1   17 April, 2020
  2
  3OpenBSD on the HP Envy 13
  4
  5I put a blowfish in my laptop this week
  6
  7   My existing KISS install broke because I thought it would be a great
  8   idea to have [1]apk-tools alongside the kiss package manager. It's safe
  9   to say, that did not end well -- especially when I installed, and then
 10   removed a package. With a semi-broken install that I didn't feel like
 11   fixing, I figured I'd give OpenBSD a try. And I did.
 12
 13installation and setup
 14
 15   Ran into some trouble booting off the USB initially, turned out to be a
 16   faulty stick. Those things aren't built to last, sadly. Flashed a new
 17   stick, booted up. Setup was pleasant, very straightforward. Didn't
 18   really have to intervene much.
 19
 20   After booting in, I was greeted with a very archaic looking FVWM
 21   desktop. It's not the prettiest thing, and especially annoying to work
 22   with when you don't have your mouse setup, i.e. no tap-to-click.
 23
 24   I needed wireless, and my laptop doesn't have an Ethernet port. USB
 25   tethering just works, but the connection kept dying. I'm not sure why.
 26   Instead, I downloaded the [2]iwm(4) firmware from [3]here, loaded it up
 27   on a USB stick and copied it over to /etc/firmware. After that, it was
 28   as simple as running [4]fw_update(1) and the firmware is auto-detected
 29   and loaded. In fact, if you have working Internet, fw_update will
 30   download the required firmware for you, too.
 31
 32   Configuring wireless is painless and I'm so glad to see that there's no
 33   wpa_supplicant horror to deal with. It's as simple as:
 34$ doas ifconfig iwm0 nwid YOUR_SSID wpakey YOUR_PSK
 35
 36   Also see [5]hostname.if(5) to make this persist. After that, it's only
 37   a matter of specifying your desired SSID, and ifconfig will
 38   automatically auth and procure an IP lease.
 39$ doas ifconfig iwm0 nwid YOUR_SSID
 40
 41   By now I was really starting to get exasperated by FVWM, and decided to
 42   switch to something nicer. I tried building 2bwm (my previous WM), but
 43   that failed. I didn't bother trying to figure this out, so I figured
 44   I'd give [6]cwm(1) a shot. Afterall, people sing high praises of it.
 45
 46   And boy, is it good. The config is a breeze, and actually pretty
 47   powerful. [7]Here's mine. cwm also has a built-in launcher, so dmenu
 48   isn't necessary anymore. Refer to [8]cwmrc(5) for all the config
 49   options.
 50
 51   Touchpad was pretty simple to setup too -- OpenBSD has [9]wsconsctl(8),
 52   which lets you set your tap-to-click, mouse acceleration etc. However,
 53   more advanced configuration can be achieved by getting Xorg to use the
 54   Synaptics driver. Just add a 70-synaptics.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
 55   (make the dir if it doesn't exist), containing:
 56Section "InputClass"
 57        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
 58        Driver "synaptics"
 59        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
 60    Option "TapButton1" "1"
 61    Option "TapButton2" "3"
 62    Option "TapButton3" "2"
 63    Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
 64    Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "on"
 65    Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "on"
 66    Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"
 67        Option "VertScrollDelta" "111"
 68        Option "HorizScrollDelta" "111"
 69EndSection
 70
 71   There are a lot more options that can be configured, see
 72   [10]synaptics(4).
 73
 74   Suspend and hibernate just work, thanks to [11]apm(8). Suspend on
 75   lid-close just needs one sysctl tweak:
 76$ sysctl machdep.lidaction=1
 77
 78   I believe it's set to 1 by default on some installs, but I'm not sure.
 79
 80impressions
 81
 82   I already really like the philosophy of OpenBSD -- security and
 83   simplicity, while not losing out on sanity. The default install is
 84   plentiful, and has just about everything you'd need to get going. I
 85   especially enjoy how everything just works! I was pleasantly surprised
 86   to see my brightness and volume keys work without any configuration!
 87   It's clear that the devs actually dogfood OpenBSD, unlike uh, cough
 88   Free- cough. Gosh I hope it's not the flu. :^)
 89
 90   Oh and did you notice all the manpage links I've littered throughout
 91   this post? They have manpages for everything; it's ridiculous. And
 92   they're very thorough. Arch Wiki is good, but it's incorrect at times,
 93   or simply outdated. OpenBSD's manpages, although catering only to
 94   OpenBSD have never failed me.
 95
 96   Performance and battery life are fine. Battery is in fact, identical,
 97   if not better than on Linux. OpenBSD disables HyperThreading/SMT for
 98   security reasons, but you can manually enable it if you wish to do so:
 99$ sysctl hw.smt=1
100
101   Package management is probably the only place where OpenBSD falls
102   short. [12]pkg_add(1) isn't particularly fast, considering it's written
103   in Perl. The ports selection is fine, I have yet to find something that
104   I need not on there. I also wish they debloated packages; maybe I've
105   just been spoilt by KISS. I now have D-Bus on my system thanks to
106   Firefox. :(
107
108   I appreciate the fact that they don't have a political document -- a
109   Code of Conduct. CoCs are awful, and have only proven to be harmful for
110   projects; part of the reason why I'm sick of Linux and its community.
111   Oh wait, OpenBSD does have one: [13]https://www.openbsd.org/mail.html
112   ;)
113
114   I'll be exploring [14]vmd(8) to see if I can get a Linux environment
115   going. Perhaps that'll be my next post, but when have I ever delivered?
116
117   I'll close this post off with my new rice, and a sick ASCII art I made.
118      \. -- --./
119      / ^ ^ ^ \
120    (o)(o) ^ ^ |_/|
121     {} ^ ^ > ^| \|
122      \^ ^ ^ ^/
123       / -- --\
124                    ~icy
125
126   openbsd rice
127
128References
129
130   1. https://github.com/alpinelinux/apk-tools
131   2. http://man.openbsd.org/iwm.4
132   3. http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/6.6/
133   4. http://man.openbsd.org/fw_update.1
134   5. http://man.openbsd.org/hostname.if.5
135   6. http://man.openbsd.org/cwm.1
136   7. https://github.com/icyphox/dotfiles/blob/master/home/.cwmrc
137   8. https://man.openbsd.org/cwmrc.5
138   9. http://man.openbsd.org/wsconsctl.8
139  10. http://man.openbsd.org/synaptics.4
140  11. http://man.openbsd.org/apm.8
141  12. http://man.openbsd.org/pkg_add.1
142  13. https://www.openbsd.org/mail.html
143  14. http://man.openbsd.org/vmd.8