17 April, 2020

OpenBSD on the HP Envy 13

I put a blowfish in my laptop this week

   My existing KISS install broke because I thought it would be a great
   idea to have [1]apk-tools alongside the kiss package manager. It's safe
   to say, that did not end well -- especially when I installed, and then
   removed a package. With a semi-broken install that I didn't feel like
   fixing, I figured I'd give OpenBSD a try. And I did.

installation and setup

   Ran into some trouble booting off the USB initially, turned out to be a
   faulty stick. Those things aren't built to last, sadly. Flashed a new
   stick, booted up. Setup was pleasant, very straightforward. Didn't
   really have to intervene much.

   After booting in, I was greeted with a very archaic looking FVWM
   desktop. It's not the prettiest thing, and especially annoying to work
   with when you don't have your mouse setup, i.e. no tap-to-click.

   I needed wireless, and my laptop doesn't have an Ethernet port. USB
   tethering just works, but the connection kept dying. I'm not sure why.
   Instead, I downloaded the [2]iwm(4) firmware from [3]here, loaded it up
   on a USB stick and copied it over to /etc/firmware. After that, it was
   as simple as running [4]fw_update(1) and the firmware is auto-detected
   and loaded. In fact, if you have working Internet, fw_update will
   download the required firmware for you, too.

   Configuring wireless is painless and I'm so glad to see that there's no
   wpa_supplicant horror to deal with. It's as simple as:
$ doas ifconfig iwm0 nwid YOUR_SSID wpakey YOUR_PSK

   Also see [5]hostname.if(5) to make this persist. After that, it's only
   a matter of specifying your desired SSID, and ifconfig will
   automatically auth and procure an IP lease.
$ doas ifconfig iwm0 nwid YOUR_SSID

   By now I was really starting to get exasperated by FVWM, and decided to
   switch to something nicer. I tried building 2bwm (my previous WM), but
   that failed. I didn't bother trying to figure this out, so I figured
   I'd give [6]cwm(1) a shot. Afterall, people sing high praises of it.

   And boy, is it good. The config is a breeze, and actually pretty
   powerful. [7]Here's mine. cwm also has a built-in launcher, so dmenu
   isn't necessary anymore. Refer to [8]cwmrc(5) for all the config
   options.

   Touchpad was pretty simple to setup too -- OpenBSD has [9]wsconsctl(8),
   which lets you set your tap-to-click, mouse acceleration etc. However,
   more advanced configuration can be achieved by getting Xorg to use the
   Synaptics driver. Just add a 70-synaptics.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
   (make the dir if it doesn't exist), containing:
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    Option "TapButton1" "1"
    Option "TapButton2" "3"
    Option "TapButton3" "2"
    Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
    Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "on"
    Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "on"
    Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"
        Option "VertScrollDelta" "111"
        Option "HorizScrollDelta" "111"
EndSection

   There are a lot more options that can be configured, see
   [10]synaptics(4).

   Suspend and hibernate just work, thanks to [11]apm(8). Suspend on
   lid-close just needs one sysctl tweak:
$ sysctl machdep.lidaction=1

   I believe it's set to 1 by default on some installs, but I'm not sure.

impressions

   I already really like the philosophy of OpenBSD -- security and
   simplicity, while not losing out on sanity. The default install is
   plentiful, and has just about everything you'd need to get going. I
   especially enjoy how everything just works! I was pleasantly surprised
   to see my brightness and volume keys work without any configuration!
   It's clear that the devs actually dogfood OpenBSD, unlike uh, cough
   Free- cough. Gosh I hope it's not the flu. :^)

   Oh and did you notice all the manpage links I've littered throughout
   this post? They have manpages for everything; it's ridiculous. And
   they're very thorough. Arch Wiki is good, but it's incorrect at times,
   or simply outdated. OpenBSD's manpages, although catering only to
   OpenBSD have never failed me.

   Performance and battery life are fine. Battery is in fact, identical,
   if not better than on Linux. OpenBSD disables HyperThreading/SMT for
   security reasons, but you can manually enable it if you wish to do so:
$ sysctl hw.smt=1

   Package management is probably the only place where OpenBSD falls
   short. [12]pkg_add(1) isn't particularly fast, considering it's written
   in Perl. The ports selection is fine, I have yet to find something that
   I need not on there. I also wish they debloated packages; maybe I've
   just been spoilt by KISS. I now have D-Bus on my system thanks to
   Firefox. :(

   I appreciate the fact that they don't have a political document -- a
   Code of Conduct. CoCs are awful, and have only proven to be harmful for
   projects; part of the reason why I'm sick of Linux and its community.
   Oh wait, OpenBSD does have one: [13]https://www.openbsd.org/mail.html
   ;)

   I'll be exploring [14]vmd(8) to see if I can get a Linux environment
   going. Perhaps that'll be my next post, but when have I ever delivered?

   I'll close this post off with my new rice, and a sick ASCII art I made.
      \. -- --./
      / ^ ^ ^ \
    (o)(o) ^ ^ |_/|
     {} ^ ^ > ^| \|
      \^ ^ ^ ^/
       / -- --\
                    ~icy

   openbsd rice

References

   1. https://github.com/alpinelinux/apk-tools
   2. http://man.openbsd.org/iwm.4
   3. http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/6.6/
   4. http://man.openbsd.org/fw_update.1
   5. http://man.openbsd.org/hostname.if.5
   6. http://man.openbsd.org/cwm.1
   7. https://github.com/icyphox/dotfiles/blob/master/home/.cwmrc
   8. https://man.openbsd.org/cwmrc.5
   9. http://man.openbsd.org/wsconsctl.8
  10. http://man.openbsd.org/synaptics.4
  11. http://man.openbsd.org/apm.8
  12. http://man.openbsd.org/pkg_add.1
  13. https://www.openbsd.org/mail.html
  14. http://man.openbsd.org/vmd.8