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OpenBSD Installation and Upgrading Installing and upgrading OpenBSD.

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Old 20th August 2014
spitfire_ak spitfire_ak is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
Almost all of the OpenBSD users here are end-users. And we have learned over the years that the social culture of the project needs to be understood by new users:

The goals of the Project are to meet the needs of its members, the developers themselves.
Then the OpenBSD system is not suitable for production environments; as an example, AIX listened to its customers, my employer, and developed suitable options to fit within IBM's AIX framework to meet those customers' needs; an outright "No" is hardly a great way to get others to use OpenBSD.

Also, if OpenBSD's goal is to meet ONLY its members' needs, why release it at all? I think in releasing something to the public entails collaboration with that public; if not collaboration, a patient response to why something is not done or will never be done.

I am new to OpenBSD and not exactly new to Unix/Linux; overall, the install procedure is not difficult and, yet, neither is it intuitive. Especially when trying to follow the automatic partitioning of slices... I have 16GB or RAM and the auto partitioner allocated 16GB of swap space! In 1995 swap should mirror RAM; in 2014 that might not be the case for almost all modern systems; further, the default list in disklabel slices is in some esoteric format not spelled out by disklabel(8) or fdisk(8). In the absence of options in 'p' (i.e., [b]ytes, [m]egabytes, [g]igabytes, etc.), what is the default list unit? No math I've found makes sense.

I've noticed that OpenBSD attracts a lot of "RTFM" responses; the problem with that is that man/info pages are written by those who know for those who know but may need a little refresher on flags, etc. They are not friendly to new users... I would never, and I am assuming none of you would do the same, EVER point my wife to disklabel(8) and tell her to RTFM, figure it out and good luck. She would stick with Mac OS X or Linux rather than have to slog through the developers' esoteric man/info pages; she has tried and, being dyslexic, found it extremely difficult.

Personally, though, I thought OpenBSD's install procedure to be great, and aside from a little more learning on my part, easy compared to other operating systems. Whole disk encryption is a breeze compared to most Linux distributions!

Last edited by spitfire_ak; 20th August 2014 at 06:50 AM. Reason: Removed [LIST] from [QUOTE /]
Old 20th August 2014
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
Then the OpenBSD system is not suitable for production environments; as an example, AIX listened to its customers, my employer, and developed suitable options to fit within IBM's AIX framework to meet those customers' needs; an outright "No" is hardly a great way to get others to use OpenBSD.
OpenBSD doesn't have customers. It has users. And users are "listened to" primarily in four ways:
  1. bug reports
  2. donations of money or equipment
  3. CD purchases
  4. development efforts via user-provided software or patches
Quote:
Also, if OpenBSD's goal is to meet ONLY its members' needs, why release it at all? I think in releasing something to the public entails collaboration with that public; if not collaboration, a patient response to why something is not done or will never be done.
This is the official goal list:

http://www.openbsd.org/goals.html

Quote:
I am new to OpenBSD and not exactly new to Unix/Linux; overall, the install procedure is not difficult and, yet, neither is it intuitive. Especially when trying to follow the automatic partitioning of slices... I have 16GB or RAM and the auto partitioner allocated 16GB of swap space! In 1995 swap should mirror RAM; in 2014 that might not be the case for almost all modern systems; ...
I disagree with both of these opinions but this may just be because of longer experience. I find the installer both easy and intuitive, and my swap space is at least larger than main memory size on non-embedded platforms, as I wish to be able to obtain and analyse dumps from kernel crashes. These are stored in swap space, uncompressed, for later storing in /var/crash after reboot.
Quote:
... further, the default list in disklabel slices is in some esoteric format ...
the default is sectors, as explained here. Both programs allow the user to use bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, and cylinders for partition start and partition length values.
Quote:
I've noticed that OpenBSD attracts a lot of "RTFM" responses; the problem with that is that man/info pages are written by those who know for those who know but may need a little refresher on flags, etc.
The "info" pages are only applicable to applications obtained from the GNU project, and as they are not maintained by OpenBSD, anything confusing or misleading in them should really be reported upstream.

The OS's definitive documentation is its collection of man pages. However, they are not intended to be tutorials.

The only official "How To" documents are the FAQ and its subsidiary documents such as the PF Users Guide.

Last edited by jggimi; 20th August 2014 at 10:33 AM. Reason: typo
Old 20th August 2014
ibara ibara is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
Then the OpenBSD system is not suitable for production environments
I like you. You're funny.
Old 20th August 2014
spitfire_ak spitfire_ak is offline
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See: Comment from Mr. Raadt ... OpenBSD is in very REAL trouble as of 2014. Hopefully, some company or person has stepped up to provide the much-needed funds.

I have a little money to donate, I paid for subscriptions to SUSE and am now moving on. I'm waiting to see how I feel about OpenBSD before investing more time & money.

As for the OP, he asked a legitimate question: why no GUI install? Heck, I would go further, why no curses-based install, at the least? Is there a security reason or just a preference by the developers?
Old 20th August 2014
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Yes, the Foundation has received significant funding in response to that request.

---

The same installation script is used across all 23 active architectures. That is a valid reason for "no GUI". And, while it might be possible to implement a script that uses curses across all of these disparate architectures, I can't recall anyone stepping forward to do so. You could call that "developer preference," or "developer disinterest."

You could also call it "end-user apathy." One of the ways that users can get "listened to" is by submitting software to the Project for consideration. This can be patches, or new ports, or perhaps revised or new utilities.

If you want to try to improve the installer, you should make the attempt.

I know the history of some of the Project's developers. Universally, they started down the path to developers by initially submitting programs or patches to address what they perceived as an unmet need.

Last edited by jggimi; 20th August 2014 at 07:37 PM. Reason: clarity
Old 20th August 2014
ibara ibara is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
See: Comment from Mr. Raadt ... OpenBSD is in very REAL trouble as of 2014. Hopefully, some company or person has stepped up to provide the much-needed funds.
I like how you're presuming to tell me things. It's cute.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
As for the OP, he asked a legitimate question: why no GUI install? Heck, I would go further, why no curses-based install, at the least? Is there a security reason or just a preference by the developers?
OK. Let's say you have to install OpenBSD hundreds of times a year, on a wide variety of system architectures (yes, I do exactly this. If you need to ask "well why would you do that?" consider clicking on the link in my sig instead of wasting time pondering it): would you rather have a GUI that is likely unmaintainable across all the architectures (especially since there are many machines that, you know, don't have VGA. the world isn't all a PC these days... never was, really) or a curses based installer that is ugly over serial (and again, more complex than a simple shell). Or would you rather have a streamlined shell that does everything you need, doesn't get in your way, and can almost literally be installed by holding down the Enter key?

If you're looking for complexity and nonsense, OpenBSD isn't the project for you. Really. And that's OK. OpenBSD isn't the project for a lot of people. But now your extrapolations have gotten beyond the realm of silly.

If a shell installer is something that's so major you wouldn't want to install OpenBSD, then don't install OpenBSD.

Or you can stop complaining and do something about it. Worked well for me.

But really, the GUI installer is something that's been asked time and time again. It's not gonna change. It's tiring to see people argue for something they haven't even attempted to understand.
Old 22nd August 2014
kpedersen kpedersen is offline
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For most installations of OpenBSD for the typical user you can just hammer the enter key until installation is complete.

So next time you install OpenBSD, close your eyes, start hammering the enter button and pretend you are being greeted with nifty graphical effects each time.

You can even use your mouse to click about if you want (it wont do anything mind).

Simples

Edit: AIX does not have a graphical installer. Perhaps you should mention to IBM that they may get more money (even more money) if they introduce one.
Old 26th August 2014
spitfire_ak spitfire_ak is offline
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Mashing the ENTER key doesn't really produce a workable workstation; perhaps it works well for a server, I am not sure, as I've only ever tried to install a workstation.

Given a 250 GB hard drive, the automatic creation of slices leaves inadequate space in /usr/local for a complete workstation install. One must use disklabel to adjust the slice size (using 'R' to manipulate auto-created slice sizes). The default (mashing the ENTER key) only gave me 8 GB of space; after messing around with sizes, I was able to see that a full install of everything that I may want/need to do, the size was ~12GB.

How many workstations use X? How many of the end-users use X? How many developers use X? Graphical interfaces are not a bad thing...

@kpedersen

I agree, AIX doesn't have a GUI install, and it caused problems for installation for those not familiar with non-GUI, which I was able to fix. Personally, as I have stated elsewhere here, I have NO PROBLEMS with a CLI or curses-based install; I am wondering why, like the OP, there exists no GUI install. My question has been answered... thank you all for the responses; not sure if the OP received an answer for which s/he has been looking...

Last edited by spitfire_ak; 26th August 2014 at 07:48 PM. Reason: added response to kpedersen
Old 26th August 2014
ibara ibara is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
Mashing the ENTER key doesn't really produce a workable workstation; perhaps it works well for a server, I am not sure, as I've only ever tried to install a workstation.
I have come to the conclusion that you are neither installing nor using OpenBSD.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
Given a 250 GB hard drive, the automatic creation of slices leaves inadequate space in /usr/local for a complete workstation install. One must use disklabel to adjust the slice size (using 'R' to manipulate auto-created slice sizes). The default (mashing the ENTER key) only gave me 8 GB of space; after messing around with sizes, I was able to see that a full install of everything that I may want/need to do, the size was ~12GB.
So you needed more than the default. And? A lot of people don't. That's why they're defaults and not mandatory.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spitfire_ak View Post
How many workstations use X? How many of the end-users use X? How many developers use X? Graphical interfaces are not a bad thing...
Those are totally nonsense questions. OpenBSD runs and needs to install on machines that DO NOT have graphical capabilities. Full stop. There are entire platforms that DO NOT HAVE GRAPHICAL CAPABILITIES. It would be insane to make a GUI installer with that in mind. Why in the world you fragment the install process? That's crazy and unmaintainable.

Get over your sense of entitlement. You at best get to be along for the ride, nothing more.
Old 30th August 2014
bsd-keith bsd-keith is offline
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Just reading through this topic does give the impression that OpenBSD is still an unfriendly place to go - however I know better. Not so long ago, you would be just told to read the documentation, now it is much more friendly - they actually tell you which part. :lol:

On a serious note, some projects are created for newbies, such as *buntu, whilst others are created to do a specific job. All the BSDs fall into this latter category, newbies to these OSes are expected to know how to use the command line as a minimum.

If you just want a free OS, Linux is for you, however, if you want to understand your OS, take the time to learn how it operates. There are lots of people willing to help newbies in forums such as this.
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Old 17th January 2015
ocicat ocicat is offline
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I am closing this thread as a number of (much) later responses moved far from the point made by the initial poster. Those side discussions have been split into their own threads.

Side discussions are encouraged on this site, however, we also find that most members come to this site to mine the archives. To simplify this process, we ask members to respect the direction taken by the initial poster, & stay on that topic. Technical discussions are difficult enough to follow when they are linear in progression. Meandering can make threads incomprehensible.

Again, we promote new discussion. However, if you want to take conversation in a different direction, start a new thread.

This practice is covered in the forum rules.
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