On Sat, Apr 25, 2026 at 07:44:31AM +0200, Christian Schulte wrote:
> Am 25.04.2026 um 04:40 schrieb Evan Silberman:
> > Christian Schulte <cs@schulte.it> wrote:
> >> There shouldn't be "a whole world of issues" and I'd rather ask about
> >> what issues the user ran into. What issues are those? I mean, running
> >> pkg_add to add a package depending on something not installed will
> >> produce corresponding error messages and not leave the system in a
> >> "whole world of issues" state.
> > 
> > Sure, but 100% of the time when someone writes in saying "I didn't
> > install xbase/comp/games and X doesn't work" the only viable advice is
> > "install all the sets". It is a common newbie footgun to install fewer
> > than all of the sets, in no small part (I imagine) because the installer
> > invites you to select sets. If you just keep hitting enter, you will of
> > course get all the sets, but given that you are prompted to think about
> > it, and even given an example command to enter if you want to deselct
> > all the X sets, it's not surprising that many people think "ah, I guess
> > this is good to do" when configuring a server installation.
> 
> Someone with a passion for tweaking knobs without knowing what those
> knobs are meant to be used for maybe should not tweak knobs (or should
> not have the ability to blindly tweak knobs in the first place, I agree).
> > 
> > Outside of people with extraordinary disk space constraints who are
> > willing to solve all of their own resulting problems, everyone should be
> > installing all the sets. Every time someone really starts insisting that
> > something should _work_ without X/comp/games, or that sysupgrade
> > shouldn't install all the sets, Theo threatens to merge all the sets
> > into one set and have done.
> 
> Don't know. Maybe he will be more interested in things like "you cannot
> build xenocara on a clean slate without running pgk_add xmlto, because
> xenocara has a build dependency on xmlto only available in ports".
> 
> > 
> > I've contemplated how install.sub could change to make it more likely
> > that well-meaning new admins will install all the sets. Something like
> > instead of always prompting you to select sets, add a prompt like
> > `ask_yn "Install complete base system?" yes` and not present the
> > selection UI to people who are just hitting enter. Anyone who types "no"
> > can get the set selection prompt with a warning that any customized
> > configuration is not tested or supported by the developers. I've never
> > sent a patch for this b/c I haven't ever had the gumption to give myself
> > a good way of testing changes to install.sub.
> 
> Honestly, I never blindly accept any defaults offert to me by any means
> and just hit enter or accept them. Someone installing OpenBSD for the
> first time feeling the need to already tweak knobs in the installer
> maybe is just used to having to tweak knobs and maybe needs guiding away
> from such habits in some way.

As someone who came from Linux, which is probably true for close to 100%
of all users, where installing without a X window system is a totally
normal thing to do, I of course tweaked the knob. Why should I install
something I know I don't need?

Only after running into some problems (that I forgot) I found out that
installing without X is not totally normal for OpenBSD. As a new user
there is already enough new information to digest. If having having all
sets selected is such important it should be made clear. I agree with
Evan, ideally the UI should be made so that users are guided in the
right direction.