Courtnix Blog

OpenBSD Is My Desktop of Choice



It has been almost a year and a half now of using OpenBSD on my desktop. From previous blog posts I have noted some of my frustrations with the desktop experience in OpenBSD, and in some ways, these have been more or less addressed. So, why do I really love using my computer with OpenBSD?

sndiod

This may sound funny, since in my previous blog posts and in other public forums, I have frequently complained about OpenBSD audio. I still do on occasion get that stutter with USB audio. My solution was to buy a new DAC (the Audioengine D1, great device), which sounds better anyway than my previous FiiO E10k, but also means I only have to restart Firefox every maybe 1-2 days instead of every half hour. There was no solution for that. I also have a problem with a USB audio input device that has a ticking audio sound. Couldn’t be resolved. It probably requires an OpenBSD developer to make some changes in the kernel.

All that said, these problems are offset with audio issues in other operating systems. Like with Linux, when an issue arises you have to have familiarity potentially with alsa, pulseaudio, and pipewire now. I actually like pipewire, but really, I find the documentation hard to navigate. I really love sndiod because it really has been a set and forget sort of thing for me. It reliably works all the time. The man pages are simple, the FAQ for audio is simple, I don’t have to go very far if I have a problem.

Release or Current?

Since the beginning of using OpenBSD on my desktop in May 2022, I was using -current. I really had no issues to speak of. It’s honestly very rare that I would encounter an issue. But, it is a development branch. I did have an issue on occasion. For all of my uses with OpenBSD -current, I just do my usual sysupgrade -s and update packages and carry on. However, I did just reinstall my desktop with 7.4. I’ve hit a bad sysupgrade a couple times and it did cause me to lose time at work trying to fix the issues. Those minutes aren’t mine, and the problems were likely entirely avoidable if I had sat on a release. So, I moved my desktop to the release branch, but I do have my laptop (and a few servers) on -current still. It is great flexibility. I like that on one hand, I can camp on a release and have things hum along without any care in the world to speak of. -current requires a little more attention, but I am happy that I can keep up with the latest updates and ports tree for the applications where I need it.

I did like that every 1-2 weeks doing my sysupgrade and updating packages. However, there is also a good feeling knowing that the OS is gonna pretty well stay put for the next 6 months. So far, after 3 years of release upgrades, I have had 0 issues. I trust (and hope, we are talking computers) in April 2024 I will have a clean upgrade to OpenBSD 7.5 and have another 6 months of not having to bother with my computer.