What does your non-Debian desktop look like?

[ruffwoof]

Thanks Head_on_a_stick

[RU55EL]

My "little" computer after upgrade from Rasbian 8 to Raspbian9.1 and the 8 GB SD card with a 8 GB USB drive replaced with a 32 GB SD card:



Now seeding Debian 9.2.1 (was seeding 9.2.0)

[ruffwoof]

Nice RU55EL

Similar to my recent Debian Stretch 'upgrade' (reinstalled using netinst to upgrade from Jessie) - but I'm not using tmux.



That's a LXDE DE install, with 3 gkrellm's (top left) sized to fit in with the reduced width panel so that 'animated' system activity is still visible when a program is full screen (panel still visible). Menu has been mapped to the clock (left click clock shows the menu), and two undecorated xterms, one to show a htop summary, the other running mc. Mouse over set to sloppy focus (whatever is under the mouse is brought into focus, so quicker/easier to type a command into mc's command line) and the 2 xterms are set to below (so act somewhat like being the wallpaper). xterm's Ctrl left-mouse brings up its menu so for instance the small htop can be maximised to being full screen.

[GarryRicketson]

Recently upgraded OpenBsd to 6.2


Two of the many advantages to OpenBsd that I like is the simple easy
upgrade process and the syspatch feature, that helps keep security patches up-to-date.
The "pkg_add" also is nice, and makes installing packages very simple,straight forward.

[ruffwoof]

Recently upgraded OpenBsd to 6.2


Two of the many advantages to OpenBsd that I like is the simple easy
upgrade process and the syspatch feature, that helps keep security patches up-to-date.
The "pkg_add" also is nice, and makes installing packages very simple,straight forward.

Once I dropped nvidia to use the onboard radeon I liked OpenBSD quite a lot. One issue however I had was with installation to a partition. All too easy to have it install to the full disk and lose everything else (I multi-boot) as it does major changes without warning. I gave up with trying to install it to a partition as its disk partition program was too difficult for me in the end (far from intuitive/easy).

Nicer that freebsd IMO if you're more inclined to pre-built packages as pretty much installs configured whereas with freebsd you have to read a lot to figure out the configurations.

Another downside for me was the frequency and potential intensity of upgrades. With Debian its much easier to just stick with older program versions for longer but have security issues patched. OpenBSD is more prone to updates breaking things such as different configuration files being used in later versions of programs such that after a upgrade some things might not work as before and involve further investigation/effort (not so good if primarily you just want a working 'office/end user' type system).

[Head_on_a_Stick]

One issue however I had was with installation to a partition. All too easy to have it install to the full disk and lose everything else (I multi-boot) as it does major changes without warning. I gave up with trying to install it to a partition as its disk partition program was too difficult for me in the end (far from intuitive/easy).

The trick is to use gdisk (for GPT drives) of fdisk (for msdos drives) to create the OpenBSD disklabel before running the installer — select type a600 in gdisk or type a6 in fdisk — and then use the default option in the partitioning stage to install to that disklabel and leave the rest of the disk alone.

OpenBSD is more prone to updates breaking things such as different configuration files being used in later versions of programs

That will only happen with -current and is quite normal for a rolling-release model.

For -release and -stable, the APIs are guaranteed to be fixed and any patches for -stable will only be applied if they do not necessitate a change to the relevant man page.

Back on topic:

[None1975]

In OpenBSD, hardware support is terrible. Especially nvidia.

[ruffwoof]

For -release and -stable, the APIs are guaranteed to be fixed and any patches for -stable will only be applied if they do not necessitate a change to the relevant man page.

Worked great thanks. (fdisk to create a a6 and installed to that, now dual booting fine). For -release and just using pre-built packages (pkg_add), what would you suggest in the way of security updates for a basic single user desktop setup. Just run syspatch periodically perhaps and just leave third party programs as-is?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

In OpenBSD, hardware support is terrible.

Whilst I would certainly agree that the range of hardware supported under OpenBSD is less than that for GNU/Linux, I would strongly disagree that hardware support per se is anything less than superb — my ThinkPad X201 performs better than under Linux with lower running temperatures and native backlight support, something that was lost to one of Linux's all-too-frequent regressions many years ago

Especially nvidia.

Well, NVIDIA do not supply their source code (unlike AMD & Intel) so it is not surprising the support in OpenBSD is rather poor, no?

@ruffwoof, use -current for a desktop system and stay on top of the API changes, it becomes just like Arch then

Also, people are expecting screenshots here rather than a discussion so...

[archimboldo]

Arch linux

[ruffwoof]

@ruffwoof, use -current for a desktop system and stay on top of the API changes, it becomes just like Arch then

Also, people are expecting screenshots here rather than a discussion so...

So would syspatch (for core) and pkg_add -u (for third party progs) generally suffice for a desktop setup? (I've not used Arch).

OpenBSD 6.2 with jwm and pcmanfm --desktop

Large date/clock is one gkrellm, another (showing CPU usage/pulsing bar) gkrellm in bottom left sized to blend in with the reduced width tray (running programs show as icons starting to just right of that), so that still visible when programs are maximised.



Up/Down arrows just right of radiotray (left of tray clock/calendar) is for sound up/down i.e. keybinds and tray buttons (in ~/.jwmrc) of

Code: Select all

<TrayButton popup="" icon="/usr/local/share/icons/Adwaita/48x48/actions/view-sort-ascending.png">exec:mixerctl outputs.master=-12</TrayButton>
        <TrayButton popup="" icon="/usr/local/share/icons/Adwaita/48x48/actions/view-sort-descending.png">exec:mixerctl outputs.master=+12</TrayButton>

<Key mask="C" key="Up">exec:mixerctl outputs.master=+12</Key>
<Key mask="C" key="Down">exec:mixerctl outputs.master=-12</Key>

Print screen is set to capture screen to mtpaint after a 3 sec delay

<Key mask="" key="Print">exec:sleep 3;mtpaint -s</Key>

Clock in tray is set so left click acts as showdesktop toggle and right click activates the menu (in keeping with how right clicking osmo offers calendar/notes ...etc and right clicking libreoffice -quickstart offers word processor, spreadsheet ... etc.).

I've no shutdown option as running as user that doesn't have the authority to shutdown, a quick press of the PC's power button triggers a shutdown action. xenodm is set to autlogin as user.

As Head_on_a_Stick says, runs very quiet/light/cool. htop shows 0% for all 4 of my cores when the PC is idle. All works fine with my hardware (Acer Aspire 2GB AMD Phenom Quad with Radeon ATI HD3200). Wasn't so good when I had a nvidia 8600GT pci plugged in/being used (worked but graphics such as moving windows around were a little sluggish), so I just removed that and fell back to using the onboard ATI which works fine (OK video playback, moving windows around ...etc.).

[None1975]

Well, NVIDIA do not supply their source code (unlike AMD & Intel) so it is not surprising the support in OpenBSD is rather poor, no?

Hello. I understand it. But what about open source video drivers for Nvidia cards? I mean Nouveau.

[GarryRicketson]

Arch linux

Nice screen shot, looks good.
This is a script I use , to change my backgrounds:

[Head_on_a_Stick]

But what about open source video drivers for Nvidia cards? I mean Nouveau.

The opinion of the OpenBSD developers is that the existence of the nouveau drivers encourages NVIDIA to keep their code closed so they have no interest in investing any time and effort into it.

Anyway, the OpenBSD DRM tree has been synchronised with Linux so perhaps you could try porting nouveau yourself...

@ruffwoof, syspatch(8) is only for -stable, to update -current boot from the ramdisk kernel (type bsd.rd and press <Return> at the boot prompt) and select "Upgrade" from the menu then reboot and run `pkg_add -u` to bring your ports up to date.

[ruffwoof]

Thanks