In contrast, I find the installer refreshing. Yes, it's text-based, but it's streamlined and for most use cases all you have to do is hit Enter at the prompts. As for the partitioning, I don't know when you last installed OpenBSD, but, with the auto partitioning, you just hit Enter as well. If you wanted to customize the partitioning, it is a bit daunting for the uninitiated, but after you do it a few times it really is just as streamlined as the rest of the installer.
Nope, I am firmly with Joe here on this one. The installer is the first major pain point new OpenBSD users are likely to encounter, and especially partitioning is weird, cryptic, and downright unhelpful.
In real life OS testing and evaluation, I don't get to dedicate whole machines to any OS. No OS is that special, that important, or that versatile.
I always dual-boot because that often uncovers weaknesses and assumptions in installers... just as the OpenBSD devels encourage people to fail hard, the OpenBSD installer itself fails hard in a multi-boot scenario.
Example, to recreate if you are curious enough:
0. Set up a new PC (or VM, it doesn't matter.)
1. Install Windows (say, v10 as it's easy.)
2. Add a random Linux distro. For best results, have separate /, /home and swap partitions.
3. Now, try to add OpenBSD to that.
For best results, do this by directing a friend who has never used Unix through the process, over the phone so you can't see the screen. ;-)
If that's too easy, partition the disk with MBR so you have to deal with logical partitions too.
Text based is fine. I started with Slackware in 96, and I’m totally comfy with that - but when I installed OpenBSD I recall needing to supply some pretty detailed stuff about starting cylinders? It was lower level than I remember having to get even with Linux in very early days.
