OpenBSD 7.7 on a Dell Wyse 5070 Extended

TL;DR Add disable inteldrm to the /etc/bsd.re-config file and reboot twice

The Dell Wyse 5070 is a thin client device, and the Dell Wyse 5070 extended is simply a bigger version which accomdates a PCIe slot, where I have added a quad NIC so I can use it as a router.

For a long time this machine served me as a homebrewed Debian Linux router, serving firewall, DNS, DHCP, adblocking, and VPN duties to my small home network.

Then I learned about OpenBSD. Enamored by it's minimalism, security focus, and the simplicity of the PF firewall, I decided to try it out as a router/firewall.

However, I've had a lot of badluck trying to get OpenBSD to run on this machine. The 7.6 installer wouldn't even boot on this thing. I tried different USB drives, switching various BIOS settings, switching the SSD to a different computer, installing it on there, and then swithcing it back, but each attempt failed. I was still determined to use OpenBSD so for the meantime I've been using it on a ThinkCentre M720s SFF PC as a router, which served as my home server in a previous life.

When OpenBSD 7.7 came out, I decided to give it another try on the Wyse, and I was actually able to get it installed this time! However, while booting, the screen would immediately turn to black right before loading the inteldrm driver. I could still login into the machine via SSH, but I could not get any signal on the monitor. I tried every port, different cables, differnet monitors, and still nothing.

After consulting others for help, we found the solution to be disabling the inteldrm driver in the /etc/bsd.re-config file. This is the kernel configuration file.

echo "disable inteldrm" >> /etc/bsd.reconfig

I had to reboot twice to get this to work. After that everything displayed to the monitor no problem! I assume X will no longer work without these drivers, but that is no problem for me since I will be using this machine as a router. This definitely seems like a bug though and I will need to report it.