[user00012-ab]

This article is what is wrong with bsd/linux. You have to write an article about all the things you did to get your desktop to just work like any normal desktop works out of the box.

In a normal world, the article should read "I installed bsd, and just used my computer to do something useful."

[sogubsys]

There's more to it. It isn't a "Use OpenBSD, everything else sucks", it was simply "I used OpenBSD on a Thinkpad T420 and let me tell you about it".

I also posted about that I tried Linux (Ubuntu), FreeBSD, and OpenBSD on the laptop before deciding on OpenBSD. It wasn't made out of stubbornness.

It was simply the right choice for me for that laptop. And I shared my experience getting it up to a state I was used to with my previous Linux workstation (that this laptop replaced).

[azinman2]

But given the amount of steps I do think repeatedly stating how simple and easy things were makes me think your bar is quite low. Compare installation to macOS, it’s a million time so more complicated. If you need a FAQ to configure your system and get wifi working, you’re doing it wrong.

(I also have installed OpenBSD before and found the whole process actually quite complicated and documentation insufficient. YMMV)

[sogubsys]

That may be true, my bar may be low. I started with early BSD and Linux in 1996, and have been happy with minimal, cheap, and command line ever since.

My experience or expectations others may not share. I didn't truly consider that when writing the blog post.

The stuff I complain about is probably less than 5% of the entire experience. So, almost all the time OpenBSD is out of my way and I go about doing what I did with a Linux workstation.

It is mostly web browser and terminals for me, with random apps here and there like gimp or something.

I'm learning kernel and assembly programming and penetration testing, so my use case probably differs from the average user experience, I'd guess.

I'm just a geek enjoying geeking out :)

[umanwizard]

The OpenBSD project has a list of stated goals, and “easy to install on an arbitrary laptop” is not one of them. Nor is “compete with major desktop OSs for mass adoption”.

I love the BSDs but for daily use on a laptop I would prefer macOS by far. How is failing to perfectly fulfill a niche it’s not designed for “what’s wrong” with OpenBSD?

[atq2119]

Throwing Linux in with BSD here is not fair. The experience with the major Linux distribution tends to be exactly this: you install them and stuff just works -- especially on desktop hardware.

[microcolonel]

Well idunno. I don't concern myself with "trends" and such on GNU/Linux, and things generally get better for me year over year. I have used Linux as my main desktop operating system, to do productive work, for years. I pay a bit of attention to the hardware I'm installing it on (which a lot of people I guess don't feel they should need to, but what do they say about macOS?), but other than that it's basically been the same for me for years. I get better peripherals, components, and assembled computers, and the experience gets better in the ways you would expect for that upgrade.

I think in both cases, people could stand to pay a little bit of attention to what hardware they're using. A lot of people aren't used to this because their hardware comes with an OS that is ostensibly "certified" for it, in the way that bugs in the integration can sometimes be warranty claims. Those manufacturers pay attention to whether or not drivers are available for Windows to support the hardware they're shipping, but consumers experience it as "it just works".