Products · Product
OpenBSD
Raised as a usability problem by 58 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 52 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Sizing many partitions correctly is needlessly difficultUnreviewed
20102026- Must plan partition sizes up front and often gets them wrong2023-07-23
- Sizing many partitions correctly is an unnecessary nightmare2023-06-02
- Hard to get partition sizes right during installation2022-02-12
Documentation answers are hard to find or absorb on first readUnreviewed
20102026- Documentation answers are there but hard to find or absorb on first read2025-04-02
- Docs are hard for beginners to navigate; you must already know what to look for2022-08-19
- Poor documentation makes users build a habit of checking the manual, unlike Googling on Linux2017-07-27
Config edits, source builds and missing dependencies needed before any workUnreviewed
20102026- Needs config file edits, source builds, missing dependencies and obscure errors before work2019-07-05
- Inconsistent documentation and faulty defaults made development and deployment hard2019-03-31
- Example setup is overly complicated, requiring many config files and edits2017-07-19
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- System hangs at boot when no monitor is connected to HDMI2026-08-01
- Man page for -I and -J options is confusing, user's brain glazes over reading it2026-07-20
- Upgrades force partition surgery and repartitioning from a rescue environment to fit required files2026-05-19
- System may drop into single user mode needing manual fsck after sudden power loss2025-11-03
- Installer's drive labelling was super confusing, forcing user to remove drives2025-10-22
- After a power cut, system files are lost and the user can't tell which ones2025-09-02
- Animated sprites chase the cursor with no obvious way to turn them off2025-08-16
- Animation is distracting and makes the mouse cursor vanish, hurting reading2025-08-15
- Mouse cursor disappears while reading and the game overlay interferes with the text, making it unreadable2025-08-15
- Under heavy disk access the cursor freezes and other programs launch slowly2025-04-28
- Documentation answers are there but hard to find or absorb on first read2025-04-02
- Has too many usability issues on the desktop input method2025-03-03
- Unstyled pages with poor line height and long lines hurt readability2025-02-23
- Installer and partitioner are a nightmare; partitioning dual-boot setups is confusing and labyrinthine2024-10-13
- Package manager feels very slow to use2024-01-15
- Font is so large on desktop that the text is unreadable2023-10-27
- Making the VPN work looked so complicated the commenter gave up2023-08-08
- Must plan partition sizes up front and often gets them wrong2023-07-23
- Sizing many partitions correctly is an unnecessary nightmare2023-06-02
- Typing the concatenated keyword syntax is harder than a visually intuitive interface2023-05-08
- Hardware like sound, display and touchpad often fails to work without manual config2023-02-10
- Minimalist OpenBSD desktop falls short on ease of use for the commenter2022-10-17
- Docs are hard for beginners to navigate; you must already know what to look for2022-08-19
- Information is spread across seven sources, so the user must search many places for answers2022-08-19
- Man pages document things only by implication with confusing wording, making answers near-impossible to find2022-08-19
- Man pages document things only by implication, so newcomers can't find answers2022-08-19
- Console lacks Unicode, full color, and mouse scrolling that GUI terminals have2022-05-16
- Hard to get partition sizes right during installation2022-02-12
- Upgrading meant reinstalling every six months and merging local changes by hand2022-01-09
- Setting up PPPoE to Virgin Media router was confusing; documentation was hard to follow2021-08-02
- Needs command line utilities and config file edits for suspend, battery life and font scaling2020-10-09
- Desktop use is poor: slower performance, outdated ports, hard upgrades, weak hardware support2020-09-29
- Default desktop needs hours of .Xresources and bitmap font tweaking to look usable2020-09-29
- Desktop feels noticeably sluggish and slower than Linux on same hardware2020-09-08
- Font size change is confusing; unclear what text size results2020-09-01
- Partitioning asks for cylinders and manual calculations, making install hard2020-01-22
- Requires learning yet another command line interface to get things done2019-11-13
- Enabling full disk encryption requires manual bioctl configuration, which scares off new users2019-10-17
- Needs config file edits, source builds, missing dependencies and obscure errors before work2019-07-05
- Installation is complicated, needs a FAQ to configure system and wifi2019-07-04
- System is practically unusable on spinning hard drives without an SSD2019-07-03
- Has to use cables and brittle workarounds because wireless display and phone sync don't work2019-06-29
- Inconsistent documentation and faulty defaults made development and deployment hard2019-03-31
- No easy way to find a disk's device name; must parse dmesg and guess2019-03-01
- System feels very slow to use and software often doesn't work right2019-02-26
- Installer is hostile and wiped the GPT partition table without asking2018-12-12
- Browser scrolling is laggy and closing tabs freezes for seconds2017-11-16
- Couldn't repartition disk to skip X11 partitions; deleting left gaps with no easy resize2017-07-27
- New user is confused by the boot> prompt and unsure what to enter2017-07-27
- Poor documentation makes users build a habit of checking the manual, unlike Googling on Linux2017-07-27