@techokami good job! The learning curve can be quite a bit intense (I still don't quite grok how disk subsystem/wedges work), but the docs are wonderful, and there are plenty kind people around who can advise stuff
Oct 4, 2026, 7:36 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd currently getting all the packages for KDE downloaded (what? I need something safe and familiar!) and this is going to take a while :blobfoxdeadinside:
really do NOT like CTWM. At all. Why do I have to have the cursor on the window to keep it focused? Also why is the only editor out of the box vi????? And there is no visible settings for anything
Oct 4, 2026, 7:40 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd okay critical issue, how do I make KDE Plasma (or ANY ENVIRONMENT) be used at login
@techokami you need to configure a desktop manager, there are quite a few options
Oct 4, 2026, 8:02 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd ...uh, this is not helping me in the slightest :( still getting CTWM and XDM.
Oct 4, 2026, 8:13 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd to elaborate, I have a .xinitrc in my home folder and the contents are "exec startxfce4" (because I don't know what KDE's command is but I also installed XFCE4 as a fallback option) and it still just starts XDM, which sends me into CTWM. Whyyyyyyyyy
@techokami it should be .xsession if the docs aren't lying and I hope they aren't
Oct 4, 2026, 8:46 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd derrrp, switched to .xsession and now... uhhhhh... fans are going 100% and all I have is a black screen with a console output??
Oct 4, 2026, 8:54 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd I had to manually kill the X server to make startxfce4 work. Why WHY
![XFCE4 on NetBSD. [Civvie voice] hi cancer mouse](https://cdn.woof.tech/media_attachments/files/117/384/623/605/605/403/original/862c9a898479fa3d.jpg)
@techokami @nina_kali_nina @netbsd have you considered perhaps Illumos maybe it could have better luck?
Oct 4, 2026, 8:59 PM@plzupgrademe @netbsd @nina_kali_nina I picked NetBSD because of Linuxulator. This would let me keep using a lot of my existing software and toolchains. AFAIK no such thing exists for Illumos.
@techokami @netbsd @nina_kali_nina makes sense.
@techokami oh, that sometimes happens to me, I have to hit ctrl+c a few times and it magically starts up. I feel like it must be me misconfiguring something, but looks like it might be a common-ish issue, huh. Good job with the installation, though!
Oct 4, 2026, 9:14 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd USB TETHERING STOPPED WORKING. WHAT. HELP
@techokami did you reboot? It is worth checking your /etc/rc.conf for bogus config, then ifconfig for the physical connection, and then making sure that dhcpcd can get the IP configuration
Oct 4, 2026, 9:17 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd rc.conf is unchanged, ifconfig doesn't show my phone anymore
I'm going to boot back into Linux before I bite someone irl, I am getting very stressed out
@techokami please take it easy! I wonder if the phone's not connecting in the right mode anymore 😭
Oct 4, 2026, 9:25 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd hhhhhh okay back on Linux, I can use fedi with a keyboard again and my phone not tethered to my comp...
What on earth was going on? Everything was going good, but then when I finally got XFCE going, my internet lifeline went kaput and refused to come back. And even then, I would have rather gotten KDE going instead, but the official docs from NetBSD have nothing on getting it going.
And now that I'm back on Linux... I can't access the new NetBSD disk? GNOME Disks sees it as "NetBSD FFS" but there's no option to mount it. Which is really bad because I need a way to move my home directory to NetBSD.
@techokami hmm hmm maybe the kernel doesn't have the right file system support compiled in? 🤔
@plzupgrademe @netbsd
Oct 4, 2026, 9:46 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd I did modprobe ufs to get the driver loaded, but when I try to mount it, it fails and dmesg gets "ufs: ufs_fill_super(): bad magic number"
@techokami I vaguely remember that Linux might confuse OpenBSD and NetBSD file systems and needs a nudge in the right direction, could it be the case?
@nina_kali_nina @techokami Yeah, was that with `-o ufstype=44bsd`?
Oct 4, 2026, 10:35 PM@MrDOS @nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd It was. See https://pastebin.com/dt3vj2DH for details
Oct 4, 2026, 7:44 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd ahh, right, SDDM should be available...
@techokami actually ed is the standard text editor but I'm pretty sure you won't enjoy it lol. NetBSD is very UNIX like and very true to the roots and KISS principles.
I'm not a very big fan of ctwm myself, precisely for the reason you explained; I like that xfce4 comes as a ready made desktop on NetBSD and OpenBSD, but my heart belongs to jwm (for now). Especially that xfce4 is getting sloppy
Oct 4, 2026, 7:43 PM@nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe @netbsd yeah I know, eventually I'll be installing CDE, but first I need to, you know, make it use something else
@techokami @nina_kali_nina @netbsd excellent choice with CDE. This thread has also been a good reminder to me why I just use MacOS now for my Unix fix. CDE would make it almost worth it to switch.
@plzupgrademe I, on the other hand, keep being fascinated by NetBSD. I think it's incredible how good the OS is considering the size of the project (being at least one or two orders of magnitude smaller than Linux and MacOS) and the funding (almost complete lack of it).
Oct 4, 2026, 10:29 PM@techokami @nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe
it's controlled by the ClickToFocus/SloppyFocus settings in ctwmrc, but the answer is that mouse focus is traditional for unix. We ship xedit too for a simple text editor in base.
Oct 4, 2026, 10:31 PM@netbsd @nina_kali_nina @plzupgrademe I ended up installing nano, though knowing that xedit exists in the base install is good to know