Setting Up OpenBSD on a HP Stream11

To make these changes you'll need to use a text editor. Three come as part of the base system, vi, mg and the graphical xedit, which is probably the most 'friendly' if you're unsure. Alternately if you want to edit from the command line I'd probably recommend installing the nano editor for editing files easily from the command line with pkg_add nano.

My personal revelation was mg editor and is a light Emacs-like editor if you're already accustomed to Emacs keybindings (shortcuts) and all you want to do is edit text¹. Since I use Emacs for most things this is the easiest option for me. If you're also going to use mg, then it's worth creating a .mg config file in the /root directory with the option that makes it save all backup files in a .mg.d directory in your (or root's) home directory, otherwise it leaves backup copies of files scattered through the file-system. (You can spot them, as they are the file name with a trailing ~.) Do this for the root account with:

# echo 'backup-to-home-directory 1' > /root/.mg

Repeat for your own account if necessary.

As root run syspatch and then pkg_add -u to make sure everything is up to date first.

We don't want to be running as root for longer than necessary, so give yourself doas access.

# echo 'permit persist keepenv USERNAME' > /etc/doas.conf

Add yourself to the "staff" group for more system resource access, and the "_shutdown" group so you can turn off the laptop without needing to use doas:

# usermod -G staff,_shutdown USERNAME

You can now turn off the machine with shutdown -p now and not type in a password.

Once added to the staff group, you can adjust the limits set in /etc/logins.conf to be higher, which should help with that demanding web browsing.

staff:\
	:datasize-cur=infinity:\
	:datasize-max=infinity:\
	:maxproc-max=512:\
	:maxproc-cur=1024:\
	:ignorenologin:\
	:requirehome@:\
	:tc=default:

The next improvement is to add the options "softdep"and "noatime" to your partitions in /etc/fstab - except for the swap partition.

YOUR_DISK_ID.b none swap sw
YOUR_DISK_ID.a / ffs rw,softdep,noatime 1 1
YOUR_DISK_ID.l /home ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev,nosuid 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.d /tmp ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev,nosuid 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.f /usr ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.g /usr/X11R6 ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.h /usr/local ffs rw,softdep,noatime,wxallowed,nodev 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.k /usr/obj ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev,nosuid 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.j /usr/src ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev,nosuid 1 2
YOUR_DISK_ID.e /var ffs rw,softdep,noatime,nodev,nosuid 1 2

A number of guides also suggest making changes in /etc/sysctl.conf to improve the performance of your computer by setting certain kernel options at start up, such as shared memory (kern.shiminfo.shmmax) etc. I couldn't find any evidence that this actually made any difference in my case.

hw.smt=1 # Turn on multi-threading
kern.audio.record=1
kern.video.record=1

To enable the power management you need to enable and start the Advance Power Management daemon apmd, which can be done with:

# rcctl enable apmd
# rcctl set apmd flags -A
# rcctl start apmd

The -A flag setting it to automatic mode.

pkg_add obsdfreqd
rcctl enable apmd
rcctl set apmd flags -H
rcctl start apmd
rcctl enable obsdfreqd
rcctl start obsdfreqd

What works is the screen going black when you close the lid, other than that I've not had a lot of luck.

The apm -z command does seem to suspend the laptop, the white power LED starts to flash after a minute and I can close the lid. If I then open the lid again the screen comes back on showing what was previously there on suspension - but then mostly completely locks up, and doesn't respond to any keyboard inputs any more. Once or twice it comes back and then you can interact a bit with a pre-existing Xterm, but not all commands work, often giving a response like input output error, and other shortcuts in CWM, like creating a new terminal don't work. Also if you try to run apm -z again, nothing happens.

Hibernation (apm -Z) isn't any better. The screen goes blank, but the power LED remains on, and then I can't wake it again and the screen remains black with the white power LED glowing continuously. I have to power the laptop off with a long power press.

I had these same problems when I tried suspending and hibernating from a non-X console (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F1), so I'm not sure it's a pure X Window issue.

None of these have caused a kernel panic that results in me landing at the ddb(1) interface to investigate further. I'm not familiar enough with OpenBSD to figure out how do a post mortem on thes issues, or at least not enough to turn it into a useful bug report².

Last change that I'm considering part of the non-personalised set-up is being able to adjust the screen brightness, as the initial value is painful on both the eyes and battery life.

The good news is that it can be easily adjusted from the command line with either xbacklight or wsconsctl, both the commands below set the screen to 50% brightness:

xbacklight -set 50

or

wsconsctl display.brightness=50

The only difference is that xbacklight doesn't require root privileges, and has a fade between brightness levels.

The laptop has a row of shortcut/Function keys on which F2 is brightness down, and F3 is brightness up - but (as with the previous Linux install) these don't work without any configuration. Like last time I'll use xbindkeys (which you have to install) to map these to those actions. Strangely the brightness up/down keys trigger the same keycode, and don't have a symbol (when tested with xbindkeys -k), so as a work around both are bound to brightness down (10%) and shift+the key brings the brightness up by 10%. Create the .xbindkeys config file like this, then start xbindkeys and check it works.

#BrightnessDown
"xbacklight -10"
m:0x0 + c:171
# This doesn't map to the following, but does on linux
# XF86MonBrightnessDown

#BrightnessUp
"xbacklight +10"
    m:0x1 + c:68
    Shift + F2
# XF86MonBrightnessUp

Then when you start xbindkeys under X as part of your .Xsession (see below) you can use those keys.

m:0x0 + c:171
NoSymbol

m:0x0 + c:174
XF86AudioLowerVolume

This is my personal list of minimum programs I needed:

• git
• colorls - the default ls in OpenBSD doesn't colour different types of files, and I find that really useful.
• xpdf
• htop
• yank
• xbindkeys - see above.
• Firefox - or Chrome(ium) if you prefer. I tried both and didn't notice much difference, both ran pretty slowly, even with uBlock origin and other ad blockers installed.
• w3m - A simpler web browser you can run from the command line that doesn't support CSS and JavaScript, but does support images⁴ (if you install that versions, pkg_add gives you the choice).
• feh - For viewing images, also useful to set a background image if that's your thing.
• Emacs - I choose the GTK2 version when prompted, I could have picked GTK3 instead, but I'm not sure practically what the difference is when running it in CWM.
• Hunspell - This is my preferred spell check program, and I use that in Emacs as well. follow up with adding the package mozilla-dicts-ca for the dictionaries (which in my case only installed 'en-GB', I guess it's based on your localisation settings?).

To set Firefox as the default browser to handle links you have to set it with xdg-settings as follows:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox.desktop

Then when you click a link in other applications, like Emacs, it will open it with your choice.

Xenodm is the X display manager, and the first set of chance to set some X based options. I commented out, with #, the line that starts the xconsole as I wasn't using it, and then added the following entries to the bottom of the file to adjust the initial screen brightness, make the keyboard match the UK keyboard on the laptop and turn the bell off. This applies to all users.

....
# Otherwise it burns our eyes
xbacklight -set 50

# To match layout at login time
setxkbmap -layout gb

# Turn off the audio beep
xset b off

The .xsession options are run when you login, and are personal to you. It ends by starting the CWM window manager, which I picked over FVWM and is part of the base install. I found it a little easier to use with the keyboard and not having the title bars helps on the small screen.

# UTF-8 Everywhere
export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8

# Location of ksh config
export ENV=$HOME/.kshrc

# Add .Xresources for appearnce changes
xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources

# Set background colour
xsetroot -solid dimgrey

# Turn off system beep
xset b off

# Turn down the inital screenbrightness (%)
xbacklight -set 50

# set custom bindings in ~/.xbindkeysrc
xbindkeys

# Make caps lock control.
setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps

# Start CWM
exec cwm

Talking of which…

The main changes here are re-mapping most of the keys not to use Control, but instead the Window/Super key (referred to as '4' in the bindings), as it prevents clashes with common Emacs keybindings. The other thing is to make room for a simple terminal based status bar across the top of the screen, called a termbar. The source is just a shell script, and if you're curious you can find it in the code storing these dotfiles. Lastly are the most used programs to launch from the command menu.

# Appeareance and termbar spacing
snapdist	4
sticky		yes
gap 		24 0 0 0
ignore 		"termbar"
autogroup 0	"termbar,termbar"
fontname  	"Courier:pixelsize=18:bold"
color menubg	"orange"
color activeborder	"orange"

# Mouse bindings
unbind-mouse all
bind-mouse 4-1	window-move
bind-mouse 4-2 	window-resize
bind-mouse 4S-1 window-resize

# Keyboard bindings
# 4 is the Windows/Super key, that doesn't conflict with much
# especially Emacs
unbind-key   all

# Window Navigation
bind-key M-Tab	window-cycle
bind-key MS-Tab	window-rcycle

# Window Geometry
# "ijkl" is like the right hand side WASD on UK Keyboards
# and I have no vi(m) muscle memory
bind-key 4-l	window-move-right-big
bind-key 4-j	window-move-left-big
bind-key 4-i	window-move-up-big
bind-key 4-k	window-move-down-big
bind-key 4S-l	window-move-right
bind-key 4S-j	window-move-left
bind-key 4S-i	window-move-up
bind-key 4S-k	window-move-down
bind-key 4C-l	window-resize-right-big
bind-key 4C-j	window-resize-left-big
bind-key 4C-i	window-resize-up-big
bind-key 4C-k	window-resize-down-big

# Window Position
bind-key 4-Right   window-snap-right
bind-key 4-Left	   window-snap-left
bind-key 4-f	   window-maximize	# Honors gaps

# Window Order
bind-key 4-Down	   window-lower
bind-key 4-Up	   window-raise

# Window Control
bind-key 4-x	window-close

# There's sadly no move to right-half screen
# option, but if you vtile (which uses left half)
# and then pick another vmaximize it's only
# a couple of keystrokes.
bind-key 4-v  window-vmaximize
bind-key 4-h	window-vtile

# Group Navigation
bind-key 4-Tab	group-cycle
bind-key 4S-Tab	group-rcycle

bind-key 4-1 group-only-1
bind-key 4-2 group-only-2
bind-key 4-3 group-only-3
bind-key 4-4 group-only-4
bind-key 4S-1 window-movetogroup-1
bind-key 4S-2 window-movetogroup-2
bind-key 4S-3 window-movetogroup-3
bind-key 4S-4 window-movetogroup-4

# Command functions
bind-key 4-space	menu-cmd
bind-key 4-slash 	menu-exec
bind-key 4-Return 	terminal
bind-key 4S-slash 	menu-window
bind-key 4S-r		restart
bind-key 4S-q		quit

# Command window entries
command emacs emacs "-fh --name=Emacs"
command firefox firefox
command w3m xterm "-e w3m https://www.duckduckgo.com"

This is much better explained in other places, but I'll include it for completeness in case it helps anyone solve a specific issue. The Arch Wiki has a good article on the Xresources config, as well as XTerm. Speaking of which I found this XTerm Introduction and the Hidden gems of XTerm articles interesting, as someone who hasn't really used XTerm much before.

For a colour scheme it's easiest to pick one from a collection like the Xresource Themes repo and can be loaded from a separate file with the #include statement.

! Always start in unicode
XTerm*utf8: true

Xft.antialias: true

! Lines of output that you can scroll back over
XTerm*saveLines: 4096
! Turn the scrollbar on, and put it on the right
XTerm*scrollBar: true
XTerm*rightScrollBar: true

! Only select text
XTerm*highlightSelection: true
! Remove trailing spaces
XTerm*trimSelection: true
! and dont include a trailing newline in the selection!
XTerm*cutNewline: false
! Something copied from the internet to change
! what XTerm considers "word delimiters" more useful
XTerm*charClass: 33:48,36-47:48,58-59:48,61:48,63-64:48,95:48,126:48
! select word on two clicks
XTerm*on2Clicks: word
! select whole line on three clicks
XTerm*on3Clicks: line

! set TERM env variable to use 256 colors
XTerm*termName: XTerm-256color
! make alt key work normally
XTerm*vt100.metaSendsEscape: true

! Merge in a nice theme
#include ".dotfiles/resources/base16-gruvbox-dark-pale-256.Xresources"

! Select a nicer font and slightly larger than the default
XTerm*faceName: Courier:size=8:

! Make pasting in things like Firefox easier:
XTerm*selectToClipboard: true

! Adds more 'usual' copy and paste
! functionality with Ctrl+Shift+C/V
! which works better on trackpads without good middle mouse options.
XTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \n\
                 Ctrl Shift <Key>V:    insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\
                 Ctrl Shift <Key>C:    copy-selection(CLIPBOARD)

In the above I specify the font 'Courier' that comes pre-installed and is a nice font. If you spend a lot of time looking at a monospaced font I think you can treat yourself to a nicer one and I very much enjoy Calling Code by Dharma type, but it's not free (in any sense of the word).

To install a custom font, copy the .ttf files into ~/.fonts/ and then run:

fc-cache

To find existing fonts, in this case filtered by mono-spaced regular fonts, that you can run:

fc-list :mono:regular

Then test it in XTerm by launching a new instance, in this case with Courier

xterm -fa "Courier"

In keeping with trying something new I've stuck with the ksh shell that comes in the base install (I have to admit normally my preferred interactive shell is fish, and it is available on OpenBSD too).

Make sure that your KSH preferences in .kshrc are included in the .profile file with:

export ENV=$HOME/.kshrc

and then it will include the following every time you launch a new instance of the shell.

export EDITOR=mg
export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
HISTFILE=$HOME/.ksh_history
HISTSIZE=2000

# Emacs mode
set -o emacs

# use colorls if it's installed, plain old ls otherwise
if command -v colorls > /dev/null ; then
  LS='colorls'
else
  LS='ls'
fi
alias ls="$LS -FHh"
alias ll='ls -l'
alias la='ls -lA'
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ...='cd ...'
alias mkdir='mkdir -p'
alias df='df -h'
alias du='du -ch'
alias goodnight='shutdown -p now'

# Easily copy text to the X Clipboard
alias clip='yank | xsel -b'

# Adjust the prompt, red when root.
_XTERM_TITLE='\[\033]0;\u@\h:\w\007\]'
_PS1_CLEAR='\[\033[0m\]'
_PS1_BLUE='\[\033[34m\]'
case "$(id -u)" in
  0) _PS1_COLOR='\[\033[1;31m\]' ;;
  *) _PS1_COLOR='\[\034[32m\]'   ;;
esac
PS1='$_XTERM_TITLE\A $_PS1_COLOR\u@\h$_PS1_CLEAR:$_PS1_BLUE\w$_PS1_COLOR\$$_PS1_CLEAR '