OpenBSD 7.7 on Acer Aspire ES 15
The Acer Aspire ES 15 is a laptop from about 2020.
Some specs:
- CPU: Intel Celeron N3050
- Display: Glossy 15.6 inch, with a resolution of 1366x768
- RAM: 4GB
This laptop has a 'normal' keyboard and a numerical keyboard side by side. The 'normal' keyboard and the touch pad are off-center. Also, the keyboard is a bit wider than those of my ThinkPads. Touch typing is a bit difficult because of this.
It is not a fast laptop.
Gift
This laptop belonged to a member of the family of a friend, who wanted to get rid of it. It is always sad when a working laptop goes to the garbage disposal, and I choose to take it under my care.
Hard disk replacement
It came with a 1Tb 5400 RPM hard disk, which I replaced with a cheap 240 Gb SSD.
To replace the hard disk:
- Unscrew all 18 screws at the bottom of the laptop. After that carefully lift the lid with the keyboard and touch pad, just enough to access the two flat cables, one for the keyboard and one for the touch pad.
- Carefully unlock the flat cables and remove the lid. Disconnect the battery. Now the hard disk can be replaced. This requires two small screws to be unscrewed.
- Put everything back in reverse order.
Installing OpenBSD without wired network
I dd-ed the brilliant OpenBSD installer to an USB memory-stick and installed OpenBSD.
Make sure that the laptop is not in "secure boot" mode. Disabling secure boot will disable UEFI, but that is no problem, OpenBSD will install fine.
The WiFi chip of the Acer Aspire ES 15 is not supported by the installer.
The installer image comes with all the sets. Just select `disk', and say that the storage containing the sets is not yet mounted. It prompts for the disk (sd1) and the path to the sets.
After the installation is finished and the system has rebooted, use an USB memory-stick with the firmware. For this I used another laptop running FreeBSD. Create a partition with a FAT32LBA partition, and create a new file system on it.
From firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/7.7/ download the files:
- SHA256.sig
- iwm-firmware-20240410.tgz
and write these to the USB memory-stick.
Mount the stick in OpenBSD, go to the directory, and run fw_update on the local path:
cd /mnt
fw_update -p .
Check that the wifi now works:
ifconfig iwm0 up
ifconfig iwm0 scan
Create the file /etc/hostname.iwm0 with the SSID and password:
nwid <SSID> wpaykey <password>
dhcp
Make sure that /etc/resolv.conf is set with the appropriate DNS address and that /etc/mygate has the right gateway address and start the network.
sh /etc/netstart
When the network connection works, complete the installation of the firmware.
fw_update
Installurl
Set a mirror close by in your /etc/installurl file, f.e.:
https://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/OpenBSD
Check it works by running:
pkg_add -u
Fvwm2
During the install I declined the start of the display manager. The laptop boots in text mode, and I start X manually with startx.
This starts the Fvwm2 window manager with the default OpenBSD configuration. See the screenshot 1.
.xinitrc
Copy /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to ~/.xinitrc
Now we can add some configuration, like the use of Capslock as extra control key:
setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifier
and add some programs:
unclutter &
.Xresources
Add a file ~/.Xresources to configure some settings.
XTerm*metaSendEscape: true
XTerm*eightBitInput: false
XTerm*scrollBar: false
XTerm*foreground: white
XTerm*background: black
XTerm*termName: xterm-256-color
Adding items to the Fvwm menu
An easy way to add some items to the Fvwm menu, is to copy the OpenBSD configuration file to your home directory, and edit it.
cp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fvwm/.fwvmrc ~/
chmod +w ~/.fvwmrc
vi ~/.fvwmrc
Search for the line with Exec exec xterm, and add a new item below it:
+ "Emacs" Exec exec emacs
Doas
OpenBSD uses doas, which is a bit comparable to sudo.
Copy the example doas.conf to /etc is enough to get you going.
cp /etc/examples/doas.conf /etc
When this is done, you can make your user member of the staff group and class:
doas usermod -G staff <user-name>
doas usermod -L staff <user-name>
Running virtual machines
Believe it or not, this laptop is capable of running virtual mahines. For this we use the OpenBSD hypervisor vmm.
See https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html
Having only 4 GB RAM, the possibilities are limited. For testing purposes, and for playing around, a virtual machine still is useful.
Add a line to /etc/sysctl.conf:
net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
Add pf configuration to allow the virtual machines to get network access and to get NAT working.
pass quick on tap0
match out on iwm0 from 100.64.0.0/10 to any nat-to (iwm0)
Activate this setting with
pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf
Download the install77.iso, create a disk image, and install OpenBSD on it:
doas vmctl create -s 10G disk.qcow2
doas vmctl start -m 512M -L -i 1 -r install77.iso -d disk.qcow2 mymachine
doas vmctl console 1
With the above pf setting activated, the virtual machine has internet connection.
After the installation is finished, make sure you have the right DNS in /etc/resolv.conf, the right contents in /etc/installurl and run syspatch.
Leave the console with: ~.
Happy OpenBSD-ing on the Acer Aspire ES 15
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