Updated (2021-12-14): When I installed NetBSD for the first time, I remember I’d to collect bits and pieces of information from different places, some of which were rather old and outdated. So, I’ve decided to write this stuff down and publish it here. Hope that it helps anyone looking to install and configure NetBSD as a laptop/desktop daily driver, if it helps one single soul, I’d be happy! I'll try to keep this updated on a regular basis. I got this 2014 laptop* without a hard drive, but with 8GB of RAM. How large should the hard drive be? Looking on the web and asking a few questions, I concluded that NetBSD wouldn’t require that much for a full install. So I bought a 30GB SSD for $20 and placed it in this laptop. Then, I installed NetBSD-9.2_STABLE from an usb, as described in, the guide . Choose keyboard -> Install to hard disk -> Full installation -> Use the entire disk, then set the sizes of the partitions, / 26GB swap 2GB if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } When the base install was finished, I let dhcp configure my network connection automatically, set the console keyboard, created a root password, set the root shell to /bin/ksh and configure the system to use the correct pkgin mirror . On this install, I’ve chosen not to set-up pkgsrc . Keep it simple to start with and, to be honest, I think a larger hard drive would be handy to build packages from source using pkgsrc , as the build directory needs some space to grow during the building process. Note: I'm currently building quite a few packages with pkgsrc and so far, so good. No issues with the disk size, just remember to always clean the build ( make clean , make clean-depends and make distclean ) before you start the next one 😉 I always choose to add a system user after installing, so that’s what I’ve done this time as well. After installing and rebooting the system, login as root and… # pkgin install doas dbus spectrwm slock firefox vim scrot xpdf-4 gtar xz montserrat git-base desktop-file-utils feh mozilla-rootcerts-openssl featherpad qt5ct redshift For my needs, I also install hunspell-sv_SE , but your needs may be slightly different 😉 I use spectrwm , but obviously, you can replace it with whatever wm you prefer. Note that, spectrwm needs a screenlock to function, therefore I'm pulling slock . Next copy some start up files to /etc/rc.d # cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/dbus /etc/rc.d/ if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } Add these to /etc/rc.conf with the following: rpcbind=YES dbus=YES if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } If, like me, you have an Intel processor and would like to have the intel-microcode updated, remember Meltdown and Spectre?! Install the intel-microcode package, # pkgin install intel-microcode-netbsd copy the start-up script to /etc/rc.d # cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/intel-microcode /etc/rc.d/ add microcode=YES to your rc.conf and reboot. Once again, login as root and add an user # useradd -g wheel -G users -s /bin/ksh -c "your real name" -m user_name # passwd user_name if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } Make sure your user_name has been added to wheel (check /etc/group ). If not, add it now. Create the /usr/pkg/etc/doas.conf file according to your needs. Here's mine as an example, #doas.conf permit :wheel permit nopass user_name cmd reboot permit nopass user_name cmd shutdown if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); } Reboot, login as the new user and configure your stuff, things like .xinitrc , .shrc , .Xresources , ... Next time you login, you can issue startx to launch the graphical environment on your install. For wireless configuration using dhcpcd and wpa_supplicant see this archived post by @JuvenalUrbino . Also, by the same author there are quite a few very interesting and valuable tutorials, among others on how to set-up a firewall and configuring external media automount . Visit the archive for further information. Enjoy NetBSD! *HP EliteBook 820 G1 $ sysctl hw.machine_arch hw.model hw.ncpu hw.usermem64 hw.machine_arch = x86_64 hw.model = Intel 686-class hw.ncpu = 4 hw.usermem64 = 8448819200 $ pcictl pci0 list 000:00:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) Host Bridge, DRAM (host bridge, revision 0x0b) 000:02:0: Intel HD Graphics (GT2) (VGA display, revision 0x0b) 000:03:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) Mini HD audio (mixed mode multimedia, revision 0x0b) 000:20:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) USB xHCI (USB serial bus, xHCI, revision 0x04) 000:22:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) MEI (miscellaneous communications, revision 0x04) 000:25:0: Intel I218-LM Ethernet Connection (ethernet network, revision 0x04) 000:27:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) HD Audio (mixed mode multimedia, revision 0x04) 000:28:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) PCIe (PCI bridge, revision 0xe4) 000:28:3: Intel Core 4G (mobile) PCIe (PCI bridge, revision 0xe4) 000:28:5: Intel Core 4G (mobile) PCIe (PCI bridge, revision 0xe4) 000:29:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) USB EHCI (USB serial bus, EHCI, revision 0x04) 000:31:0: Intel Core 4G (mobile) LPC (ISA bridge, revision 0x04) 000:31:2: Intel Core 4G (mobile) SATA Controller (AHCI) (SATA mass storage, AHCI 1.0, revision 0x04) 000:31:3: Intel Core 4G (mobile) SMBus (SMBus serial bus, revision 0x04) 002:00:0: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 WiFi (miscellaneous network, revision 0x34) 003:00:0: Realtek Semiconductor RTS5227 PCI-E Card Reader (undefined, subclass 0x00, revision 0x01) if(window.hljsLoader && !document.currentScript.parentNode.hasAttribute('data-s9e-livepreview-onupdate')) { window.hljsLoader.highlightBlocks(document.currentScript.parentNode); }

Uh oh, this screenshot make me wana go home early and tinkering with my old Dell Vostro Laptop. Thanks man

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this out.

Guide updated according to my latest changes ?

Thanks @pin for this guide. I will not go through NetBSD yet because my Intel graphics card and my Broadcom wifi card are not yet well recognized.

ouaille_aime_scier Understand that, though its a bit strange... Intel graphics tend to be well supported, unless you have a very new machine. As for broadcom, it could be hit or miss. Although the latest stable release has support for quite a few of those, see https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-8/NetBSD-8.1.html

@pin I have an i915 graphics card which is recognized, but there are some windowing issues behind it (window of applications that hang at the top of the screen). The wifi card is a BCM4313 that is not yet on NetBSD (nor on FreeBSD which I actually use).

A small useful mod (if you work with NetBSD at night when your family is sleeping) is to turn off console beeps. You can do this in X by adding xset b off to your .xinitrc . More information here: https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_turn_off_console_beep/

NetBSD - A little guide for newcomers

pfr

pin
Touche!

bsdisbetter

JuvenalUrbino
Preaching from the same book! 😄 :

Like most things, there's a caveat. If pfr intends to have the laptop sleep/suspend to RAM, then you will need swap space (and contiguous at that) of at least his laptop's memory size. Yes? (I must say I'm not too familiar with that on NetBSD).

As you say (and I agree wholeheartedly, even laptops nowadays come with lots of memory (mine's 32GB)) and it's senseless to have swapping occur to disk - far better for it to occur to RAM.

JuvenalUrbino

bsdisbetter So, why not use a swap file. This way you can make it, say 500MB initially. See if it fills, then you can add another. If it still is insufficient, nuke the lot and create a larger swap file and so on.

sacred words, given the average amount of RAM which laptops nowadays come equipped with,reserving disk space for a swap partition which most likely will hardly ever be used looks like a useless waste: a swap file for when I want to compile Rust with 8 make jobs is all I need

JuvenalUrbino 😃 😃 I'm working on a package for pkgsrc-wip and today I had to compile a big chunk of Qt5 from source.
You can bet I was damn happy I had 2GB of swap space 😉

JuvenalUrbino

pfr two finger scrolling with the trackpad doesn't work.

unfortunately, at the current state it's only available on -current and only on certain Synaptics touchpads 😉

pfr

JuvenalUrbino Hopefully this will come through to stable sometime soon.

JuvenalUrbino I reinstalled as planned (this time with partitions) and instead of adding the user during installation I manually added a user after install (as Pin describes in the OP) and it worked, however I did have to add the user to Wheel. For some reason the command [#useradd -g wheel -G users -s /bin/ksh -c "your real name" -m user_name] did not add my user to wheel. I manually added my user to wheel (and operator and user groups) by editing the groups file before I saw your post recommending usermod. So far nothing is broken 🙂

bsdisbetter
As for my swap space, upon reinstalling and selecting partitions, I ended up going with 4gb swap as I didn't see the sense in using a swap file when I've got enough space to play with for a swap partition anyway. And if I do end up using sleep/suspend and i run out of memory then I'm not fussed, i'll just reinstall and add more swap space.

The beauty is, I bought this laptop to play with. It is my test machine. I eventually hope to use it on a daily basis, but not until I have worked out all the kinks and am confident I know what I'm doing. 🙂

pin
Pin, I cant seem to find the default spectrwm.conf file. Do I need to create one? So far the only thing I can open is dmenu with MOD+p

JuvenalUrbino

pin check /etc/group and manually add yourself to the wheel group.

better to use usermod(8) if you care to avoid messing with permissions and contents of such an important file 🙂

@pfr your problem could be related to the syntax and content of your $HOME/.xinitrc (remember last line musn't end with '&') as well as its permissions/ownership, or the permissions/ownership of $HOME/.Xauthority, or your user's environment ($DISPLAY, $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, $SHELL, $XAUTHORITY); remember to add your user to 'operator' and 'users' groups too.
Finally, as suggested by @bsdisbetter, it's wise to check your /var/log/Xorg.*.log

pfr

bsdisbetter
JuvenalUrbino

So I suspect I have an issue with permissions. Essentially, when I log in as root and startx the wm loads with the default .conf file. When I log in and startx as my user, I get a neutered version of my wm (no dmenu or keybindings) basically it's not reading my .conf file.. If I want a global configuration file that is used for both root and user, where should it be saved? I'm probably never going to log in as root unless I have to.

How do I add/change permissions necessary for everything to load properly when logged in as my user? I know this is pretty basic stuff, but I feel like I'm learning this stuff so over again.

Still haven't got wifi working... That's next

bsdisbetter

pfr

For some reason the command [#useradd -g wheel -G users -s /bin/ksh -c "your real name" -m user_name] did not add my user to wheel.

You have them the wrong way around. The user has a primary group of wheel and a secondary group as users.
Try: usermod -g users -G wheel user_name

If you're modifying the user you're logged in as, remember to logout and log back in to pick up the new group settings for that user.

pfr I cant seem to find the default spectrwm.conf file. Do I need to create one? So far the only thing I can open is dmenu with MOD+p

You have to copy it from /usr/pkg/share/examples/spectrwm/spectrwm.conf to your home directory. Don't forget to copy also the spectrwm_lang.conf for your keyboard.
Oh, and change the names, e.g. spectrwm.conf should be .spectrwm.conf in your home directory 😉

Edit: Don't forget to uncomment the lines you need, all lines are commented out per default.

pfr

pin Ahhh thanks! It's been so long since I've used this WM or even messed with dot files. The last 3 years on Debian, i've forgotten everything i used to know!

bsdisbetter Thanks! Pin may need to update the OP as I took the instruction from there.

Cheers,

pfr its not that simple...
I've created a second user reversing the options. The user was then added only to the wheel 🙁
Breaking it in two steps will do it, i.e. useradd, usermod, but if you're careful, I don't see a problem editing the file in vim.

bsdisbetter

I always use an editor. I never use usermod to add myself to a group. I also take myself off a group if need be.
The syntax is so simple groupname:groupnumber:{member,member,member...}

So, just edit away. That's what I say... Go crazy!

pfr

pin
bsdisbetter
I agree, I actually prefer editing files because then I know exactly what's in them!

bsdisbetter So, just edit away. That's what I say... Go crazy!

Yeah 🥳

pfr Not really my thing but, SLIM is a dead project, last release was in 2013.
By all means use it if you want but just be aware of it.

pfr

pin Ahh yup, XDM then!
Cheers

pfr
For wifi, what's the output of pcictl pci0 list and ifconfig?

I never launch X as root, its a security concern!

As for permissions, did you create the .xinitrc file as root or as your user?
What's the out put of ls -lap inside your home directory?
Here's mine for comparison,

pin@mybox $ ls -lap
total 168
drwxr-xr-x  16 pin   wheel   1024 Dec  5 12:29 ./
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel    512 Dec  2 15:29 ../
-rw-------   1 pin   wheel     50 Dec  5 12:23 .Xauthority
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    748 Dec  3 12:53 .Xresources
drwxr-xr-x   4 pin   wheel    512 Dec  5 14:38 .cache/
drwxr-xr-x  14 pin   wheel    512 Dec  5 11:35 .config/
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel   1780 Nov  1 10:30 .cshrc
drwx------   3 pin   wheel    512 Nov  6 09:50 .dbus/
-rwxr-xr--   1 pin   wheel     68 Dec  5 12:23 .fehbg
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel     76 Nov  6 09:57 .gitconfig
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    115 Nov  6 10:32 .gtkrc-2.0
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel   1326 Nov  6 10:38 .keybindings.conf
drwx------   3 pin   wheel    512 Nov  6 10:05 .local/
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    431 Nov  1 10:30 .login
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    265 Nov  1 10:30 .logout
drwx------   4 pin   wheel    512 Nov  6 10:04 .mozilla/
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel   1586 Dec  5 10:46 .profile
-rw-------   1 pin   wheel     50 Dec  5 12:23 .serverauth.965
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    182 Nov  6 10:38 .shrc
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel   1670 Dec  5 10:40 .spectrwm.conf
drwx------   2 pin   wheel    512 Dec  5 11:30 .ssh/
drwx------   4 pin   wheel    512 Nov 12 09:38 .thumbnails/
drwxr-xr-x   3 pin   wheel    512 Dec  3 12:00 .vim/
-rw-------   1 pin   wheel  21199 Dec  5 12:27 .viminfo
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    206 Nov 25 20:46 .vimrc
-rw-r--r--   1 pin   wheel    333 Nov  6 10:39 .xinitrc
drwxr-xr-x   2 pin   wheel    512 Nov  6 10:23 Desktop/
drwxr-xr-x   3 pin   wheel    512 Dec  5 11:21 Documents/
drwxr-xr-x   2 pin   wheel    512 Dec  5 11:31 Downloads/
drwxr-xr-x   3 pin   wheel    512 Nov  6 10:31 Git/
drwxr-xr-x   2 pin   wheel    512 Nov  6 10:29 Templates/
drwxr-xr-x   2 pin   wheel    512 Dec  3 11:40 Wallpapers/

If you have something like -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 333 Nov 6 10:39 .xinitrc then you have to change this.
To do so, from your home directory,

$ cd ..
$ su
Password:
# chown -R your_username your_home_directory
# exit
$

As I mentioned on the OP, feel free to go through my dotfiles on github. But, to save you time I add my .xinitrc here.
Please adjust according to your needs, keyboard layout and wallpaper source...

#!/bin/sh
#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)

if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ]; then
  for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*; do
    [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
  done
  unset f
fi

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources && setxkbmap se

xset b off && feh --bg-fill "/home/pin/Wallpapers/wall.jpg"

exec spectrwm

Also, please host your .spectrwm.conf somewhere and link it here if you would like help spotting possible errors.
Remember spectrwm calls some programs by default, if those are not installed, it will sometimes load an error on the bar or fail to load.

pfr

pin Thank you ! I will come back to you with a reply soon!!

pfr

pin
Ok I'm back (was a busy Xmas). Also my other laptop needed repairs so now I've only got the one and I'm now using my phone to access this forum.
I apologise for the photo of my screen, but it's easier than typing it out on a phone. Here is a picture of the outputs of those commands.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SqvgH2Tsq8ZTd5Dq5/

🤣
Just moved my hard drive to a "new" machine... it was time to retire the old brick

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