[jggimi]

Originally Posted by cravuhaw2C

I am using OpenBSD 5.5 (amd64, US keyboard). Is it considered release or current?

It's likely -release, but we don't know for certain with just this information. That is because -current, the development branch of the OS, is still using 5.5 enumeration.

The first two lines of your dmesg, which can also be reproduced with the command $ sysctl kern.version will have "-current" in the string if you are using -current.

For more on the development cycle of OpenBSD and its nomenclature, please see FAQ 5.1.

(a) change/update the software sources/repositories. On Debian, I would change/update the repositories using sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

FAQ 5.1 helps here, too. Releases are on a six month development cycle -- this is typically four months of development and two months of testing. Only the most recent release and the prior release are supported, requiring users to upgrade at least once per year if they wish to have break/fix support.

Third party applications -- the ports and packages described in FAQ 15 -- are also updated in the normal course of this development, by the thousands. But they are not generally backported to match a release (-stable nomenclature) unless the update fixes a security issue -- the Project is too small and the package collection too vast to do so.

And unlike all the systems you have used before, OpenBSD requires that the OS and the third party packages remain in sync with each other.

(b) the packages that are considered essential. On a minimal install of Debian OS, one would sudo apt-get install the following essentials:

Debian's packaging system is not used on OpenBSD.

xorg

X.Org, packaged for OpenBSD, is part of the base OS, and if you selected the x* installation filesets during install, this is available to you. Jut not yet enabled by you.

gnome-core (or lxde-core/xfce/openbox)

All are available as packages. If you prefer Gnome, you may be interested to know that Gnome 3 is available for 5.5-release.

synaptic

If your hardware is recognized, the pms(4) driver will note this in your dmesg(8), the synaptics(4) driver will be loaded by X.Org if the latter is able to use it, and the synclient(1) utility can be used to manage configuration.

gedit

Available as a package.

gdebi (which will also install nautilus)

This is a Debian tool. OpenBSD uses its own package management system, as described in FAQ 15.

network-manager

OpenBSD has its own network management tools, described in FAQ 6.

chroot/chmod some system files to prevent them from being tampered with.

As the tagline states, OpenBSD is Secure by Default. You need change nothing to secure the OS. That said, OpenBSD users might provision something incorrectly in ignorance, and create an attack vector where one did not previously exist.

Third party programs (all of the thousands mentioned already) do not receive the same scrutiny and are not audited. Your own knowledge and skills are needed to ensure you do not misconfigure one of these after installation

Originally Posted by cravuhaw2C

On the contrary I would very much like to use the X Windows System (just to clarify: the X Windows System is the graphical user interface, correct? the one which has snazzy icons and the gizmos on the desktop?)

Yes. FAQ 11 is your guide to using X.

Am I also right to say that even though I selected all the sets during installation, I would still have to manually install the package called xorg?

No. But you do have to start it. By default, OpenBSD does not start X for you. You must do so, either from your user's terminal session with startx(1) or xinit(1), or, you can do so by enabling XDM -- you would add xdm_flags= on a line in your /etc/rc.conf.local file. If you install Gnome 3, you would use GDM instead, as shown in the link regarding Gnome 3 above.

There are more than 40 different window managers available with OpenBSD. It comes with three built-in: fvwm(1), which is the default, cwm(1), and twm(1). All of the rest are third party packages.

Excuse me for my poor knowledge of Linux/Debian/Ubuntu/OpenBSD.

If you stop comparing and contrasting Linuxes with OpenBSD, and use the FAQ, you'll have an easier time.

• The FAQ is the only place where you will find official "How to" documentation.
• Unlike Linux systems, the BSDs pride themselves on the quality of their man pages.

The OpenBSD Journal is an unofficial location for "How to" information, but at least those are juried by editors who are Project members. All other "How to" information you find on the Internet about OpenBSD should be treated very, very carefully. Most that you find will be a) out of date, b) not directly applicable to your requirements, and c) written by newbies who may not understand the implications of their advice. (I include this website among these third party locations. Please don't ever copy and paste anything you see here blindly.)

Originally Posted by cravuhaw2C

FVWM doesn't stand for anything!!!

It stands for the F Virtual Window Manager, according to fvwm(1).

I read somewhere on the internet that both LibreOffice and OpenOffice have serious security vulnerabilities.

Are there alternatives to these two?

Certainly. The Gnome Project has Abiword and Gnumeric, both of which are available as packages. ANd, if you install a graphical browser, such as Firefox or Chromium, both Google and Microsoft are among those who offer browser-based office automation applications among their varied cloud services.

I don't know and the FAQs and documentation do not explicitly define what's essential.

That is because what is "essential" for you may be quite different from what is essential for me, or for anyone else. With OpenBSD, the base OS can be used for many purposes without the addition of any other software. However, as a "general purpose workstation" we will typically each add those packages we each desire. This little netbook I'm writing this post on is using OpenBSD with the addition of 71 essential (to me) packages, and with their dependencies installed I have a total of 297 third party packages installed, out of more than 8,600 available on this particular architecture (32-bit Intel, or "i386").

Frankly speaking I don't wish to spend too much time playing with the system. I have plenty of non-IT non-computer stuff to finish up.

Then you may want to reconsider. OpenBSD is a very small project, and does not coddle new users. They are welcome, but they must become self-sufficient or else hire one of the many commercial support providers.

There is this forum, and there is the OpenBSD-newbies mailing list, and both are third party. We try to help, as best we can, here. And there are books that help. In particular, Michael W. Lucas' book Absolute OpenBSD was my bible for many years, and the new edition sits on my shelf proudly next to the well-worn, very-well-used first edition. He writes in a very accessible style, and his guidance is helpful both to the new user and to those who are very experienced. I cannot recommend his books highly enough.

If you read the Project's goals you will not see any of them refer to a pre-configured general use workstation. However, with the meta packages for Gnome, or KDE, or XFCE, the Project comes pretty close to providing this.

Yes, I know, people have been posting as I've been writing this long treatise.