[elmore]

I've always had an OpenBSD desktop, but for the most part I've always preferred a FreeBSD desktop to OpenBSD. Well recently I installed OpenBSD on my primary laptop because I have been doing a lot of OpenBSD work lately with my company Pretty Red Star.

I haven't seriously checked out OpenBSD as a desktop in probably a year and a half, after running my new OpenBSD laptop now for a week, I've decided I don't need anything else. OpenBSD has come a long long way in the desktop arena and I think it's time for every OpenBSD fan to give it a serious look if you haven't lately.

I'm running everything I need right now and nothing I don't, and I am completely loving it. Perhaps later I'll post up some new screenshots of my OpenBSD laptop.

Cheers!

[tarballed]

I'm running everything I need right now and nothing I don't, and I am completely loving it. Perhaps later I'll post up some new screenshots of my OpenBSD laptop.


Right on....sounds great...I look forward to seeing your screenshots...

Tarballed

[z0mbix]

I'm thinking about doing the same soon. I just have my first 30GB dedicated to windows so I'd have to reinstall the lot to get OpenBSD installed :(

One day...

[tarballed]

Just thought i'd jump back in this thread...

Im getting another computer at work here and i'd really really like to put *BSD on it and im starting to lean towards OpenBSD...

I just feel that if I jump into *BSD, I will learn so much more so much faster. The option to use Ports, CVS, all the cool nifty little things that seperate *BSD from everyone else is very appealing...

Two things I love: I love to learn and I love a challenge...

Also, since this will be my 3rd computer at work, i'd like to grab a second monitor and have a setup where I can have a monitor open all the time viewing logs on my server...be fun...and look cool.

T.

[jond]

OpenBSD, as a desktop, is simply wonderful. I have used OpenBSD, on my laptop, for 16 months now. I must say it works extremely well. I use Mozilla 1.6 as a browser, Gnumeric 1.2.13 for spreadsheets and the Ted word processor for doing most of my word processing. I also have the commercial TextMaker, running under Linux emulation, for the occassional Microsoft *.doc that I recieve. I use xpdf for *.pdf's.
I have OpenBSD 3.6 here (which I updated from 3.5 in November 2004). I also recommend getting Michael Lucas's book "Absolute OpenBSD", which I found to be very well written.

[z0mbix]

I know this is an old thread, but I've been using OpenBSD on my Desktop workstation at work since 3.6, now 3.7 and will go to 3.8. I have a windows Laptop which unfortunately alot of the work I do relies on, but I would be totally lost without my OBSD workstation. Alot of the time it just sits there showing network statistics/monitoring. It's very very handy to have. It runs on a small nexcom box with 3 interfaces, so I also use it as a router and transparent proxy for my laptop and so I am on a seperate network from everyone else, protected by PF. Quite unnessecary but it was fun and very interesting to set this all up.

z0mbix

[schotty]

Interesting that I happened to hit this thread, I am looking at slapping OpenBSD on my desktop to relpace Windows XP and Linspire. I think that unless the laptop can handle it that this would be the best place (guranteed hardware support).

I just am in withdrawal. Linux is nice and all, but OpenBSD is like crack -- once you start using it, it is a serious addiction. Unless its just me being ... nuts. Ehh, oh well.

[Kernel_Killer]

About time you got rid of that bastard child *cringe* Linspire....

I suggest a better beer from now on.

[z0mbix]

I'm bored and considering this great forum isn't used enough I thought I'd post a few things. I'm still using OpenBSD on my workstation at work. It's great and does everything I need (sysadminy type stuff). I've always stuck with RELEASE + patches, but a few weeks ago I decided to give CURRENT a try and I'm very happ y with it atm. I installed a snapshot and have been using Han's "OpenBSD-binary-upgrade" script to upgrade. How do you all stay current?

I'm a big GNOME fan, but as the GNOME version in OpenBSD is quite old I've moved to xfce4 and very happy. It's fast and still very usable/easy on the eye.

[Strog]

There's a couple ways to do this: binary or source

A binary upgrade is the quickest/easiest way to keep up to date. Grab the latest snapshot and perform an upgrade. You can keep a bsd.rd (ramdisk install) (http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#bsd.rd) on the harddrive and just do a boot hd0a:/bsd.rd at the boot prompt to go into the install. Fetch the latest snap from there and off you go. It's not a bad idea to keep bsd.rd around on any OpenBSD machine in case you need an emergency shell or want to add sets if you didn't do a full install initially.

Building from source (http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html#Bld) is more cpu and time intensive but isn't terrible on a reasonable machine. You can dig more into the process this way but you don't gain much else by going source over binary.

Either way you upgrade, you should check current changes (http://www.openbsd.org/faq/current.html) to make any postinstall changes needed (update users, groups, etc.). Also keep in mind that your ports tree should be updated when you update the world. They are developed together and sync'ed against the current version. You can get away with them being a little out of sync but the farther they get the more chances of issues cropping up.