I have a new Microsoft Surface Go 3 and installed OpenBSD 7.2 to see how it does as a machine to carry while travelling. The box contained the Surface Go itself, a 24 W charger with the silly proprietary connector, and a few bits of paper. I already had a Type Cover keyboard (from the Go I bought when it came out) so I was pretty much ready to go.
Installing OpenBSD
Boot the Surface and let Microsoft Update install a bunch of stuff. Most of this isn’t important as I blew away the Windows installation completely, but I guess the firmware updates will probably be useful (and there’s no chance of getting them installed except through Windows). This takes absolutely ages. Something on the order of an hour, much of it with a static “installing updates” screen.
Download an OpenBSD installer image and write it to a USB storage device. I used
install72.imgand theddcommand but it doesn’t matter much. Don’t forget to validate the signature of the image!Boot the Surface into firmware mode (hold volume-up, press the power button, and wait until it enters the firmware before you release volume-up). Disable Secure Boot and set the boot order to include USB devices.
Insert the USB device and reboot. I needed a USB-C to USB-A converted for my USB storage device.
Go through the OpenBSD installer process. While OpenBSD includes a driver for the Intel wireless device, the installer doesn’t include the firmware. I yanked out the USB storage device and inserted a USB Ethernet adaptor I had handy at the network configuration point. This allowed me to use an HTTP mirror as the source for the installation and, importantly, let installer download the appropriate firmware.
https://jcs.org/2020/05/15/surface_go2
Networking
The installer identified the firmware packages needed for built-in Intel
wireless adaptor. But running fw_update is probably a good idea.
Configure the WiFi interface by creating /etc/hostname.iwx0 with content like
the following:
join HOME_NETWORK wpakey PASSWORD
join WORK_NETWORK wpakey OTHERPASS
dhcpThere are more parameters that can be added; see hostname.if(5) and
ifconfig(8) for details.
I also have a new Google Pixel 7 Pro phone and want to get USB tethering up and running. Recent Pixel models have stopped using RNDIS protocol for USB tethering (though OpenBSD does have a driver for RNDIS). This is a good move by Google! And they’ve moved to using an actual standard: CDC UNM. Unfortunately OpenBSD does not, as far as I can tell, have a driver that supports CDC UNM devices.
If your USB tethering device is supported, you can configure hotplugd to
bring up a network connection when you plug it in.
http://www.omarpolo.com/post/openbsd-tethering.html
X, XenoDM, and a window manager
xtsscale to calibrate the touch screen but you need to find the right XInput
device. xinput --list will show a number of mouse devices (all alike except
for the device and XInput IDs).
I consulted dmesg for the ims devices:
dmesg | grep -E 'ims[0-9]'On my machine ims0 has “button, tip” while ims1 also has “barrel, eraser”
listed: clearly ims0 is the touch screen and ims1 is the stylus support.
The other matched lines in dmesg should mention the wsmouse the corresponds
to each ims device: my machine had wsmouse0 and wsmouse1 respectively.
Use xinput --list and find the entry for wsmouse0. Then find the XInput ID
(e.g. id=7) and calibrate it:
xtsscale -d 7If your fingers are as fat as mine the calibration process might take a few
attempts but eventually it will update the calibration parameters for the
running X server and print those same parameters so you can update your
configuration. The details are in xtsscale(1).
https://www.birkey.co/2022-01-29-openbsd-7-xfce-desktop.html
https://www.tumfatig.net/2019/customizing-openbsd-xenodm/
https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2021-07-30-openbsd-xidle-xlock.html
https://www.tumfatig.net/2021/calibrate-your-touch-screen-on-openbsd/