OpenBSD NC4200: Firefox 3.5, mp3blaster, using proxy @ office, xscreensaver installed.

Heyya,

Today I brought my machine to the office, just want to test out the internet connection using proxy. I tried setting up the http_proxy but can't get the connection to work. Tried lynx and pkg_add without any success. I set the proxy server using:

# export http_proxy=http://my.proxy.server:8080/

DHCP is up, my bge0 LAN is working but still can't connect to OpenBSD for surfing or adding packages. Currently I saw people asking the same question so I'm going to search for some answer here.

On the other hand, I installed Firefox and using the Firefox's own connection setting, I can set the same proxy and my Firefox can browse the internet! Yeah! It took me a while to find the way to start Firefox and the program name is firefox35. So in wmii, just hit [MODKey]+[P], find "firefox35" and press [enter].

I've installed mp3blaster and boy I really missed it! Nearly everything is working fine except for decreasing/increasing the volume level. Ughh. Will play with that later as I just installed it a few mins ago. And wow the sound of this laptop is quite loud fer a single speaker! To run mp3blaster, just open a terminal and type "mp3laster".

Oh, I also installed xscreensaver. Been quite a long time since I play with this bugger. I insert "xscreensaver &" (without ") in my .xsession just above "wmii". My .xsession looks like this:

xscreensaver &
wmii

And it's working great! Oh not to mention I need to set the screensaver using "xscreensaver-demo" program.

So far, it's been a blast. The internet if fast (yeah well corporate network..). Later!

OpenBSD NC4200: Reinstalled 4.6 with new disk layout.

Heyya,

I done reinstallation for 4.6. Actually it's my 2nd installation for today. Hopefully it's the last. Made a mistake in previous installation for not creating a home partition. The root partition got filled up very quickly as it's not big. And not to mentioned I gave usr everything else on the disk. So now my choice for the new partition is:

/ = 1G
swap = 1G
/var = 7G
/usr = 13G
/tmp = 4G
/home = the rest

Previously I installed mrxvt term to replace the default xterm. The transparency support is great as I've put a wallpaper using feh and my now my wmii looks awesome!

Now I'll be using the OpenBSD machine for PostgreSQL, some interaction fictions, maybe PHP. Really missed those things. Maybe I'll post a screenshot later. If I'm not lazy.

OpenBSD NC4200: Up and running, online with Wimax & DHCP.

Done installing OpenBSD 4.6 i386. Seems to be ok. I'm using P1 Wimax at home and here's what I did to get my OpenBSD's box online. I tried using static IP, I can ping the P1's DNS server but can't get through non-ip's url (eg: www.yahoo.com). I'm guessing that nameserver is the culprit. So for the time being, I had to use DHCP. I'm doing this by the book so you can head to OpenBSD Networking FAQ to know about it. My Ethernet device is bge0 so I just type:

# echo dhcp > /etc/hostname.bge0

And then after restarting, my OpenBSD box can surf the net. Well with lynx that is. I'll install Firefox later.

So internet is working, now to install packages. Also shamelessly using OpenBSD Packages & Ports FAQ, I just type:

# export PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.openbsd.or.id/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/packages/i386/

As you can see, I'm using Indonesian's OpenBSD ftp server to install my packages. I've install wmii and it's working fine. Kinda missed (and forgot) the environment. All the dependencies packages got installed flawlessly. I love it! corewars is also installed but didn't get the chance to play with it. So, later then.

OpenBSD with HP NC4200

Yeah it's been long. I've given the NC4000 to my wife and now I have another laptop. It's a NC4200. OpenBSD 4.6 is out and I've installed the release to NC4200. Currently I have this notification after it installed and running:

acpitz3: TZ4_: failed to read _TMP
acpitz3: TZ4_: failed to read temp

I'm currently searching for some clues and so far I know that this is related to temperature sensor. There's a person who have the same issue and he's using HP's laptop too. I have to dig deeper. Other than that, 4.6 is running great! X is installed and working. Now to get the wmii installed.

I never managed to set up the networking last time I installed OpenBSD in NC4000. So now I'll try and set it up to my Wimax connection. Unfortunately I don't have WiFi at home so that will be a distant experiment.

I'm still wishing that I get a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 for my OpenBSD laptop. Yummm..

OpenBSD NC4000: My uname -a and installed packages.

Here's the uname -a.

OpenBSD vambsd.vampire.org 4.4 GENERIC#1021 i386

Well. Yeah. Unlike FreeBSD's long output, OpenBSD's version is way shorter. I'll post the dmesg output soon hopefully.

Here's the list of currently installed packages:

dmenu-3.7
libiconv-1.12
libixp-0.4p0
screen-4.0.3p1
wmii-3.6p1

So wmii and GNU Screen is working fine. I'm still trying to install Awesome, FluxBox & Corewars and still there's more dependencies I need to resolve. Later then.

OpenBSD NC4000: wmii is running fine.

I've done installing wmii window manager. I can say that it's neat and clean. First I created .xinitrc file in my home folder. Easiest way is to type vi .xinitrc inside your home folder. Then just type:

exec wmii

Then save it and close vi. After that type xinit in the shell and wallah! wmii greets me. There's a wmii message displaying the basic of working with wmii. As I know a bit about working with vi and vim, working with wmii is not that hard. It uses [H],[J],[K],[L] keys for direction instead of UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT keys. wmii uses [Alt] as the default mod key. I read that I can change that with other key and even the Windows key. That'll be great. I'll update on that later.

So wmii is ok, now to make my OpenBSD boots directly to X and uses graphical login. I sued to root and vi /etc/rc.conf. All I need is to change this part:

xdm_flags=NO

to

xdm_flags=""

and save it. I do a shutdown -r now in the shell and after the laptop reboots, I'm greeted with graphical login with a picture of Puffy on the side. I logged in and .. fvwm greets me. Uh. Drats. I forgot something.

I then quit X, do vi .xsession (create that file) inside my home folder and add this line:

wmii

That's it. Restarted again, went through the xdm login and wmii initiated. Sweet. More on my learning with wmii later!

OpenBSD NC4000: wmii and xmonad, another tiling window manager.

In my search for a tiling x11 window manager, I'm considering to install Awesome window manager which looks good. Since it's GPLv2, I also found wmii (MIT license) and xmonad (3-Clause BSD License). Xmonad have a multi-head display support whereas wmii looks neat. I want to go for wmii first so I downloaded:

wmii-3.6p1

Which I found depends on dmenu-3.7 so I downloaded that too. After reading the official wmii site, I found that it'll be better if I have libixp-0.4p0 so I downloaded that too. For xmonad, I only downloaded xmonad-0.7 and xmonad-lib-0.7.

I wanna go with wmii first (yeah I thought I wanna try awesome first but wmii license seems more attractive). More on that later.

OpenBSD NC4000: Offline packages installation.

So far the 4.4 OpenBSD is running fine with my NC4000. I just learned that my usb thumdrive is labeled as sd0i. So I need to type this command to access it:

mount_msdos /dev/sd0i /mnt/usb

And remember to create the "usb" folder beforehand. It's pretty important because I have to install packages using my usb thumbdrive. When I'm in the office, I download the packages I want and then store it in the thumbdrive and when I got back home, I mount the usb then move the files to my local home folder and install it.

Another thing I've learned. Offline installation (like what I'm currently doing now) of OpenBSD is a bit of an adventure. I'm comparing this to FreeBSD. One is because I can get 3 CDs worth of FreeBSD installation plus all the required packages and more and burn it myself in a DVD. That will cater almost all of my need. If I'm installing a package from the FreeBSD DVD, I can be sure that all the dependencies will be taken care of because that dependency packages is also inside the DVD. But OpenBSD, they'll only provide the installation ISO which is enough for base OpenBSD installation and no more.

I understand it's because they want people to buy official OpenBSD DVD and support the development and it's a great thing. I'm just saying that it'll be quite an adventure to install other packages offline. The main issue is *drums*... dependencies. Yeah. Coming from a a FreeBSD user who's spoilt for details with FreeBSD Packages page, OpenBSD Packages page is scary. OpenBSD's page have a more minimal approach whereas FreeBSD will list the needed dependencies for each packages you need.

I wanted to install Awesome window manager, Corewars and Screen. Screen installation is ok because it depends on nothing else. Awesome installation got stuck because I didn't have libiconv-1.12. Corewars installation also stuck but because of glib2-2.16.4p1. I downloaded the files the next day, went back home and run the pkg_add command. Now both stuck because the gettext-0.17 is not installed. Lucky I googled and found OpenPorts.se. It's not as extensive as FreeBSD's FreshPorts.org but it's surely what I need. Like I've said, it's a bit of an adventure because I need check each individual dependency files to see if it's depended on other file(s) so I can download it too. After all that, this is the files I've downloaded:

gettext-0.17
glib2-2.16.4p1
gperf-3.0.1
libiconv-1.12
libtool-1.5.26p0
metaauto-0.9

I'm not sure if this all is needed to get Corewars and Awesome window manager running but I'll test it out later today. I want to install as minimum as I can get as I want to utilise what's already installed in the base OpenBSD installation (eg: using VI which is already installed instead of installing VIM). More info later.

Awesome window manager. Seriously.

Yeah. I found this tiling X window manager called Awesome. Found out that there's OpenBSD package for it. Great. By the look of it, I'll bet this window manager will be one of my fav. I'll try to install the package later today and will update you guys on it soon hopefully. Later.

OpenBSD NC4000: I received a laptop and on OpenBSD 4.4!

Hi. Long time no blog. Yeah been lotsa thing in between. I was given a Compaq NC400 laptop as it's supposed to be disposed. I tested it and it's working fine. Grabbed OpenBSD 4.4 i386 and installed flawlessly. Didn't get the dmseg / uname -a file here yet but I'll post it soon. I just installed it last night and so far, sweet!. No broadband in my house yet (yeah I moved to a new home months ago) so pretty difficult to update the source / kernel. More on that later.