På tirsdag 20. oktober 2026 kl. 02:25, skrev Tom Smyth <[email protected]>:
> Folks, > > Just wondering is there any suggested disk layouts / partition sizes for Open > BSD Dev boxes.. > > any advice / insights would be very welcome > > -- > Kindest regards, > Tom Smyth. Hey mate, The ports list is for ports and ports infrastructure stuff mostly. The tech list is for mostly actual base sets devs. Misc is where general queries should be sent. More at https://www.openbsd.org/mail.html Not sure if you meant to post to this list. Apologies if I was mistaken. As for partitioning, the newish defaults in guided partitioning are rather good starting points. For /usr/local I've seen people recommend 50G+ for big kde-plasma, kde, and 3D maker programs, so add a 10G or two for future-proofing. Some people who build a lot make an extra partition for /usr/ports/pobj with at least 16-17G for compiling big ports like browsers. And maybe doubling /usr/src and /usr/obj like thfr suggested; I also increase this for new installs as it is less of a hassle than mounting virtual drives to replace old too small partitions for building from source. Don't know if you have lots of disk space. You can use $ vmctl create -s size_of_virtual_usb raw:/home/YourUserName/VirtualDriveName.iso to create virtual/qemu drives. They can be mounted with vnconfig(8). # vnconfig vnd3 /home/YourUserName/VirtualDriveName.iso // format vnd3 here how you like, assuming you made an 'a' default // partition here and did newfs to vnd3a # mount /dev/vnd3a /your/preferred/mountpoint Use the apropos command to search manpages. Don't forget to chown those mount points after vnconfig and mount-ing. Example: $ apropos virtual $ man vnconfig It can really depend on what you intend to use the box for. You can deselect sets at install/update for a smaller and less attack surface area device. Like a router/ap for instance does not need comp80, game80, or any xenocara x*80 sets, which I do for my networking device, a old amd64 laptop with a broken screen/graphics card running off a junk microsd. Wireguard is built into the base sets; I use wireguard (net/wireguard-tools sadly, would love a wg config converter in base, but that is on me for not running my own wireguard service on OpenBSD Amsterdam or the like) to tunnel all the home traffic and encapsulate (reverse-)ssh and sunshine/moonshine. Note: The oBSD devs highly recommend not using obsd for Wireless Access Points; instead use oBSD for routing and a separate OpenWrt/Linux/maybe hbsdfw[1][2] device or VM-with-qemu-passthrough for wireless. If you just want a general Desktop increasing /usr/local is really the only thing that comes to mind. That and adding a gig or two to /usr/ as that keeps getting bigger every release and you need double the space for 'sysupgrade -kn -R 8.1' or what have you. In the near future, you may be able to use GEFS or a filesystem like it to set 'quotas' where you can atomically resize subpartitions. If that interests you can watch: Ori Bernstein - GEFS: The File Shredder of the Future https://exquisite.tube/w/3QQimMdswWJxrsPaJtak2u I should note this may not be a thing soon, but wine with GOG and steam on OpenBSD happened just the other day so, I feel I can be a bit optimistic. Others can comment if I missed something. Also apropos/manpages are your friend. The OpenBSD folks really go the extra light-year for good documentation. Take care and happy hacking! Hope this word vomit is useful for you. -- yaydn [1] https://hardenedbsd.org/article/shawn-webb/2024-08-03/hardenedbsd-july-2024-status-report [2] https://hardenedbsd.org/~shawn/hbsdfw/ PS: Let me know if you or anyone wants a guide to vnconfig and mounting as I have one written up. Makes it easy to newfs the virtual drive when rebuilding big ports.
