About this: https://framapiaf.org/@claudiom@bsd.network/116499285750477711

I got into IT right around the liberation of the SunOS source code. I unfortunately never had a chance to play with SPARC systems but if I find an affordable system I'd play with Illumos or OpenBSD on it. I spent some time reviewing the SPARC ISA (which was based).

Hello OpenBSD-ers (also posted on misc@), A friend of mine was installing OpenBSD for the first time, and came upon a minor roadblock. Em didn't realize that you should really install all system software sets unless you're looking for a whole world of issues any sane person may not want to deal with. Part of me wanted to say to my friend: "Read the FaQ and get stuffed!", I didn't cos that wasn't the best idea to say to a new user. I understand if devs and any contributor feel(s) like my initial reaction, but would it hurt to add a 1/2-line warning?: ... [[LIST OF SETS]] You probably want to install all sets if you're new. See https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#FilesNeeded for more information. Location of sets? [cd0 disk http nfs or 'done'] default I am flexible where this comment can be added, there's a couple places that seem alright for different reasons. It might be a good idea to add this just so people are better informed about the system in a place where they might footgun themselves. Linking to the FaQ header could go a long way to teach the behavior of reading docs, if not already set in stone before coming to OpenBSD. Thoughts? I'm considering writing a diff if more end users than myself are interested.

https://codeberg.org/Izder456/dotfiles/src/branch/main/.local/bin/fastestmirror wrote this Perl script to find the fastest mirror for you via scraping ftp.html for the mirror list #openbsd #bsd #runbsd

Responding to clear up some confusion and to give you general hints as you discover more about the system. Feel free to ignore if you wanna discover in your own time via man and info pages. Keybind notation in this post uses emacs notation. Ex: C-A-d means: Control + Alt/Meta + The literal letter d @nibori said: Without much structure or thought, might serve as a record, for me or others. Installer: from usb stick, the install experience is nice! Just hardcore enough that I feel the system assumes I have some idea about computery things, but not brew to the point of confusion. For example, at one point it asks which install target, and prompts "sd0 sr1 ?" (or such.. maybe a b... don't take my word). On pressing ? it gives a brief oneliner of each device. Just enough to make the choice, just brew enough I'm amazed. At one point install prints "relinking to make unique kernel". Wow. Booting: after entering passphrase, it gives me "boot>". Okay... Boot you say? So I type "boot", half-expecting based on past grub experience I will see some arcane message. But instead it actually boots! Neat. You can also just wait it out, IIRC after some timeout (can't remember how long), it'll automatically run that command for you. OFC you can interrupt this timer by typing anything. This is particularly useful if you wanna boot a different kernel such as bsd.rd (which is a ramdisk kernel that contains the upgrade/install stuff and a basic shell environment for emergencies): boot> boot bsd.rd or to boot the single processor kernel rather than a muliprocessor kernel on a multiprocessor machine while troubleshooting: boot> boot bsd.sp You can also get a list of commands available at this boot prompt which may prove useful in some scenarios: boot> help On login to system, there's a welcome mail with instructions. The man pages indeed work! Could connect to wifi with just using ifconfig. Well, needed fw_update first to get the wifi driver. Where are the logs though? Linux would spray dmesg with link state foo bar, or wpa auth so and so.. here I didn't notice similar. Minor correction. Like the name suggests, fw_update just updates/installs missing firmware needed by drivers. Since OpenBSD's kernel is non-modular, all this command does is let some particularly non-free devices behave correctly by letting the built-in kernel drivers load the needed firmware. This fw_update utility doesn't "install" drivers. You can preserve ifconfig settings across reboots with hostname.if files too btw. man hostname.if As for logs, for the whole system (with some exceptions), usually they go into some subdirectory/subfile of /var/log. Plaintext OFC for sanity. For ifconfig specific information, just run ifconfig against your interface name. Eg: ~ $ ifconfig em0 em0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 lladdr 34:17:eb:ac:6d:bf index 1 priority 0 llprio 3 media: Ethernet autoselect (none) status: no carrier (Sidenote: the feeling when you adjust ifconfig and route, it still doesn't work, and it turns out be a flaky cable... flood ping for the rescue) Congrats! ifconfig is one of my favorite features of OpenBSD's configuration. Looking at the filesystem. Looks clean! Hm, no /proc, /sys? Where do I get some stats about the battery? Will discover later. man apm man apmd man sysctl man sysctl.conf Consoles... multiple consoles anyone? Alt+F2 doesn't work. Maybe it is the key mapping, or maybe it is not supposed to have multiple consoles by default? Just like Linux, which you may be already familiar with, you use C-A-Fn, where n is the tty number you want to navigate to, corresponding to a "Function" key on your keyboard. By default X11 launches on tty5 and kernel messages are on tty1. The rest are login(1) prompts. You can inspect /etc/ttys to learn about the default tty config. man ttys Hm, what could be the equivalent of "loadkeys"? Well, can work with en layout for now. man wscons man wsconsctl man wsconsctl.conf man kbd startx gives me xterm and xclock, with a blue-red colorscheme. Wicked. I'd suggest using the XenoDM rc script and login manager. It is more secure. Just using xinitrc/startx doesn't lock the tty that X11 runs in so a passerby can just C-A-Fn then C-d/C-z to fork to the x11 process to bg and get a free shell in your name. With XenoDM, it dedicates a tty for X11 only (tty5 by default) so you can't use anything other than x11 in that tty. It also correctly handles privsep/privdrop whereas startx/xinitrc does not which can fix some quirks you may come upon. man rcctl man xenodm man xsession man rc.subr pkg_add works. pkg_info executed plainly gives a list of explicitly installed packages! I love the OpenBSD package system. Super simple and easy to use. Fun fact! They're just perl scripts. To be continued, eventually... Godspeed. Enjoy OpenBSD! Happy Hacking!

See: http://miod.online.fr/software/openbsd/stories/vaxfp.html ping: https://framapiaf.org/@miodvallat@hostux.social/116446563168449035

The unseen hero of OpenBSD: otto’s malloc What this is about This is me learning about OpenBSD’s malloc. I try not to do a surface-level overview. I want to understand the internals better, the data structures, the design decisions, and why those decisions make heap exploitation so much harder. What malloc actually does Every C program that needs memory at runtime calls malloc. malloc is a library function. It’s not a syscall – it’s a layer between your code and the kernel. https://polymathmonkey.github.io/weblog/artifacts/openbsdmalloc/index.html

The latest would be that it's deprecated and will eventually be replaced: https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20260415050032 I personally enable do hw.smt=1 when rebuilding base as it finishes about twice as fast, but I don't notice performance differences other than in compilation.

In Japanese, though, possibly you'll be interested. I myself never tried, but there's LUNA 68k/88k emulator, nono introduced here. Upstream here (Japanese site).

See: https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20260415050032

See: https://www.tumfatig.net/2026/redundant-dhcp-server-and-dns-resolver-using-openbsd-and-freebsd/

See: https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20260413055845 #ai

See: https://jcs.org/2026/04/09/openbsd-dm250 by Joshua Stein

Pigeonholing @rdh@elekk.xyz said in #OpenBSD wallpaper collection: … People who are publicly pro-AI are always posting slop, I oppose pigeonholing of humans in that way. Yesterday, for example, in yet another discussion that was spoilt by sloppy interruptions from irrational anti-AI hijackers, one of the comments was automatically removed by Reddit's abuse and harassment filter: [image: 1775715472214-8bd74135-dfbe-4489-9673-d3889c2d5687-image.jpeg] In the screenshot, a red alert: Potential Harassment Very few people will see the evidence, because Reddit automatically collapses unpopular comments. Old Reddit has the option to show, not collapse. I don't know whether new Reddit has the same flexibility. Critically: people who are publicly anti-AI do not always write sloppily people who are publicly anti-AI do not always hijack other people's discussions people who are publicly anti-AI do not always abuse, or harass, when they don't like another person's point of view. Overgeneralisations about individuals, or groups, when writing about subjects that are already highly contentious and not properly understood, can be unexpectedly divisive.

I'm really sorry, because I'm confusing: openports.pl is the Solene's project. (solene@, formerly a developer on the OpenBSD project) openbsd.app is made by @qbit@mammothcirc.us; (thanks to you to repair-it!)

I can't provide a roadmap, but something that helped me was to review the code for axe(4), the driver for my ethernet dongle. I'm also interested in learning more about writing device drivers on OpenBSD. Some useful links I've reviewed before: https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2017-device-drivers.pdf http://thetarpit.org/2022/notes-on-openbsd-device-drivers

@grahamperrin Codeberg is giving 502s :') I'll check again later as I'm interested in seeing what this commit adds . I'd say whoever thinks OpenBSD is slopware needs to review their own tech stack. I've been reviewing the source tree for a couple years now and it has made me a much better (and safer) C hacker. I also finally understand what a sane .conf file should look like, too.

Oooh ! I see there is a new #Qutebrowser release v3.7.0 today. Can't wait to see it on the #OpenBSD ports to see if it stops crashing on me and freezing.https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/releases/tag/v3.7.0

I've been using OpenBSD for my projects for the last few release cycles and I feel comfortable upgrading, etc. but I'll keep this for sharing with others. Great post.