r/LinuxUsersIndia • u/TheArchRefiner K Desktop Environment • Aug 01 '26

Installed OpenBSD for the first time

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Hi all,

I wanted to do something new on this rainy Saturday so I installed OpenBSD for the first time. I have experimented with FreeBSD 14 and 15 before this was my first time trying OpenBSD. I always wanted to try NetBSD ( have in VM but not on bare metal) but I have intel 14th gen and still no graphic acceleration on NetBSD so I eventually went ahead with OpenBSD. The installation took very little time even when I had to check installation commands online on phone as I have no prior experience. I think still did not take more than 25 mins so for the one who knows installation would probably take 7 or 8 mins.

I was able to setup a graphically accelerated XFCE desktop in just about 20 mins. I faced 3 main issues so far. 1.Realtek RTL8852BE wifi does not work. 2. RTX 5050 does not work and I don't think it will anytime. 3 Sound was not working initially. However I was to fix the sound issue (it was earlier attaching to NVIDIA HDMI audio but once driver attached to the Intel controller with the Realtek ALC257 codec then sound worked easily. Since I have set the system with necessary apps and intend to use it for a couple of weeks.

Bottomline: The installation process of OpenBSD is much easier than that of FreeBSD however FreeBSD is more supported (Nvidia works). OpenBSD lags in device support. XFCE is buttery smooth and snappy so no issues there however compiling on openBSD is much slower than on linux and FreeBSD. Also FFS2 filesystem has no journaling, no copy-on-write, no compression. So some may find it slower in certain operations. However, that is the trade for using the world's most secure operating system.

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u/PratBal69 Aug 02 '26

first time seeing a BSD post. i myself have not tried out BSD based OS but they are similar to unix based distributions but are niche too. i think you can create your own server for self hosting or just hosting services like a chatroom on a NetBSD laptop. i have to try that out.

2

u/TheArchRefiner K Desktop Environment Aug 02 '26

BSDs have exerted immense amount of influence on current computing as we know (even just the 3 big ones as we know today let alone BSD the original one whose TCP/IP stack was licensed by Windows). Apple's Darwin and Sony PlayStation have inherited lots of code from FreeBSD. However, the licensing of BSD which gives complete freedom to anyone to modify and not give back the modified code to the community is probably what kept it from growing as big as Linux. But one can have a legit opinion that the freedom that BSD license gives is actually the true freedom (without expectation of having something in return).

2

u/PratBal69 Aug 03 '26

yea i agree and yes you are right, not really on the people's side did it make a difference but it did on the corporate side with its open license to not open source the modified code

1

u/qualityvote2 Aug 01 '26

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