On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 6:26 AM, Leonardo Sabino dos Santos <leonardo.sab...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I want to tell you about my experience with OpenBSD. > > I'm a Linux user, but have always wanted to try OpenBSD. The last time > I'd tried installing it was version 4.6 and I didn't get very far. > That version wouldn't install on my notebook at all. The kernel > couldn't recognise my hard drive because of some AHCI incompatibility > on this notebook that I didn't have the expertise to solve, so I went > back to Linux for the time. Two years later, we're on version 5.0, I > decided to give it another try. > > So I downloaded all the package files, wrote them to a USB stick, > created a bootable image with GRUB, booted into the OpenBSD installer > and off we go. Now, this computer already had Windows 7 and Linux, > plus about 16 GB of unpartitioned space where OpenBSD is going. It's > actually the same notebook from two years ago. > > I start answering the installer's questions. Keyboard layout. Root > password. Configuration of network interfaces. I'm not actually paying > a whole lot of attention to the questions as this is just a test > installation and I figure I can always explore and configure the > system later. > > Next, the disk stuff comes up. A lot of partition information appears > on the screen, followed by the question: > > Use (W)hole disk or (E)dit the MBR? [whole]
For the sake of the archive: I have performed similar installations where multibooting OpenBSD with one or more other operating systems already installed. The safest way seems to be to change the partition type of the partition that you intend to install OpenBSD on to a6 (using fdisk in linux)prior to starting the OpenBSD installer. Then when you get to this step in the installer the default is to only use the a6 partition. An example of what the disk should look like prior to starting the installation from pub/OpenBSD/5.0/i386/INSTALL.linux Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 1 211 850720+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M /dev/hda2 212 273 249984 83 Linux native /dev/hda3 274 992 2899008 a6 OpenBSD > At this point I'm actually trying to remember if there's a way to > scroll back the console, because some information has scrolled of the > screen. I try PageUp, PageDown, Ctrl-UpArrow, Ctrl-DownArrow, but > nothing works, so I press Enter. > > And my partition table is gone. Poof! Instantly, with no confirmation. > I immediately realized what had happened and rebooted. Too late. I got > a "No OS" message. It seems that the OpenBSD installer actually > overwrites the partition table the instant you press Enter. > > What saved me was an Ubuntu installation CD and the wonderful tool > gpart (http://www.brzitwa.de/mb/gpart/). With a bit of tinkering in > gpart and some very careful work with the Linux version of fdisk, I > managed to reconstruct the partition table and saved my system. > > Distributing an installation program that can wipe out the user's hard > disk instantly on a single wrong keystroke, without so much as a > confirmation prompt is so shortsighted and irresponsible that I can > barely believe it. This is not about being an expert user or knowing > what you want to do, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do. This > is about incredibly stupid user interface design. Sorry, it's just too > unbelievable that someone would think that this is actually a good > idea. > > I joined this mailing list just to tell you this: Right now, I feel > like never, ever touching OpenBSD with a ten-foot pole again. > > Regards, > > - Leonardo
