Thanks to everyone who contributed financially to our little #openbsd and #gameoftrees based #git repository hosting project in 2025!

Here are the numbers for contributions in 2025 which arrived via #opencollective, with the corresponding amounts of platform and payment processor fees, and taxes (due in the EU only because tax thresholds in other regions have not been crossed):

EU amount: 1975.40€

EU VAT: 342.84€

EU net amount: 1632.56€

EU fees: 271.30€

non-EU amount: 830.00€

non-EU fees: 139.52€

Total amount without fees: 2805.40€

Total fees: 410.82€

Here are the equivalent numbers for paid subscriptions (people actually using the service) in 2025:

EU amount: 30.00€

EU VAT: 5.21€

EU net amount: 24.79€

EU fees: 1.20€

non-EU amount: 210.00€

non-EU fees: 11.48€

Total amount without fees: 240.00€

Total fees: 12.68€

It is evident that we are currently relying on people making voluntary contributions to keep the lights on, rather than on actual users of the service (though there is some overlap between both groups, which is nice). We are hoping to close this gap by the end of 2026.

If you like our project then you could help us a lot by raising awareness of our existence among people you know who might be interested.

If you did already consider booking a subscription but have decided against doing so, do not hesitate to let us know why. Perhaps we can improve things for you

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟭/𝟬𝟱 (Valuable News - 2026/01/05) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/valuable-news-2026-01-05/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Legitimate question for all you lovely BSD-folks. Does anyone daily CDE nowadays?

#freebsd #openbsd #cde

Seems KDE's new login/session manager which is supposed to replace sddm dropped FreeBSD support and will be systemd only.

I could rant about this being a typical techbro linux move (and about fedora, as far I can see in this case) or ask on the kde discuss what's the real deal, but I am tired of this, so tired...
It is sending exactly the wrong message to other OS ports and it's why I left the GNU/Linux world. Move fast, break things...

*sigh* Ok, I should start worrying about plasma6's general direction now and slowly looking for another DE here on FreeBSD. It's not worth the struggle.

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-login-manager/-/commit/e78f33aefd6512b542af21c3542516f38cbf678d

#kde #sddm #plasma6 #freebsd #openbsd #linux

AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.

This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.

Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.

In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.

#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation

The FreeBSD stand at #Fosdem2026 will be in building H.
The table will be shared with our friends #FreeBSD Foundation, #OpenBSD, #NetBSD and #illumos.

Gestern abend noch happy, weil #OpenBSD mit #relayd bei uns an den Start ging... Heute sporadisch Ohnmachtsanfälle wegen #stromausfall im Süden Berlins. Unser RZ ist betroffen. Notstrom Aggregat wegen Defekt außer Betrieb. Hatte ich erwähnt das wir unter anderem Winterdienst in ganz Berlin mittels unserer Systeme managen? Glaube mein Wochenende ist im Eimer :D .

Aber alles halb so wild.... ist nur business. Viel wichtiger: Passt alle auf euch und eure Nächsten auf!

Just a rant, I'll figure things out, I hope. Apologise for the giant toot.

New year, new attempt to install #Nextcloud on #OpenBSD. I'm a lot closer to a working system than the last time I tried but still not quite there.

I've followed the KB as best I can - https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/stable/admin_manual/installation/example_openbsd.html

This time I at least have a Nextcoud web page, after fixing the assumptions made in the KB I clearly didn't understand the first 25 times around.

But....
"Error
PHP module zip not installed.

Please ask your server administrator to install the module.

PHP module GD not installed.

Please ask your server administrator to install the module.

PHP module cURL not installed.

Please ask your server administrator to install the module."

I am the fsking administrator, and I have no bloody idea how to do any of that. :-( Why does the KB not include any of this information????

I'm resisting the urge to just give up again and renew my Google drive subscription for another 12 months.

And no, I won't use the AIO option full of docker containers that must be public facing with LetsEncrypt certs. This is only ever going to be used internally or from our Wireguard VPN

Why does #SelfHosting have to be this hard !!!!

You can simply use relay instances to be interconnected with other instances to exchange posts and it works seamless with #Mastodon, #Pleroma, #snac / #snac2 and many other ones! If you're in tech, you might want to use:

https://fedi-relay.gyptazy.com

You can simply add it to get a bigger reach but also to get more interesting content into your own timeline which becomes even more important on single user- & smaller instances.

#activitypub #mastodon #fediverse #opensource #bsd #runbsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #debian #proxmox #xcpng #talos #coding #programming #fediwall #relay #fedirelay #acitivitypubrelay #selfhost #homelab #community

Alt...

Activity Pub / Fediverse Relay

A very serious story from the Notfoundland University, in the departement of Comp. lately made this up-and-coming discovery that being exposed to PDP-11 assembler code will always make your day brighter and, overall, your life happier.

So why not peek at the PDP-11 code found in today's #openbsd story?

Plus One

Thank you, all the supporters, fans, visitors, critters, observers and machine-folk.

Good luck next year!

#unix_surrealism #technomage #openbsd #dragonflybsd #linux #penguin #9front #comic #grendel #glenda

Alt...

Girl, Fish and Penguin pose for a photograph.

Some records were broken this year!
- More than 1000 VMs running!
- Donated more than €60k!
- Crossed the C$20k (C$20998) threshold for this year... Gold is in sight!

We donated €1125 to the #OpenBSD Foundation, this year €13270, and €60830 since we started.

This month 27 new VMs were added and 57 VMs were renewed.

Thank you, our users, and OpenBSD developers for an awesome OS!

We want to wish you a Happier New Year! It's getting really time for a better one.
Stay safe & healthy!

#RUNBSD in 2026

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Paypal receipt for €1125

Alt...

Rainn Wilson as Dwight Kurt Schrute III in The Office US, looking straight in the camera. It has the text: Happy New Year!! Wrong: The happiness of the upcoming year has yet to be determined

Looking Back at 2025, Looking Forward to 2026

Pizzas, tiramisu, stickers, and plenty of coffee. But above all, people.

My 2025 has been a journey from Canada to Croatia, reconnecting with old friends and launching new projects. In a difficult year for the world, I chose to focus on the light emitted by positive figures, who are often the quiet ones.

I’ve written a farewell post for this incredible year on my personal blog. See you in 2026, with the same Smile(TM).

https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/12/31/looking-back-at-2025-looking-forward-to-2026/

#MyNotes #PersonalBlog #2025Highlights #BSD #Community #Gratitude #Fediverse #Blogging #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #BSDCafe #illumosCafe #EuroBSDCon #BSDCan #OSDay

Pizzas, tiramisu, stickers, and plenty of coffee. But above all, people.

My 2025 has been a journey from Canada to Croatia, reconnecting with old friends and launching new projects. In a difficult year for the world, I chose to focus on the light emitted by positive figures, who are often the quiet ones.

I’ve written a farewell post for this incredible year on my personal blog. See you in 2026, with the same Smile(TM).

https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/12/31/looking-back-at-2025-looking-forward-to-2026/

#MyNotes #PersonalBlog #2025Highlights #BSD #Community #Gratitude #Fediverse #Blogging #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #BSDCafe #illumosCafe #EuroBSDCon #BSDCan #OSDay

OpenBGPD 9.0 released https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20251231070524 #openbsd #openbgpd #bgp #routing #networking #opensource #libresoftware #freesoftware #bsd

Miod talks about HP/PA boot blocks https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20251231080327 #openbsd #hppa #risc #bootblocks #porting #development #opensource #hp #portablecode

Friends, at the end of a horrible year, please let's talk about something *nice*.

My EUR 0.02: You Have Installed OpenBSD. Now For The Daily Tasks. https://nxdomain.no/~peter/openbsd_installed_now_for_the_daily_tasks.html (tracked https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2024/09/you-have-installed-openbsd-now-for.html)

Bonus track: Yes, The Book of PF, 4th Edition Is Coming Soon https://nxdomain.no/~peter/yes_the_book_of_pf_4th_ed_is_coming.html (tracked https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/07/yes-book-of-pf-4th-edition-is-coming.html)

#freesoftware #openbsd #freebsd #bookofpf #networking #security #deveops #development #sysadmin @nostarch

dirty dozen

#japanese_jesus #unix_surrealism #linux #gentoo #openbsd #fish #mnt #thinkpad #ibm #darts #pool

Alt...

the twelve apostles and japanese jesus in a milkbar

fw_update(8) now checks dmesg(8) output in addition to dmesg.boot https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20251230094932 #openbsd #firmware #fw_update #dmesg

as of #FreeBSD 15 pf syntax is much closer to #OpenBSD. this is big QoL improvement! sharing here as I had not noticed that earlier

https://netgate.com/blog/updates-to-the-pf-packet-filter-in-freebsd-and-pfsense-software

Simple web framework on #OpenBSD using #zig and #fastcgi ,
and it's really mostly #C code right now, which is sorta the
point for me and learning zig.

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟭𝟮/𝟮𝟵 (Valuable News - 2025/12/29) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/valuable-news-2025-12-29/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

On my Thinkpad P16s dropped debian and moved to OpenBSD current.

Dropped XMonad and switched to Herbstluftwm (stack and cabal did not work for me in OpenBSD).

Emacs & denote smooth.

Only miss Zotero.

#OpenBSD

D'ailleurs, c'est toujours les autres OS qui meurent...

#9front #linux #openbsd #unix_surrealism #technomage

Alt...

Cirno, Glenda, Girl, Puffy and Penguin come across a brand new MATA poster in a ruined city. "MATA LINUX (WITH AI!) COMING SOON!" Cirno: "Anyway... It's always other operating systems that die."

The BSDCan Call For Papers (CFP) is open until January 17th, see https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/papers.html

If you tried to sign up as a new indico user and did not get the confirmation mail in time, please try again. The problem has been fixed.

The holidays can be a great time to get that submission done! #bsdcan #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #freesoftware #libresoftware

Want to know more about #bsd and the conferences? See https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (and links therein) @bsdcan

OpenBSD advocacy ML : "Deployed my first client workload on OpenBSD... it won't be the last"

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-advocacy&m=176669459211662&w=2

#OpenBSD @stefano

Ho, ho, ho!

Here is your #OpenBSD xmas story!

http://miod.online.fr/software/openbsd/stories/udl.html

Absolutely crazy Christmas gift #openbsd

TIL about OpenBSD VPN faq

#VPN #service #OpenBSD #BSD #Unix #OpenSource #programming #technology

https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq17.html

The @bsdcan Call For Papers (CFP) is open until January 17th, see https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/papers.html

The holidays can be a great time to get that submission done! #bsdcan #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #freesoftware #libresoftware

Want to know more about #bsd and the conferences? See https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (and links therein)

Fish Alpinism

How I make digital art.

https://triapul.cz/_/1765291397

#unix_surrealism #openbsd #alpine #linux #gimp #art #foss

Alt...

artist keyboard

DUFF v KORN 2

prev: https://merveilles.town/@prahou/115508225024561937

#unix_surrealism #plan9 #9front #korn #ksh #rc #comic #linux #lo0 #technomage #openblade #openbsd

Alt...

Daemon: "I think that looks pretty good! Don't you?" Kshboy: "Haha, yeah! You made it in troff?" Daemon: "Yeah!" Kshboy: "Cool!" DEAR MISTER DUFF, MY BEST FRIEND AND I WERE WONDERING, IF YOU COULD BEAT KORN IN A FIGHT. WE KNOW OF A GREAT PLACE WHERE YOU COULD DO BATTLE. Daemon: "We can just swap the names with sed for the other letter!" Kshboy: "But how do we get it to them? We don't even know where they live..." Daemon: "I have an idea. Let's rewrite it!"

Alt...

Random penguins hand a leaflet to Techno-Mage. DUFF V KORN DUEL OF THE AGES WHEN: NEXT FULL MOON WHERE: THE BIG HILL OUTSIDE FOSSTOWN WHOEVER DOESN'T SHOW AUTOMATICALLY LOSES! PLACE YOUR BEST AT THE DRUNKEN BIRD BARD OpenBlade: "Oh yeah, I heard about this." Mage: "You heard about this?" OpenBlade: "You have a lot of money riding on Korn btw."

Alt...

Lo0: "YOU AND I WERE MEANT TO BE!" Lo0 KORN TRIBUTE practice Korn: "STOP! That's not what they sounded like..." Mec: "Sorry, Mister K." Korn: "Are you? The gig is in a week. Do better!" Bot_Manager: "YO! CASH MONEY K! Why didn't you tell me about the fight?!" Korn: "What fight?" Bot_Manager: "I could get the band to play there!"

Alt...

Penguin Postman walks up a mountain. Penguin: "Mister Duff? Mail!" Duff: "Vincent! Is it next year already?" Penguin: "No sir, just some admin stuff regarding your fight." Duff: "Fight?"

Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150: FreeBSD, SmartOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux Compared

Update: This post has been updated to include Docker benchmarks and a comparison of container overhead versus FreeBSD Jails and illumos Zones.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/19/static-web-hosting-intel-n150-freebsd-smartos-netbsd-openbsd-linux/

#ITNotes #freebsd #illumos #jail #linux #netbsd #openbsd #ownyourdata #server #smartos #sysadmin #zoneshosting

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/19/static-web-hosting-intel-n150-freebsd-smartos-netbsd-openbsd-linux/

#ITNotes #NoteHUB #freebsd #illumos #jail #linux #netbsd #openbsd #ownyourdata #server #smartos #sysadmin #zoneshosting

the list

#unix_surrealism #comic #poster #openbsd #freebsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #9front #plan9 #glenda #cirno #girl #daemon #puffy #rabbit #mata #openblade #penguin #linux #foss

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MATACORP'S MOST WANTED HACKERS Fish Daemon Cirno OpenBlade Rabbit Frederick "the Hammer" Glenda II Sphence Purple "Penguin" Pentium-M Man Girl

This Isn't a Battle

After reading a post describing the FreeBSD community as 'toxic', I share a different perspective. This isn't a battle. It's a reflection on coexistence, the original Open Source spirit, and the quiet richness of taking a different path.

https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/14/this-isnt-a-battle/

#MyNotes #IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Linux #OpenSource

bathing

I use @OpenBSDAms btw

#unix_surrealism #openbsd #vmm #vmd #poster #comic #linux #plan9 #glenda

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Girl and Penguin visit the fish vats.

rio-like configuration for base openbsd fvwm2

https://nein.triapul.cz/technology/openbsd/fvwm/

#rio #fvwm #plan9 #openbsd #fishlinux #serpico

Alt...

jc leyendecker in acme

dating culture clash

#9front #openbsd #gnu #linux #plan9 #dating #comic #unix

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plan9bunny-person meets with a fish-daemon-person. Daemon: "So, how was the date?" Bunny: "He talked about docker for 35 minutes and then asked, if I have wine." Daemon: "Did you tell him you're not Unix?" Bunny: "Yeah, he said: 'oh, like GNU?'"

Prehistoric AI, OpenBlade's relative

#unix_surrealism #lispmachine #openblade #openbsd #technomage #comic

Alt...

Girl and Puffy discover an abandoned machine in a ruined building. Girl: "What is it, master?" Puffy: "This, my dear Girl, is a prewar fully sentient MilTek Lisp Machine. It's basically a bulkier OpenBlade. I was sure MATA got rid of them all..." LispMachine: "Hi there! I haven't seen another live form in over 200 years! Do you guys wanna hear my take on vaccines?" OpenBlade: "Wow, this guy is awesome!"

Heads up for people applying the first syspatch(8) for #OpenBSD 7.8, which is actually for the syspatch(8) utility itself.

There are instructions in the errata patch for if it fails.

If syspatch fails (probably because /usr is not a separate filesystem), perform these steps:
sed -e 's/.checkfs/#checkfs/g' /usr/sbin/syspatch > /root/syspatch
ksh /root/syspatch
syspatch # re-run new syspatch command as instructed
rm /root/syspatch
dev_mkdb

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=176158489701798&w=2

Thanks to everyone involved. All hail the fish.

The Man of MATA pt1

next: https://merveilles.town/@prahou/115271822786360293

pls consider supporting my work: https://analognowhere.com/support

#unix_surrealism #comic #technomage #openbsd #linux #penguin #mata

Alt...

Somewhere in a desert... Girl and Penguin are eating breakfast. Penguin: "Morning, slept well?" Girl: "mhmhmhm" Penguin: "What's today?" Girl checks her school schedule. It's Monday, morning class - history. Girl: "History. Penguin, unenthusiased: "Sounds exciting."

Alt...

Classroom. Fish begins the lesson. Fish: "I wanted to call this class mythology, but Purple said history suggests that some of it might actually be true. Nobody remembers how long ago, but as you know, the world ended. While the inheritors of the ravaged land learned to adapt to their predicament, three brothers, successors of those who brought about the end, set out into the destroyed world to ruin it some more." LAST REMAINING MATACORPBUNKER B_73; three brothers "Well, gentlemen, we ate all the women, children and uly. The water purifier is busted and the only person who could fix it was Parkinson." "We ate her last week." "We ate her last week." "Nothing to eat, nothing to drink. So now what?" "I think it's time to do what our great great great grandparents spoke of - Go outside and restart civilization." "Ugh..."

Alt...

Penguin and Fish are dressed as the MATA brothers. Penguin: "I have the best ideas." Fish: "You're going to have to help us play the third brother." Girl, ecstatic: "School trip!" analognowhere presents: techno-mage in: Girl, Fish and Penguin stand outside their cave home. Fish: "... they gathered a bunch of thumbdrives with ancient CORPO tech and went on a journey to find people and machines they could poison." Penguin: "It's a good day to fuck shit up. Come on, bros!" Girl: "He's really into it!"

Alt...

The three brothers cross the ancient desolate land. "This suuuuuuuuuuuucks." "Shut up."

Me: huh, I don't remember logging out of my session on the kids' #OpenBSD laptop…oh, right, I did a `doas sysupgrade`, it did the upgrade, rebooted into 7.7, and returned uneventfully to the login screen without requiring any additional intervention or thought.

There's something wonderful about an upgrade-process so boring that you can accidentally forget you did it.

I got asked if I could create a #howto for creating a (public) #NAT64 service - just like I did recently for #BoxyBSD. With #DNS64 and #NAT64 you can also reach resource in the legacy internet (#IPv4) on #IPv6 only systems.

While this is based on #unbound and #tayga, there’s also a solution by using the #OpenBSD's native way which is also running on the other gateway. I’ll share a second how to how to do this in OpenBSD and pf.

https://gyptazy.com/howto-create-a-public-dns64-nat64-gateway/

While I was mucking about with an #openbsd port, I got an email from github offering me access to their ai code writing uselessness.

No! Bad website!

*spritzes with water bottle*

My code doesn't work at the moment. Broken is still better than this offer.

This is my favorite part of the OpenBSD installer because I get it wrong every time, but I love that they anticipated it! #openbsd

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Text from the OpenBSD installer asking "Setup a user? (enter a lower-case loginname, or 'no')". The user enters "yes" and the next prompt says "No really, what is the lower-case loginname, or 'no'?"

**BSD Mail Project Update!**

Hello everyone! I wanted to share some exciting updates about the development of BSD Mail, our privacy-focused email service designed with robustness, security, and transparency in mind. Here’s a deep dive into the technical choices I've made, focusing on my use of open source solutions and open protocols:

🌍 **Servers & Location**

- We're running on two physical servers:
- One hosted by OVH in France
- Another by Hetzner in Germany
- Both servers operate on FreeBSD with NVMe drives in a ZFS mirror configuration for speed and data integrity.

🔒 **Virtualization & Security**

- We utilize jails on both servers to ensure isolated environments for different services, managed via BastilleBSD. On one server, jails are set up directly on the hardware, whereas the other server employs nested jails.
- Each server hosts a bhyve VM running OpenBSD with OpenSMTPD for handling SMTP duties securely.

🔗 **Networking**

- A Wireguard setup connects the two servers, facilitating routing capabilities so that jails and VMs can communicate seamlessly, supporting both IPv4 and IPv6.

📧 **Email Services**

- **Dovecot** is configured for maildir replication across the servers using Dovecot sync, ensuring email availability and redundancy.
- **Rspamd** instances are tied to local KeyDB jails, set up in master-master replication for consistent and reliable spam detection and greylisting.
- **ClamAV** runs in corresponding jails for virus scanning, maintaining a high level of security.
- **SOGo** provides a web interface for email management, connected to MySQL databases in master-master replication to handle sessions and authentication smoothly.

💾 **Data Management**

- Email data is stored on separate, encrypted ZFS datasets to secure emails at rest.
- MySQL databases are used for storing credentials and managing sessions for SOGo, also in a master-master replication setup. Importantly, all passwords are securely hashed using bcrypt, ensuring they are salted and safe.

🔎 **Monitoring & Reliability**

- Our DNS is managed through BunnyNet, which continuously monitors our server status. Should one server—or a specific service—become unavailable, DNS configurations are dynamically adjusted to avoid directing users to the affected IP until full service is restored.

🌐 **Commitment to Open Source and Open Protocols**

- Every component of BSD Mail is built exclusively using open source software and open protocols. This commitment is crucial for ensuring data freedom and the reliability of the solutions we use.

This setup not only emphasizes our commitment to privacy and security but also our dedication to maintaining an open and transparent platform.
We're excited to bring you a service where your privacy, data integrity, and freedom are prioritized. Stay tuned for more updates!

#BSDMail #OpenSource #Privacy #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #EmailHosting #Email

#OpenBSD may introduces Word into the base system

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=170742832804260&w=2

Running #wayland compositor #sway on #OpenBSD is very easy (only -current at the moment)

- pkg_add sway
- stop xenodm
- log-in as your user in a tty
- run /usr/local/bin/startsway.sh

that's all

Alt...

Screenshot of an OpenBSD desktop running the wayland compositor sway