[xasop]

I pre-ordered a copy of OpenBSD 5.6 a while back. It arrived a few days ago, and I lost no time in installing it at work. I've also just installed it on my Lemote Yeeloong to play around with at home. It really is a fantastic system to work with.

OpenBSD is a project I've had an idle interest in for some time, and with all the drama around systemd going on in Linux-land at the moment, it's finally got me fed up enough to move. It's going to take a while before I can move my home desktop, because OpenBSD can't read Linux encrypted filesystems and I have about 2 TB of data to migrate, but I'll get there in the end.

Moving from Linux to OpenBSD reminds me of when I first migrated from Windows to Linux; aside from a few teething problems as I get used to the differences, everything seems much cleaner and simpler, and it's a lot easier to understand how the OS works. This is made even easier in the case of OpenBSD, due to a combination of them including the full source code for the operating system when you buy a CD, having very high standards for their own code, and having documentation that is second to none. I've had it installed less than a week, and I've already spent a while exploring the internals of the codebase, and it's all very neat and tidy.

You can obtain a copy from http://www.openbsd.org/, although I would encourage you to buy a copy from https://www.openbsdstore.com/ if you're going to install it, as CD sales are one of the primary sources of funding for the project. I'm enjoying it enough that I already plan to buy OpenBSD 5.7 when it comes out in May.

[xasop]

Debian has dropped their GNU/kFreeBSD port as a release architecture. If I needed any further motive to migrate to OpenBSD, this is it.

Goodbye, Debian. It's been a pleasant few years.

[Lord Dave]

What drama could be in Linux land?

[xasop]

What drama could be in Linux land?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd#Reception

[Lord Dave]

What drama could be in Linux land?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd#Reception

So the drama is a bunch of people are going the Windows route of "it'll do everything for you" and others hate it?

[xasop]

So the drama is a bunch of people are going the Windows route of "it'll do everything for you" and others hate it?

That's as reasonable a one-line summary as I've seen, although the issue as a whole is too complex to summarise easily. There are a number of people with various different objections to systemd all arguing over the top of one another, but the primary concern is that as people adopt it, it will become impossible to use Linux without it. Freedom of choice has historically been a very important part of the Linux ecosystem, and now that is perceived to be in danger.

Myself, I don't love systemd, but I don't hate it either. It's a decent attempt at solving a very real problem, but I think it tries to extend beyond its boundaries. This issue is really just a catalyst for me; I've been growing increasingly dissatisfied with Linux and GNU for various reasons over the past two to three years.

I should write a rant about my position or something; that's what everyone else seems to be doing these days. After all, why make something better than systemd when you can just pay $40 for a domain name and put up a page about how terrible it is? Really makes me appreciate OpenBSD, where people just write good code and don't have time for the petty squabbling that goes on in Linux communities.

[xasop]

I have now shrunk my Linux partition to make room for a new OpenBSD partition. This weekend, I plan to attempt a delicate manoeuvre, involving running a Linux VM on OpenBSD and syncing files from the VM to the host. This will enable me to migrate files from a Linux encrypted volume to an OpenBSD encrypted volume without them ever touching an unencrypted filesystem.

[xasop]

Well, OpenBSD boots, except my monitors are blank as soon as KMS kicks in due to missing firmware for my Radeon HD 6850. I managed to diagnose the issue by booting the kernel with the radeondrm(4) and drm(4) drivers disabled, so I should be set once I get that firmware blob installed.

Edit: Scratch that, the system installed the firmware for me on first boot, so this was only a problem the first time I booted (as the firmware got loaded after KMS was initialised).

I'll begin migrating data tomorrow, as I'm well on the way to being pleasantly inebriated on fine single malt whisky and I don't want to be doing risky operations on my precious data while in this state.

[Lord Dave]

I have now shrunk my Linux partition to make room for a new OpenBSD partition. This weekend, I plan to attempt a delicate manoeuvre, involving running a Linux VM on OpenBSD and syncing files from the VM to the host. This will enable me to migrate files from a Linux encrypted volume to an OpenBSD encrypted volume without them ever touching an unencrypted filesystem.

Why?
Just unhook your network cable and transfer the data then.  Any data that gets onto an unencrypted spot on your HDD will be unrecoverable after a month.  So unless you have a pressing need to worry about being discovered in a month, why would you go to all the effort?

[jroa]

What?

[xasop]

What?

[beardo]

Lord Dave saves the day yet again!

[Lord Dave]

What?

*sigh*
Why are you concerned about your encrypted data never touching an unencrypted filesystem?

[xasop]

Why are you concerned about your encrypted data never touching an unencrypted filesystem?

For the same reason I encrypted my data in the first place: It's my data and I don't want anyone else being able to access it. But also, because it's an interesting challenge.

[Lord Dave]

Why are you concerned about your encrypted data never touching an unencrypted filesystem?

For the same reason I encrypted my data in the first place: It's my data and I don't want anyone else being able to access it. But also, because it's an interesting challenge.

So I get the second one but wouldn't any data that got written temporarily to an unencrypted file system be overwritten soon enough to not have to worry about anyone being able to read it?(by using recovery tools)

[xasop]

So I get the second one but wouldn't any data that got written temporarily to an unencrypted file system be overwritten soon enough to not have to worry about anyone being able to read it?(by using recovery tools)

That depends on whether I use the unencrypted disk I put it on temporarily afterwards. Since I have no near-future plans to reuse that current disk, I'd have to wipe it myself, which is a hassle.

[Lord Dave]

So I get the second one but wouldn't any data that got written temporarily to an unencrypted file system be overwritten soon enough to not have to worry about anyone being able to read it?(by using recovery tools)

That depends on whether I use the unencrypted disk I put it on temporarily afterwards. Since I have no near-future plans to reuse that current disk, I'd have to wipe it myself, which is a hassle.

Oh its a whole disk and not just temp storage?  Then I understand.

[xasop]

I somewhat have Linux booting as a VM in OpenBSD. I ended up just booting my existing Linux installation instead of creating a new one, which has some interesting side effects. First, there's a whole bunch of stuff it doesn't do correctly on boot due to being in slightly different hardware. Second, I go through the same bootloader in the VM as I do on my physical machine, which means I need to be very careful not to tell GRUB to boot OpenBSD, otherwise I'll be running the same OS installation inside itself.

I'm tired enough that I don't trust myself to proceed any further today, so I'll begin working on actually migrating shit tomorrow.

[xasop]

I'm tired enough that I don't trust myself to proceed any further today, so I'll begin working on actually migrating shit tomorrow.

I lied. I'm currently performing a pvmove of my data off my primary hard drive, and onto a combination of my backup hard drive and my external USB drive. I'll leave that for a while, and then I can boot into OpenBSD and reformat my primary drive, ready to move stuff onto it.

[juner]

I installed OpenBSD in a VM. It works.