I had a great experience with Arch Linux and switched full time to
OpenBSD in 2018. The commands are simpler and I haven't had to mess with
it nearly as much, unless I want a complicated package such as KDE Plasma.
For your install error, re-run the installation. When you get to this step:
Use (W)hole disk MBR, whole disk (G)PT, (O)penBSD area, or (E)dit?
Select W to use MBR.
On 10/21/25 09:10, Scott Vargovich wrote:
The install went fine. At the very end of the install, I got this
error: "installboot: open: Device not configured - Failed to install
bootblocks. You will not be able to boot OpenBSD from sd0."
What happened to the bootloader and how do i fix it?
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<>< Scott Vargovich <><
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Ham Call Sign: KE8CQC
====================
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On Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 09:49 Robert B. Carleton <[email protected]> wrote:
On 10/20/25 20:20, Scott Vargovich wrote:
> I'm currently running Manjaro and have many years of Linux
experience
> behind me. For a number of reasons, I would like to try
OpenBSD. I
> know I will have to unlearn a number of Linux things over time.
I've
> only ever installed OpenBSD in a virtual environment and have
accepted
> almost all of the defaults during the installation process. I
would
> like to know if the default partitioning scheme puts /home on
its own
> partition so I don't lose what I have in /home if the system
crashes and
> I need to reinstall. Would that even be an issue I need to be
concerned
> about?
[...]
Some places to familiarize with sooner is service management
(rcctl) and
package management (pkg_info, pkg_add, and pkg_delete). It's going
to be
a bit different from systemd and Pacman.
Using the OpenBSD filesystem needs some adjustment too. You have to
consider that fsck will run if there has been a power interruption or
crash, so using giant file systems can cause extended filesystem
repairs. Specialized, smaller file systems will be more resilient. It
also gives you some additional options for using mount options to
tailor
security (nodev, noexec, nosuid, etc.)
Look at the disklabel -A argument in the man page. It gives you a run
down on how the automatic disk allocation works.
It's really helpful to read package readme's when they are available.
A lot of shells are available, so whatever you're using on Manjaro is
probably available. That can make your command environment more
familiar. On the other hand, I like ksh just fine.
