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The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

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Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#31

Post by rjsw »

foxfluff wrote: post #24
anthk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BSD's don't use partitions, but slices. And, well, NetBSD it's pretty conservative, but OpenBSD's defaults are good for a desktop.

What distinction are you trying to make? The disklabel utility can be used to install, examine, or modify the label on a disk drive or pack. The disk label contains information about disk characteristics (size, type, etc.) and the partition layout, stored on the disk itself. disklabel supports 15 configurable partitions, `a' through `p', excluding `c'. The `c' partition describes the entire physical disk, is automati…

How about "The other BSDs use slices".

FreeBSD [1] and NetBSD[2] can use GUID partition tables as well as traditional BSD disk labels.

[1] https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gdisk&apropos=0&se... [2] https://man.netbsd.org/gpt.8

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#32

Post by rubyist5eva »

ospzfmbbzr wrote: post #29
nulbyte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm amazed at how the openbsd community seems to like calling people idiots. "The complete idiot's guide" is a well-known series of books that cover a variety of topics for beginners; the title is a play on that. It's not an insult.

Never liked that branding for idiots. I've used OpenBSD since 2000. I own a PinebookPro. The tired and lame title makes me think the author is a joke (right or wrong) and I end up not wanting to bother giving this a try.

Maybe try not being so easily offended? It is just a figure of speech after all (and a rather common one).

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#33

Post by ospzfmbbzr »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #32
ospzfmbbzr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never liked that branding for idiots. I've used OpenBSD since 2000. I own a PinebookPro. The tired and lame title makes me think the author is a joke (right or wrong) and I end up not wanting to bother giving this a try.

Maybe try not being so easily offended? It is just a figure of speech after all (and a rather common one).

It's about branding you Idiot. Read the comment.

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#34

Post by messe »

aspyct wrote: post #25
daneel_w wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overreacting and exaggerating, both regarding OpenBSD being complicated to set up and about the community being toxic. Yes, a certain few people on the official mailing lists can be a bit vocal and stingy, and that also goes for one or two asocial a**holes on the inofficial IRC channel (#openbsd/libera), but these people are few and by no means representative of the community. For the absolute majority…

> I cannot imagine why you would feel OpenBSD is complicated to set up. Maybe the fact that there are so many manual steps to have a usable, "production grade", setup? Sure, you just have to follow documentation, but you're in for hours of work and learning tons of concepts before having anything secure if it's the first time. Also, if you make a single mistake along the way, all the help you'll get is a "Yeah, you d…

What were you trying to do?

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#35

Post by messe »

aspyct wrote: post #23
temprature wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of what in OpenBSD you found "utterly complicated to setup and use"? I've been using for several years now because of how devoid of complexity it is and because of how comprehensive the documentation is. Trying to even install other Unices nowadays frustrates me to no end because they're more complicated than "just keep pressing enter".

Well, for one thing, setting up FDE was way harder that it should probably be for "the most secure os on the planet". Also, I installed Kubuntu the other day, and I just kept pressing enter. There was even a checkbox for FDE.

Really? It's just a few commands away, all of which are completely transparent and documented in the FAQ:

https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#softraidFDE

Granted it could probably be added to the installer, but that's hardly "Utterly complicated to setup".

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#36

Post by messe »

aspyct wrote: post #7

I'm amazed at how the openbsd community seems to like calling people idiots. I've been using various unices for about 20 years now, ranging from Slackware Linux to OpenSolaris to FreeBSD to Kubuntu. I gave openbsd a try a few years back, and found it utterly complicated to setup and use. And when you ask for help, you're treated like an idiot and the only reply you get is basically "rtfm". No joke, one of the guys sa…

> Granted, a lot of stuff is in the documentation. But also a lot of stuff isn't. Your edge case from laptop X isn't documented, and you're still considered an idiot if you can't solve it.

In my experience that's not what the OpenBSD mailing lists are like. Most people will go out of their way to help, but it's also expected that you do your own due diligence first. It's not a commercial project, and not every combination of hardware is going to work perfectly, or is going to be documented.

> Even the title of this article reflects that mindset.

I think you're reading too much into it, and really stretching it for that interpretation. You've gone in with a negative opinion of the OpenBSD community, which I think is an undeserved one, and are viewing it through that lens.

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#37

Post by daneel_w »

aspyct wrote: post #25
daneel_w wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overreacting and exaggerating, both regarding OpenBSD being complicated to set up and about the community being toxic. Yes, a certain few people on the official mailing lists can be a bit vocal and stingy, and that also goes for one or two asocial a**holes on the inofficial IRC channel (#openbsd/libera), but these people are few and by no means representative of the community. For the absolute majority…

> I cannot imagine why you would feel OpenBSD is complicated to set up. Maybe the fact that there are so many manual steps to have a usable, "production grade", setup? Sure, you just have to follow documentation, but you're in for hours of work and learning tons of concepts before having anything secure if it's the first time. Also, if you make a single mistake along the way, all the help you'll get is a "Yeah, you d…

Hmm, no, I really have to disagree here. And you need to proceed with the same configuring of for example an httpd on the Linuxes as well after installing the software. These simply are not graphical "click'n'play" environments like IIS on Windows.

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#38

Post by messe »

anthk wrote: post #19
daneel_w wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of OpenBSD's shortcomings. While I like the fundamental design of all the file systems living contained within a "normal" MBR/GPT partition, the lack of advanced tools (no logical volume management, can only grow file systems but not shrink them etc.) has vexed me a couple of times during my 22 years of using OpenBSD. Thankfully it doesn't take long to get a good view of the storage requirements. I recomm…

With current SSD's speed and price just use dump(8) and restore(8) to and from external devices.

I'm an OpenBSD user, and while that's a solution, it's not a good one. The poster is right, lack of a modern filesystem is a major shortcoming of OpenBSD; but sadly nobody with the right skill set has decided to work on that.

If I remember rightly there was some interest in porting HAMMER2 (DragonflyBSD's filesystem) to OpenBSD, but it's a lot of work with very few people both interested and experienced enough to put in the work.

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#39

Post by trasz »

rjsw wrote: post #31
foxfluff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What distinction are you trying to make? The disklabel utility can be used to install, examine, or modify the label on a disk drive or pack. The disk label contains information about disk characteristics (size, type, etc.) and the partition layout, stored on the disk itself. disklabel supports 15 configurable partitions, `a' through `p', excluding `c'. The `c' partition describes the entire physical disk, is automati…

How about "The other BSDs use slices". FreeBSD [1] and NetBSD[2] can use GUID partition tables as well as traditional BSD disk labels. [1] https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gdisk&apropos=0&se... [2] https://man.netbsd.org/gpt.8

At least in case of FreeBSD, it’s more “uses GPT by default” than “can use”.

Re: The complete idiot's guide to OpenBSD on the Pinebook Pro

#40

Post by daneel_w »

anthk wrote: post #19
daneel_w wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of OpenBSD's shortcomings. While I like the fundamental design of all the file systems living contained within a "normal" MBR/GPT partition, the lack of advanced tools (no logical volume management, can only grow file systems but not shrink them etc.) has vexed me a couple of times during my 22 years of using OpenBSD. Thankfully it doesn't take long to get a good view of the storage requirements. I recomm…

With current SSD's speed and price just use dump(8) and restore(8) to and from external devices.

Sure, or just roll a tar-ball etc. It's how to do it. It's just a bit of a round-about way, is all.
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