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+Dual Booting OpenBSD and Alpine Linux on a X220 ThinkPad
+
+2024-07-10
+
+I've always found it useful to run both OpenBSD and some form of Linux variation on my personal machines. Most times, I would default to running one OS on bare metal, while the other would simply live in a VM. This works *okay* but I prefer my operating systems having a "hardware separator" - if that makes sense? So, I set off to start dual booting both OpenBSD and Alpine Linux on my X220 ThinkPad.
+
+I should mention that I planned to write this blog post a couple weeks ago, but the original Dogfish mSATA SSD I ordered wasn't compatible with my X220 (even though they say it is supported...). Luckily, I found a replacement drive in one of my "computer parts" drawer. Hoarding tech always prevails!
+
+<figure>
+  <img src="/public/images/dual-boot-2.jpeg" alt="The inside of my X220, showing the Dogfish mSATA drive in place.">
+  <figcaption>The original Dogfish mSATA slotted in the X220. Too bad it didn't work...</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+I came across my old Raspberry Pi 400, which I previously [wrote about when stuffing an SSD inside it](/posts/pi-400-internal-ssd/), and proceeded to gut the drive. It's a cheap KingSpec SSD with a whopping 64GB of storage space. But that didn't matter since the plan was to install the wonderfully small Alpine Linux. 64 GB would be plenty of space for us!
+
+## Getting Started
+
+I already had the Alpine Linux ISO installed on a random thumb drive, so that made things quicker right off the bat. The next step was opening up my X220 and slotting in the very tiny mSATA.
+
+This introduced the first minor issue: the drive was too small. I could have looked into something more "professional-looking" in order to seat the drive properly but I decided to *stick* with electrical tape. Get it?... After applying the tape I closed the machine back up.
+
+<figure>
+  <img src="/public/images/dual-boot-3.jpeg" alt="The inside of my X220, showing the KingSpec mSATA drive in place with electrical tape.">
+  <figcaption>The KingSpec mSATA slotted in the X220 and secured with top-of-the-line electrical tape...</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+## Installing Alpine Linux
+
+Next, I needed to tell the BIOS to boot into my thumb drive containing the Alpine ISO. Once the proper order was set, I rebooted the machine and ran through the standard Alpine installer. No problems to report there.
+
+<figure>
+  <img src="/public/images/dual-boot-4.jpeg" alt="My X220 booting into the Alpine ISO thumb drive">
+  <figcaption>My X220 booting into the Alpine ISO thumb drive</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure>
+  <img src="/public/images/dual-boot-5.jpeg" alt="The Alpine Linux installer showing both disk options for installation destination">
+  <figcaption>The Alpine Linux installer showing both disk options for installation destination. SDA is currently running OpenBSD.</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+Once that was done, I rebooted the machine, being sure to remove the thumb drive and set the BIOS order to point to the new mSATA disk. Then I ran through my personal [Alpine Suck installer](https://git.sr.ht/~bt/alpine-suck-installer) to get my go-to applications installed alongside my `dwm` desktop environment. Again, no problems to report during this process.
+
+<figure>
+  <img src="/public/images/dual-boot-6.jpeg" alt="Alpine Linux running the dwm desktop environment on my X220">
+  <figcaption>Alpine Linux running my personal `dwm` setup. Absolutely beautiful.</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+## Extras?
+
+That's really it. Nothing super interesting to report, but that seems to be the running theme with these older ThinkPad machines: they were built for tinkering and taking apart regularly. If I was less lazy, I could look into setting up a boot loader to avoid swapping between disks via BIOS settings, but for my use case this setup works fine. Now I have the power of OpenBSD *and* Linux on my personal machine!