules. Does that sound like
a driver issue? I thought integrated GPUs are supposed to work out of the box.
Anyways, I forgot to dump or screenshot the logs in both case so no post-mortem
for y'all.
[guix]: https://guix.gnu.org/
I also tried Gentoo (why?) and that seems a bit too much. It's not as
intimidating as some people might make it out to be, but it still takes to much
time for me. I guess I'm just lazy now and install something straightforwards
like OpenBSD.
## The good
Aside from everything just works, here are some extras I like about it:
- Accidentally closing tabs will trying to `^W` some words is no more:
<kbd>Ctrl+W</kbd> behaves the same way as in terminal. But then, so does
<kbd>Ctrl+A</kbd>: it moves the cursor to the beginning instead of
selecting all.
- SSHD enabled by default. I don't use this much but it can be handy.
- Packages have its own README to let users know something not detailed in the
manual
- Bug reporting is builtin (`sendbug(1)`), so I don't have to lookup some
mailing list or creating yet another account in a bug tracker.
## The bad
Admittedly, I find more annoying stuff than I liked:
- UTF-8 is available, but not enabled by default. If some characters are not
displayed properly in your terminal, try setting `LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"`
in your `.profile`. I couldn't import GPG at first because of this and
mistakenly thought it was because `vi_VN.UTF-8` was missing.
- Sound control is via `sndioctl(1)`, which is supposed to be available to
non-root users, but instead it `default: can't open control device`'d me.
[daemon forums][forum] says I'd have to add `staff` and `operator`, but it
doesn't work either. Also, [polybar doesn't support it][polybar], but it's
not their fault.
- Limited file access. This I can understand for security reason, but
sometimes it's just annoying not being able to open some folders.
KeepassXC integration also doesn't seem to work because of this, even
though I followed the README and added to the unveil.
- Limited file descryptors. This breaks syncthing and anything that watches
files, like a development web server or static site generator in
live-rendering mode.
- Default shell is Korn (ksh), which doesn't have much completion, particularly
git completion. Typing the whole commands out can be tiring.
- Some packages are not available. In particular, nheko, the best native
matrix client I've found so far, and dictd, the dictionary server. The
former is just added and probably will be available in the next release,
but the latter has been packaged for years and I have no idea why I can't
install it.
Nonetheless, I am sticking with this for a while and gonna update some more.
(Despite the title, I'm still using GNU and Linux. Linux is on other machines,
and bash and dico on this machines are also GNU.)
[forum]: https://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=11402
[polybar]: https://github.com/polybar/polybar/discussions/2753
[^1]: Couldn't, though, since my ISP block HTTP(S) ports. There are some
workarounds but I haven't got time to do yet.
|
