6 ms·

A Reckless Guide to OpenBSD

75 points by zdw 5y ago

electricant 5y ago
The layout of this website makes the content barely readable. Reader mode fixes it though.
- dang 5y ago
  "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Bancakes 5y ago
  They responded by saying you make yourself look stupid by complaining about their 10 themes. That and the fact it takes months to write a little wiki sums up the use of that site.
oofabz 5y ago
I like the subject matter, but the bold italic typeface is very difficult to read.
- TacoSteemers 5y ago
  I agree. It would help if the website owner added a way to load the site with a simplified style.
  - csoup 5y ago
    about:reader?url=https://www.exoticsilicon.com/jay/reckless_guide_to_openbsd/ https://www.exoticsilicon.com/jay/reckless_guide_to_openbsd/
- maxmalkav 5y ago
  The thing is that the website is kind of close to be a decent minimalistic web (it displays quite ok on my phone), but the font choices and the transparencies make the reading experience a bit miserable for me.
- steeps 5y ago
  Fear not, the website has a theme selector: https://www.exoticsilicon.com/themes https://www.exoticsilicon.com/themes. I quite like the 1980s theme.
- smallerfish 5y ago
  Haha. They noticed your kvetching. > Avoid making yourself look stupid! For those readers commenting on third-party sites that you don't like our color scheme and transparency effects, use the THEME SELECTOR to choose one of TEN options that suits you. It's been there for SIX YEARS! Also - please comment directly to US via the contact page, as we don't habitually monitor third party discussion forums, thanks!
  - emmo 5y ago
    The problem is: 1) Knowing that theme selector even exists without their angry little paragraph pointing it out. 2) All of the other themes are equally awful.
    - scandox 5y ago
      That's what I love about the Theme Selector there. Every option is passive aggressively the same.
      - danielam 5y ago
        "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." (mutatis mutandis)
  - lazyier 5y ago
    The problem is that all the themes are terrible. Thank goodness for gemini.
- pfp 5y ago
  No matter what theme you choose, the text is bloody unreadable. Why would they publish a website like this? Why did OP post this? > but they have the right.... I didn't deny that.
pb82 5y ago
This is nice. I recently experimented with OpenBSD on a Librebooted X200. Took some time to figure out how to boot it with Grub. And then it turned out that the particular Wifi chipset wasn't supported. But this gives me some motivation to get a USB Wifi dongle and continue. Any suggestions for one that works?
- hucste 5y ago
  See this man page: https://man.openbsd.org/?query=wireless&apropos=1 https://man.openbsd.org/?query=wireless&apropos=1
- knorker 5y ago
  Good luck. If you find a reliable way to find them then please shout that far and wide. I tried about 10 different wifi usb dongles and all but one were completely unsupported or unusably unreliable (as in 5-10% packet loss, and sometimes needing unplug/replug) on OpenBSD. All the guidance I found was "just get one with this chipset". But it's not that simple. It's usually not listed on product pages, so you have to guess. And even the ones that do have the right chip can be very unreliable. Granted, most that I tried were super cheap. But those super cheap ones worked fine on Linux. In the end I found one that worked properly with OpenBSD. Old and unbranded, so it wouldn't even help you. I don't think there's a single 802.11ac USB dongle with free drivers. On Linux there are separately downloadable kernel modules, but I've found that to be a nightmare not necessarily to get working, but to keep working across kernel upgrades. So my suggestion is to look at supported chips, try to guess which products have that chip, and buy a few. Hopefully one works.
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    dkms helps with keeping a module working across Linux kernel upgrades (I use RTL8812AU, but RTL8814AU is problematic [1] being broken. I also use dkms + ZFS on Proxmox and Ubuntu), but other than that don't upgrade Linux kernel, unless you have to. I guess OpenBSD doesn't include the binary blobs, but back in the days (about 10-15 years ago) I used to have a stable WLAN on OpenBSD, on a Soekris. This was 802.11n (later rebranded WiFi 4), I don't now about 802.11ac / WiFi 5. Worked perfectly fine. IIRC it was either Atheros or IWL. [1] https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8814au https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8814au
tharne 5y ago
Very cool! I love seeing folks push simple and elegant solutions like openBSD and the Gemini protocol. I started playing around with openBSD more primarily out of lockdown-induced boredom. At first I got pretty frustrated that I couldn't get all of the linux goodies I was used to. But the more I use openBSD, the more I love it. And it has made me a better programmer as well. Whether at home or on the job, more and more I find myself reading the docs first before simply googling a problem and pasting in someone else's code.

75 points by zdw 5y ago

electricant 5y ago

The layout of this website makes the content barely readable. Reader mode fixes it though.

dang 5y ago
"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Bancakes 5y ago
They responded by saying you make yourself look stupid by complaining about their 10 themes. That and the fact it takes months to write a little wiki sums up the use of that site.

oofabz 5y ago

I like the subject matter, but the bold italic typeface is very difficult to read.

TacoSteemers 5y ago
I agree. It would help if the website owner added a way to load the site with a simplified style.
- csoup 5y ago
  about:reader?url=https://www.exoticsilicon.com/jay/reckless_guide_to_openbsd/ https://www.exoticsilicon.com/jay/reckless_guide_to_openbsd/
maxmalkav 5y ago
The thing is that the website is kind of close to be a decent minimalistic web (it displays quite ok on my phone), but the font choices and the transparencies make the reading experience a bit miserable for me.
steeps 5y ago
Fear not, the website has a theme selector: https://www.exoticsilicon.com/themes https://www.exoticsilicon.com/themes. I quite like the 1980s theme.
smallerfish 5y ago
Haha. They noticed your kvetching. > Avoid making yourself look stupid! For those readers commenting on third-party sites that you don't like our color scheme and transparency effects, use the THEME SELECTOR to choose one of TEN options that suits you. It's been there for SIX YEARS! Also - please comment directly to US via the contact page, as we don't habitually monitor third party discussion forums, thanks!
- emmo 5y ago
  The problem is: 1) Knowing that theme selector even exists without their angry little paragraph pointing it out. 2) All of the other themes are equally awful.
  - scandox 5y ago
    That's what I love about the Theme Selector there. Every option is passive aggressively the same.
    - danielam 5y ago
      "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." (mutatis mutandis)
- lazyier 5y ago
  The problem is that all the themes are terrible. Thank goodness for gemini.
pfp 5y ago
No matter what theme you choose, the text is bloody unreadable. Why would they publish a website like this? Why did OP post this? > but they have the right.... I didn't deny that.

pb82 5y ago

This is nice. I recently experimented with OpenBSD on a Librebooted X200. Took some time to figure out how to boot it with Grub. And then it turned out that the particular Wifi chipset wasn't supported. But this gives me some motivation to get a USB Wifi dongle and continue. Any suggestions for one that works?

hucste 5y ago
See this man page: https://man.openbsd.org/?query=wireless&apropos=1 https://man.openbsd.org/?query=wireless&apropos=1
knorker 5y ago
Good luck. If you find a reliable way to find them then please shout that far and wide. I tried about 10 different wifi usb dongles and all but one were completely unsupported or unusably unreliable (as in 5-10% packet loss, and sometimes needing unplug/replug) on OpenBSD. All the guidance I found was "just get one with this chipset". But it's not that simple. It's usually not listed on product pages, so you have to guess. And even the ones that do have the right chip can be very unreliable. Granted, most that I tried were super cheap. But those super cheap ones worked fine on Linux. In the end I found one that worked properly with OpenBSD. Old and unbranded, so it wouldn't even help you. I don't think there's a single 802.11ac USB dongle with free drivers. On Linux there are separately downloadable kernel modules, but I've found that to be a nightmare not necessarily to get working, but to keep working across kernel upgrades. So my suggestion is to look at supported chips, try to guess which products have that chip, and buy a few. Hopefully one works.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  dkms helps with keeping a module working across Linux kernel upgrades (I use RTL8812AU, but RTL8814AU is problematic [1] being broken. I also use dkms + ZFS on Proxmox and Ubuntu), but other than that don't upgrade Linux kernel, unless you have to. I guess OpenBSD doesn't include the binary blobs, but back in the days (about 10-15 years ago) I used to have a stable WLAN on OpenBSD, on a Soekris. This was 802.11n (later rebranded WiFi 4), I don't now about 802.11ac / WiFi 5. Worked perfectly fine. IIRC it was either Atheros or IWL. [1] https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8814au https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8814au

tharne 5y ago

Very cool! I love seeing folks push simple and elegant solutions like openBSD and the Gemini protocol. I started playing around with openBSD more primarily out of lockdown-induced boredom. At first I got pretty frustrated that I couldn't get all of the linux goodies I was used to. But the more I use openBSD, the more I love it. And it has made me a better programmer as well. Whether at home or on the job, more and more I find myself reading the docs first before simply googling a problem and pasting in someone else's code.