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The OpenBSD installer is just a shell script that calls programs to download files, format disks, and in general prepare your system for use. It might not be pretty, but it is extremely fast and in educated hands it is extremely powerful.

Once the boot messages pass, you’ll see the following text:

erase ^?, werase ^W, kill ^U, intr ^C, status ^T
(I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell? i

We’ll examine the “Upgrade” option. The “Shell” command will drop you into a command line, where you could work with the few commands available on the boot disk. We want the “Install” option now, however. Hit “i” and then ENTER. The installer will display a welcome message and a few basic instructions.

Welcome to the OpenBSD/i386 3.2 install program.

This program will help you install OpenBSD in a simple and rational way. At
any prompt except password prompts you can run a shell command by typing
'!foo', or escape to a shell by typing '!'. Default answers are shown in []'s
and are selected by pressing RETURN. At any time you can exit this program by
pressing Control-C and then RETURN, but quitting during an install can leave
your system in an inconsistent state. 
Specify terminal type: [vt220]

If you’re using a standard i386 keyboard and monitor, just press ENTER as the default. If you have an unusual terminal hooked up to your i386 system, you’re probably one of those old hands and know exactly what terminal type you have. If you’re a new user who hooked up some ancient unidentified dust-covered piece-of-crud terminal you found in a disused laboratory at the back of the abandoned fertilizer plant because you thought it would be nifty, stop now and get a standard monitor and keyboard. While that antediluvian console will probably work, your first install is not the time to try it!

Do you wish to select a keyboard encoding table? [n]

A keyboard-encoding table allows you to remap your keyboard from the standard U.S. QWERTY style to that used in some other language. Entering “y” will give you an option to choose one. Most readers of this book will be perfectly comfortable with the standard QWERTY keyboard, so just hit ENTER to take the default.

IS YOUR DATA BACKED UP? As with anything that modifies disk contents, this
program can cause SIGNIFICANT data loss. 
It is often helpful to have the installation notes handy. For complex disk
configurations, relevant disk hardware manuals and a calculator are useful.

Proceed with install? [n] y

This is your last chance to save any data that might be on your hard drive. If you’re not sure about the quality of your backup, just hit ENTER to take the default and abort the installation. If you’re certain you do not need any data on your hard drive, enter “y” to continue.

Put your boot media in the drive and power up your system. You should see the usual BIOS messages go flashing past and then the OpenBSD boot prompt.

boot>

If you should need to interrupt the boot process for any reason, you can enter the appropriate commands here. We’ll discuss various reasons to interrupt the boot, as well as elsewhere in the book. If you wait for five seconds, the boot messages will follow.

booting fd0a:/bsd: +173028=0x43d3e4 start=0xd0100020
entry point at 0x100020

Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
Copyright (c) 1995-2002 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org
     The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

At this point, device driver messages will start to flow past, as OpenBSD probes your hardware and assigns drivers to all the system components that it recognizes

If your computer is running Windows NT or one of its descendants (such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, and so on), fdimage.exe will not work. OpenBSD includes a program for this, ntrw.exe, in the tools directory of the release directory. Like fdimage.exe, ntrw.exe is designed to copy a disk image to a disk. Windows NT-based systems do not rewrite filenames, so you should be able to open a command prompt and just type:

C:> ntrw floppy33C.fs a:

If it doesn’t work, you probably have a bad floppy disk.

If you’re running a Microsoft Windows 9x-based operating system, such as Windows Me, Windows 98, or Windows 95, you’ll need a program to copy the disk images. Microsoft doesn’t provide one, but OpenBSD does, which you’ll find in the “tools” directory of the release directory. The program fdimage.exe is specifically designed for these older Microsoft operating systems and does not work on Windows NT-based operating systems.

Fdimage.exe is a free program that can copy disk images and is quite easy to use. For example, to copy the floppy image floppy33.fs to the floppy in your a: drive, enter the following at a DOS prompt:

C:> fdimage floppy33.fs a:

The floppy will churn for a while, and finally spit out an OpenBSD boot floppy.

Windows 9x has restrictions on filenames; each filename is restricted to eight characters, with a three-character extension after a period. While the GUI desk-top displays long filenames, these are actually aliases for the names available in DOS mode. The names of floppyXXB.fs and floppyXXC.fs are nine characters long, with a two-character extension. This means that Windows will rename these files to something its innards can accept, retaining these names as aliases visible in the GUI. At a DOS prompt, however, you’ll need to find out what DOS calls your floppy image before you can boot it. The file floppy33B.fs may well be called something like floppy~1.fs.

Again, if you have trouble, your floppy is probably bad.

If you’re already running a UNIX-like system, dd(1) is the only command you need. You also need to know your floppy drive’s device name, which is probably /dev/fd0, /dev/floppy, or /dev/rfd0. Once you have that, you just tell dd(1) to copy the image to the disk in that device. If the device name was /dev/fd0c, you’d enter

dd if=floppy33B.fs of=/dev/fd0c

to write the floppy33B.fs image to floppy disk.

If dd(1) runs for a while and then gives an error, you may have a bad floppy disk. Floppies tend to go bad very easily, and you should try another one. If dd gives you an error immediately or exits silently without writing to the floppy disk, you probably need to specify a different floppy device driver.

If you do not have an OpenBSD CD-ROM, or if your hardware does not boot from CD-ROM, you need to start your install with a boot floppy. The OpenBSD boot floppy actually contains a very small subset of OpenBSD, including just the tools needed to recognize your hardware, format your disks, and download and extract the appropriate distribution sets in the correct locations.

You’ll find a few boot floppy images in the architecture release directory. The purpose of these images may change over time, so confirm in the release install document if you have any trouble. Each name includes the release number — for example, the images for OpenBSD 3.4 will be named floppy34.fs, floppy34B.fs, and floppy34C.fs. Download the disk image that most closely describes your system; you only need one.

• floppyXX.fs This image is for the most common i386 hardware. This will boot your average workstation or low-end server.
• floppyXXB.fs This image is for high-end servers. It includes gigabit Ethernet cards, SCSI, and RAID drivers.
• floppyXXC.fs This image is for laptops and other PCMCIA/Cardbus systems.

Once you have the appropriate image file, you’ll need to copy it onto a floppy disk. You cannot use basic file system-level copying, such as Windows drag and drop. These are image files, meaning that they include the file system and not just the files on the file system.

Before you try to install, confirm that your system’s BIOS is properly configured. Because every BIOS is slightly different, I won’t go over exact instructions on how to configure. Most computer systems tell you how to access the system BIOS when you first boot the computer and include a simple menu-driven system to make changes. Consult your motherboard manual if you have any problems.

First, set “Plug and Play OS” to NO. This tells your BIOS to do some basic hardware setup, rather than relying upon the OS to do everything. Modern versions of Microsoft Windows expect to handle hardware setup. OpenBSD takes advantage of the BIOS’ ability to configure the hardware itself. Many PCI devices will work poorly if you do not set this option!

Also configure your boot device. If you are installing from CD-ROM, set your boot device to CD-ROM, then floppy disk, then hard drive. (If your CD-ROM boot gives you trouble, you can use a floppy disk as a fallback.) If you are installing from some other media, your first boot device should be the floppy disk and the hard disk second.

Before you even begin, be sure OpenBSD supports your hardware! You can find the supported hardware list for the most recent version of OpenBSD on i386 at http://www.OpenBSD.org/i386.html, or on the FTP site or CD-ROM in the release directory as i386/INSTALL.i386. These documents include lists of hardware that is supported at this time.

The devices on the hardware compatibility lists are frequently identified by chipset, not by the vendor. After all, when you buy a computer the network card is frequently just listed as a “10/100 Ethernet,” not an “Intel i8255x-based PCI Ethernet card.” To make matters worse, many vendors use identical hardware under a separate brand name or use different hardware under the same brand name. For example, Linksys is famous for having four very different cards all called the EtherLink. You might have to dig in the hardware manual for this information, or ask your vendor. If nothing else, you can just try to install and see if everything works. The boot-time messages will give you a great deal of information on what sort of hardware you have.

Armed with your OpenBSD software and a computer with supported hardware, you are now ready to face an actual installation. We will cover a full installation on the i386 architecture via CD-ROM and FTP/HTTP. (We’ll cover installing from a hard disk, as you won’t be using that method unless you’re using multiple operating systems.) You may or may not need to use a floppy disk to boot your system, so be sure you have one handy just in case.

You now know where to get OpenBSD and which method you will use to install it. You should know which distribution sets you want to install on your first machine and how you want to divide your hard disk. These are the most difficult issues you will face in installing OpenBSD. Hopefully, you have a piece of paper with your decisions noted; if so, the only real thinking you will have to make during the installation is which key to press to get your desired result. We’re going to cover that.