The OpenBSD Installer - Klemens Nanni - EuroBSDcon 2023
Channel: EuroBSDcon
Date: 2023-10-02

Klemens Nanni:  The OpenBSD installer 
The code guiding users through their initial installation of OpenBSD presents itself as a unified interface across all supported platforms and boot methods.

Also responsible for upgrades between development snapshots and proper releases, its goal is to provide an as effortless, streamlined and reliable user experience as possible, with sane defaults for the majority of use cases.

Tight integration into the build infrastructure, coordination with firmware, bootloaders and kernel features, but also help from a running system are crucial parts in this delecate machinary known as "the installer".

To keep up with new hardware, OpenBSD's design and features and common usage patterns, more seemingly innocuous aspects must be considered.

This talk shows what "the installer" is made of, explains how it works and demonstrates how recent efforts to improve it can look like.

Klemens Nanni:
Freelancer OpenBSD user/developer since 2015/2018