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.