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When OpenBSD is first connected to a disk drive, and there is no on-disk OpenBSD disklabel already present -- OpenBSD will scan the MBR/GPT partition table and look for any pre-existing, recognized "foreign" MBR/GPT filesystem. It will build a virtual disklabel, pre-populated with any of these recognized filesystems, starting with disklabel partition letter "i". If there is already an OpenBSD disklabel on-disk, it will not scan the MBR or GPT partition table, and will only use what it finds on the on-disk disklabel. Therefore, if you have pre-existing MBR/GPT partitions, OpenBSD will find them when first installed. If you created these MBR/GPT partitions AFTER OpenBSD has written its disklabel, you must add these partitions to the disklabel manually.
I ran one or two partial installs that didn't work because I was trying to copy the sets off a CD that I hadn't booted from. So I had to crash them. That means that on the install that worked, I already had a BSD partition ready to go. So it seems my Linux partitions are probably not registered. I shall need to edit them into the disklabel so that I can mount them and copy stuff over. Then I can send the info the bsd people are asking for.
but I think I know how to do it. I just have to copy the /etc/rc.conf file to create a local config file and edit that.
It's detailed in the faq11 (see link in above post).
You can either edit /etc/rc.conf.local to enable it, or use the rcctl(8) method described there:
Code:
# rcctl enable xenodm
# rcctl start xenodm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hazel
And the kernel keeps complaining about my usb mouse losing and remaking contact.
grep dmesg for anything usb related. If it's not a loose connection, it's likely a controller/hub problem. Does the mouse work despite this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hazel
I need to understand how it does networking. In Linux I have only two network interfaces, loopback and the ethernet card, but BSD gives me two more and I have no idea yet what they are. And the device names are weird. I can't see the logic yet.
The device names are actually quite logical. They are the name of the driver plus a numeric ID number:
I ran one or two partial installs that didn't work because I was trying to copy the sets off a CD that I hadn't booted from. So I had to crash them. That means that on the install that worked, I already had a BSD partition ready to go. So it seems my Linux partitions are probably not registered. I shall need to edit them into the disklabel so that I can mount them and copy stuff over. Then I can send the info the bsd people are asking for.
The project appreciate your dmesg, in order to know what hardware works and what does not:
I just checked the Linux /var/log/messages for mouse stuff. Most days, there's just the three initialisation messages. For last Wednesday, there are three sets of these but they seem well spaced out in time. The BSD ones are almost constant. So I don't think this is a loose plug. I think it's the BSD kernel being pernickety.
I shan't know if the mouse works in BSD until I get X up and running. There doesn't seem to be anything like gpm, not by default anyway.
There's so much literature! It's like being locked in a library! OK, I'm getting together a list of stuff to do tomorrow.
1) Set up the X display manager.
2) Find where my Linux partitions are and, if necessary, get them recognised so I can mount them.
3) Try out the mouse daemon. btw I was surprised to find out just now from one of your links that scrollback on consoles often doesn't work in OpenBSD. It works on my machine and I've been using it automatically. It's something a Linux user would just assume is there.
4) Learn a bit more about device nomenclature.
3) Try out the mouse daemon. btw I was surprised to find out just now from one of your links that scrollback on consoles often doesn't work in OpenBSD.
It doesn't. Usually the advice is to use tmux(1) for that kind of thing. I tend to mostly work with terminal emulators within X, so it doesn't bother me so much. If I am using a VT and know output won't fit on the screen and need it to, I will use a pager such as less(1).
//edit: Be aware that wsmoused(8) might conflict with X. If you enable it to see if your mouse is working, you'll probably want to kill it before starting X. I've had problems with this kind of thing with FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD in the past, so always disable any console mouse support.
//edit: Be aware that wsmoused(8) might conflict with X. If you enable it to see if your mouse is working, you'll probably want to kill it before starting X. I've had problems with this kind of thing with FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD in the past, so always disable any console mouse support.
Yes, the man page warns you about that. It's a pity in a way because I've grown used to using GPM's middle-button paste in X. It's much quicker that ctrl-C/ctrl-V.
I've found out what one of my extra network interfaces is: enc0. It's a virtual interface for use in VPNs. Not that I've ever used a VPN. They sound like an excellent idea but I wouldn't know how to set one up.
PS: the other interface is a packet logger. I can't imagine ever wanting to use that. I imagine it's for diagnostic purposes if you think you are being hacked.
Last edited by hazel; 12-10-2019 at 10:28 AM.
Reason: Added PS
Yes, the man page warns you about that. It's a pity in a way because I've grown used to using GPM's middle-button paste in X. It's much quicker that ctrl-C/ctrl-V.
Middle mouse works for me in xterm and other terminal emulators. That's not dependent on a console mouse driver.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hazel
I've found out what one of my extra network interfaces is: enc0. It's a virtual interface for use in VPNs. Not that I've ever used a VPN. They sound like an excellent idea but I wouldn't know how to set one up.
The man page for enc(4) explains this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hazel
PS: the other interface is a packet logger. I can't imagine ever wanting to use that. I imagine it's for diagnostic purposes if you think you are being hacked.
pflog(4) may hold some clues on that, if that's what you refer to? It's part of pf(4), which is OpenBSD's well respected packet filter.
OK. I enabled xenodm and we'll see if X comes up next time I boot. I managed to bring the files I want to post over to Linux via a usb key with a vfat filesystem on it. It's a good thing I had one! OpenBSD seems to be completely incompatible with ext filesystems. I found all my Linux partitions in the BSD disklabel (hurrah!) but I could only mount them read-only.
In the mean time, here is a sample mouse grumble from BSD's dmesg:
Code:
wsmouse0 detached
ums0 detached
uhidev0 detached
uhidev0 at uhub1 port 4 configuration 1 interface 0 "PixArt Lenovo Optical USB Mouse" rev 1.10/1.00 addr 4
uhidev0: iclass 3/1
ums0 at uhidev0: 3 buttons, Z dir
wsmouse0 at ums0 mux 0
This happens over and over. There seem to be three synonymous devices here. I'll see if I can find out what they are.
PS: It seems that wsmouse is the specific mouse driver, ums is a general input driver (something like evdev I suppose) and uhidev0 must be some kind of even more general usb device, though the name suggests it's definitely for the human interface and not storage. This kind of layering must be a BSD thing; I've never met anything like it in Linux.
Last edited by hazel; 12-10-2019 at 04:09 PM.
Reason: Added PS
Distribution: VM Host: Slackware-current, VM Guests: Artix, Venom, antiX, Gentoo, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenIndiana
Posts: 1,008
Rep:
I have OpenBSD installed as VM client. Though OpenBSD does support VitrualBox, it is easy to set resolution at 1920x969x32 (in my case).
I don't use KDE, rather xfce. The advantage of virtual box is hardware: standard and quite conservative and you can skip EFI. All works without a hitch. File exchange over samba (or nfs) with host. Only missing part is copy/paste buffer between host and client but this is not really a problem.
Hurrah, I have X! Xenodm puts it up on console 5, not console 4 like startx. Window manager is fvwm, which I used to love but can barely remember now. I think it must have changed a lot since my Red Hat days because I distinctly remember a bottom panel/taskbar but that isn't there any more, not even as a listed module. But the really important thing is that as soon as X comes up, my mouse stops detaching and reattaching itself. So that is definitely a driver problem, not a loose plug.
So far, I've only done a few small things like giving myself sudo/doas access and setting up a left-handed mouse. I've also created a mountpoint for my data partition and put it into fstab so that it will be mounted at startup. Linux ext4 partitions can only be mounted -ro but at least that means I can copy in one direction. And I've twigged how I can do it in the other direction without having to fool around with usb keys: use the EFI system partition as a temporary store. It's vfat so BSD can write to it.
The two most important jobs are to update the software and fix cron so that it does the maintenance jobs when the system is up. It's no good scheduling them for overnight. The problem is that I keep getting distracted by the literature!
Can someone please explain why the startup sequence stops for a long time on ordering libraries. Is this normal?
Now I've really screwed things up and can't find a way to proceed. Someone give me a hint!
What happened was this: I put my main data partition (/dev/sd0m -t ext4) into fstab for automount on /home/data. That's where I have it in all my linuxen. OpenBSD thinks it's corrupt and won't let the boot go any further unless I fsck it. I don't want to do that because it's never a good idea to fsck a filesystem from an alien OS and I have all my personal files on that disk. So I tried to edit the fstab to comment that line out. But the root partition is mounted read only at that stage of the boot.
So I did what I would have done in Linux: rebooted from an external disk to fix the problem. I have that little usb image that I was trying (and failing) to install from, and I thought I could mount the sd0a partition read-write from there and do the edit. But in that setup, I can't even find the disk! The kernel reports finding the drive as sd0 but there are no sd0 partitions in the /dev directory of the usb.
I rebooted into Linux and fscked the partition from there (it's sda5 as far as Linux is concerned) and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I suspect the problem is that OpenBSD treats it as ext2 and is confused by the differences.
What do I do now? The only thing I can think of is to dump the partition, let OpenBSD fsck it (and maybe fsck it up!), edit /etc/fstab to get out of the mess and, if need be, restore the partition under Linux afterwards. But obviously I'd prefer another solution if there is one.
I do not know how you got OpenBSD to run and not FreeBSD. Isn't OpenBSD somewhat inferior to FreeBSD? it branched off in FreeBSD earlier stages and has been developed slowly from there, whereas FreeBSD has finally gotten ext2 type FileSystem to read and write. Even though I have some problems with auto mounting my on board drives, where they don't auto mount, yet if it were Linux I still see them in my file manager if I open it up, pcmanfm, or thunar.
this just gives me the option there should be one main file system type that everyone can use for people that dual (multi) boot Operating Systems.
nevertheless, it seems to me if you can get OpenBSD to boot, then you should be able to get FreeBSD to do the same, where there abilities to deal with Linux type file system ext2,3,4 appers to be better then OpenBSD obviously does not / is not doing so, by your post in here on this matter. Even though I do have some problems with mounting partitions and USB at times myself in FreeBSD. it is quirky to say the least.
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