My OpenBSD experience

So, i’ve been using linux as my daily driver on my laptop for around a year and in vms for 3 years. But that doesn’t change the fact i suck at any *BSD based OS. Last week i wanted to change that, so i tried on my laptop (Thinkpad T420).

Installation

Installation went smoothly, but i had an issue making the usb. As i was used to downloading iso images for linux i’ve done tha same thing. Begginer’s mistake. It took me 3 hours to realize i had to download the .img file. After that i had to change some settings in the bios but that was easy. Since then i started using the OpenBSD guide from krzysztofengineer and The OpenBSD Handbook. So let’s get into installing. As I said it went pretty smoothly. The one thing i was scared of was the wifi since the one I have is Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 and it doesn’t work on many linux distros.

Post-installation

After installation i was thrown into xenodm - the stock openbsd display manager. I was suprised that the resolution was correct because when I tried it on my old eee pc flare it was stuck on 800x600. I logged in and did the basic post-install things like syspatch and updating my system.

Setting up i3wm

So, i use i3wm as my daily driver on all my linux machines. Some people might say that dwm is better but i hate the concept of patching it like a fucking caveman. So, I installed the i3-gaps package and set up my .xsession . I logged into it and saw that i3status was not working so I used some guy’s bar script. The sound was working out of the box and the battery monitor too. I got to the point of a usable desktop but then the dealbraker hit.

The Dealbraker (for me)

The browser I use on daily basis is librewolf. I wanted to install it and the only way of installing was to compile it. I didn’t want to waste 5 hours compiling it on my weak sandy bridge dual-core i5. If someone says to use something else, I can’t. I have everything on my profile and that doesn’t work on stock firefox. Some little things like my neovim config also didn’t work and that actually made me quit.

Conclusion

OpenBased is a great OS, but i just can’t use it. It may be good for some people but i just can’t use it. You can call me a normie, but I don’t care. Currently I run Debian bookworm. With that all, goodbye.