When I’ve started my migration from privative OS to Linux, after a couple of weeks my first reaction was something like: ¡let’s try them all! I mean, all the linux distributions. Spoiler alert: I couldn’t, there are too many distributions. Even in 1999 there where too many.
After a couple of months of trying different linux flavors I’ve got a new reaction: ¡let’s try all the others OSes!. And this is why I’m showing how to install OpenBSD.
From the OpenBSD website: «The OpenBSD project produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Our efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography. As an example of the effect OpenBSD has, the popular OpenSSH software comes from OpenBSD.»
Download
You can download the latest from here: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Download . I recommend to download the one named install70. iso for burning a CD or working with virtual machines. img to write on a usb memory.
Install
Boot the machine with the chosen media and soon you’ll notice that the installer isn’t exactly “pretty”:
Wait a couple of seconds or press the enter key and the system will boot and then a text based installer launch:
Choose install and next you will see the usual questions when installing any Operating System. When in doubt, press the enter/return key to choose the default value.
The first of those questions is about the keyboard layout. Mine is spanish:
The second question is the hostname. If you only have one network card questions third to sixth are about network configuration. If you don’t use DHCP and or have IPv6 there would be more questions about network.
The seventh and eighth question are the password for root. Ninth to eleventh questions (ssh and XWindow system) just ask yes.
Partition Disk
Next questions are about disk partitioning. I’ve created a VirtualMachine for this, so I’m using all the disk and with MBR and with auto layout:
Besides partitions, the installer will create also the filesystems on those partitions.
Sets
The complete installation is splited in different file sets. I recommend to choose the default values, but here is a list if you want to know them:
- bsd The kernel (required)
- bsd.rd The ramdisk kernel
- base70.tgz The base system (required)
- comp70.tgz The compiler collection, headers and libraries
- man70.tgz Manual pages
- game70.tgz Text-based games
- xbase70.tgz Base libraries and utilities for X11 (requires xshare70.tgz)
- xfont70.tgz Fonts used by X11
- xserv70.tgz X11’s X servers
- xshare70.tgz X11’s man pages, locale settings and includes
But first you will be asked on the set locations (cd0 in my case):
When this sets install is over you will be asked again, choose “done” and you’ll be done:
And this is how to install openbsd 7.0. The installer maybe isn’t pretty or friendly but it’s essentially the same as any other OS.
After the OpenBSD installation
Login with your created user and read the mail with the mail command. The first mail contains information on where to go from here.
Finally you can go to the openbsd web to read more documentation on day-to-day operations: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/index.html
