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Hi, OP here. This is actually the second revision of the text; I got some awesome feedback from other OpenBSD users and tried to improve it. I’ll be happy to h

Hi, OP here. This is actually the second revision of the text; I got some awesome feedback from other OpenBSD users and tried to improve it. I’ll be happy to hear your opinion and fix any errors that may still be on the text. This is my first time with a BSD and its idiosyncrasies. The idea is to create a guide for former "GNU userland" admins and help them jump to BSD or, at least, have a more informed opinion before making the jump. The post will be further updated since I've been receiving more emails :)

laumars 11y ago
Completely off topic, but I love your cookie notification. "This website uses third party cookies exclusively to collect analytics data. If you continue browsing or close this notice, you will accept their use. The EU now requires all sites to display this banner which confuses users and does nothing, actually, to improve your privacy."
- carlesfe 11y ago
  Yeah, it was quite sad to read on HN how non-EU users complain about getting the same notification which has no legal (nor technical) effect on their computers. That's the price of having completely tech ignorant legislators, I guess. I also took some time writing a small javascript code to handle it, in case you're in the EU and need to wait for user confirmation to set the cookies: https://github.com/cfenollosa/eu-cookie-law https://github.com/cfenollosa/eu-cookie-law
keithpeter 11y ago
I agree with your point about the default partition layout providing too little space for the src trees. I ended up editing the partitions on the second install.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I don't know why this has not been fixed. It's been the case for a while that the default /usr partition is too small if you intend to do kernel and userland compiles and keep up with errata in the stable ports tree. Maybe it's that there is an assumption that most users will not do this (they do discourage it, but it's the only way to apply errata). I try to remember to change the default layout on a new install; another option is to symlink /usr/src to a directory on a larger partition.
  - carlesfe 11y ago
    I started a discussion on the mailing lists trying to suggest a default /usr size to 5GB, maybe you can contribute :)
Sanddancer 11y ago
I use FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD, but for your next revision, I'd recommend symlinks for your mount problems with build directories. Before I switched over to ZFS, I would always just create a /home/ports and symlink /usr/ports over to it, same with /usr/src and /usr/obj. Bit ugly, but it works.
- Mordak 11y ago
  This is a good suggestion. OP could also mount /usr/ports, /usr/obj, etc. via NFS from a dedicated build machine, and just pkg_add the built packages from /usr/ports/packages/, or 'make install' precompiled errata from /usr/src/. Having a dedicated build machine also keeps all the build dependency stuff contained elsewhere, and makes it easy to update multiple machines.
- carlesfe 11y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I might end up doing that, since I can't compile some of the biggest ports (php-5.6 right now). This seems to be a common newbie problem. Expert users change the default partitioning on install, knowing they may need to compile some big port, but I think 2GB isn't a safe default for those people who will precisely be using the defaults since they don't know any better.

laumars 11y ago

Completely off topic, but I love your cookie notification. "This website uses third party cookies exclusively to collect analytics data. If you continue browsing or close this notice, you will accept their use. The EU now requires all sites to display this banner which confuses users and does nothing, actually, to improve your privacy."

carlesfe 11y ago
Yeah, it was quite sad to read on HN how non-EU users complain about getting the same notification which has no legal (nor technical) effect on their computers. That's the price of having completely tech ignorant legislators, I guess. I also took some time writing a small javascript code to handle it, in case you're in the EU and need to wait for user confirmation to set the cookies: https://github.com/cfenollosa/eu-cookie-law https://github.com/cfenollosa/eu-cookie-law

keithpeter 11y ago

I agree with your point about the default partition layout providing too little space for the src trees. I ended up editing the partitions on the second install.

ams6110 11y ago
I don't know why this has not been fixed. It's been the case for a while that the default /usr partition is too small if you intend to do kernel and userland compiles and keep up with errata in the stable ports tree. Maybe it's that there is an assumption that most users will not do this (they do discourage it, but it's the only way to apply errata). I try to remember to change the default layout on a new install; another option is to symlink /usr/src to a directory on a larger partition.
- carlesfe 11y ago
  I started a discussion on the mailing lists trying to suggest a default /usr size to 5GB, maybe you can contribute :)

Sanddancer 11y ago

I use FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD, but for your next revision, I'd recommend symlinks for your mount problems with build directories. Before I switched over to ZFS, I would always just create a /home/ports and symlink /usr/ports over to it, same with /usr/src and /usr/obj. Bit ugly, but it works.

Mordak 11y ago
This is a good suggestion. OP could also mount /usr/ports, /usr/obj, etc. via NFS from a dedicated build machine, and just pkg_add the built packages from /usr/ports/packages/, or 'make install' precompiled errata from /usr/src/. Having a dedicated build machine also keeps all the build dependency stuff contained elsewhere, and makes it easy to update multiple machines.
carlesfe 11y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. I might end up doing that, since I can't compile some of the biggest ports (php-5.6 right now). This seems to be a common newbie problem. Expert users change the default partitioning on install, knowing they may need to compile some big port, but I think 2GB isn't a safe default for those people who will precisely be using the defaults since they don't know any better.