FreeBSD 6.0 BETA1

RIV@NVX · Jul 16, 2005, 04:36 AM

I tried PC-BSD before, and I liked it. I was tempted when I saw this mentioned in the news, because it's going to be an interesting release, from what I heard. So I downloaded it.

Surprisingly, both ISOs could fit on one CD (one is ~450MB and another ~150MB). Strange decision to put it on two CDs if you ask me.

I'm going to install it on my father's laptop (Celeron 2.2, 256MB, Intel 845, NV GF4Go etc.). Anything I should know before I try?

Malus · Jul 23, 2005, 10:24 PM

Well, I'm running it now. Post your full specs and I can tell you about hardware compatiblity. I don't think the Celerons scale their speed, so you may be out of luck there. Most onboard wireless chipsets don't work out of the box; you'll probably have to use NDIS. I couldn't get NDIS working with WPA, so I'm just using an Atheros based PCMCIA card. There are binary Nvidia drivers which work just fine, so that shouldn't be a problem. However, if you have a widescreen monitor, you'll need a special Modeline in your xorg.conf to make is display properly.

I'm not familiar with PC-BSD, so I'm not sure if they use a GUI package manager or use the ports system. If you need help with ports or any sort of configuration, just ask and I can walk you through it.

RIV@NVX · Jul 25, 2005, 02:03 AM

Simple and stupid question: What do I need to do to get a GUI of any kind?

Malus · Jul 25, 2005, 12:29 PM

I have a lengthy (not in a bad way) response, but I don't have time to post it now. I'll have it for you later today, though.

Malus · Jul 26, 2005, 03:57 PM

I would have posted this sooner, but I worked in the lab late last night. I was going to post more, but I cut it down a bit.

First off, did you install a graphical desktop when you installed the system? If so, we'll just have to setup Xorg (a simple "Xorg -configure" will do) and copy the configuartion file to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf". Then, find out which command starts up your graphical desktop. XFCE4 uses startxfce4 and I believe KDE uses startkde. To utilize the command, create a file called .xinitrc in your home directory and add a line to it like this:

Code:

exec startxfce4

Where the startxfce4 is the command that starts your desktop of choice (XFCE4 happens to be my choice at the moment). Once you are done with this, just type in the command "startx" and you should be in the graphical desktop.

If you don't have that stuff installed, you will have to install them first. There are two methods for this. one being packages and the other being ports. However, I prefer ports and recommend them as well. To install packages, you can do a "pkg_add -r kde" or "pkg_add -r gnome" to install the graphical desktop of your choice. This command will download the program and all of its dependencies in package form and install them onto the system.

If you want to use ports, it will be a little bit more complicated, but I think it is worth it. The ports system is similar to Gentoo's portage (this is what portage is based off of actually) and tends to be more up to date than the binary packages. When you go to install a ports, the source code is downloaded, compiled, and installed, along with its dependencies. If your worried about heat with your laptop, ports might not be such a good idea. I can write an explanation on how to use ports if you choose to go in that direction.

RIV@NVX · Aug 19, 2005, 05:48 AM

Sorry I didn't respond earlier. To make the story short: I had to return that laptop to previous state, that is, I had to install Windows. So, no go on this one.
However, I got new laptop (Gericom Blockbuster Xcellent 7000 - Celeron 1.5, 512MB, Radeon 9700 Mobility 256MB...). I installed Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG card in it.

I played with Gentoo on it; and I had no problems overheating or stuff, even with long compiles such as GNOME.
(I tried Xfce as well, it's quite good actually!)
Almost everything worked in Gentoo, except wireless which fails with error

Code:

dmaWaitSync Failed
<next 3 lines are firmware load error>

I checked source code of ipw2200 driver, and there is the line which contains that error, however, I can't figure out what it means since my coding knowledge is somehow limited.

However, it seems that FreeBSD's ipw/iwi driver doesn't contain the line. Also, from what I heard it's included in kernel in 6.0 release. This makes FreeBSD worth trying on this laptop, and I'm giving it a shot. Even if I don't succed, I will still probably learn something new and interesting.

Let's put it this way. I installed it and I get the prompt. So, can you please explain how to use ports? Good exmaple would be how to install the firmware for ipw/iwi driver.

P.S.
I wouldn't ask such questions if FreeBSD handbook wasn't 1000 pages long

Makes you wonder how hard that OS must be (j/k)

Malus · Aug 28, 2005, 09:14 PM

Ok, first make sure you have installed the ports and src collections from the install CD. Also, you will need to be logged in as root to do these steps. If you have not installed cvsup already, you will want to run:

Code:

pkg_add -r cvsup

to install cvsup (you will need a network connection to do this).

Then, you'll want to login as root and execute this command:

Code:

cp /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf /etc

This file stores variables that will be used when make.conf is invoked.

Now, we will set up make.conf for your system. We'll just change the compile flags and configure cvs updating. First, you'll see the line:

Code:

#CFLAGS= -O -pipe

The octothorpe (#) symbolizes a comment in this file. Change the line to:

Code:

CFLAGS= -O2 -pipe

These are options that are sent to the compiler when compiling the kernel, userland, and ports. O2 just stands for the second level of optimizations, while pipe cuts down on hard disk usage during compiles.

Next, find this line:

Code:

#COPTFLAGS= -O -pipe

and change it to:

Code:

COPTFLAGS= -O2 -ffast-math -pipe

Finally, scroll down till you see this section:

Code:

#SUP_UPDATE=
#
#SUP=			/usr/local/bin/cvsup
#SUPFLAGS=	   -g -L 2
#SUPHOST=		cvsup.uk.FreeBSD.org
#SUPFILE=		/usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile
#PORTSSUPFILE=   /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
#DOCSUPFILE=	 /usr/share/examples/cvsup/doc-supfile

Change it to:

Code:

SUP_UPDATE=
 
 SUP=			/usr/local/bin/cvsup
 SUPFLAGS=	   -g -L 2
 SUPHOST=		cvsup.de.FreeBSD.org
 SUPFILE=		/usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile
 PORTSSUPFILE=   /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
 DOCSUPFILE=	 /usr/share/examples/cvsup/doc-supfile

This will allow for easy updates of src and ports. cvsup.de.freebsd.org is a German server that should be relatively fast for you. Once you are done editing make.conf, save it. Then:

Code:

cd /usr/src;
make update

This should update all of the files in src, ports, and docs. Once it is complete, ports will be updated and ready to use. For example, to install xorg, you will do this:

Code:

cd /usr/ports/x11/xorg;
make install clean

This will download, compile, and install Xorg and all of its dependencies. All of the ports are organized under /usr/ports; just cd into the port you wish to install and install it. If you need to search for a port, you can either:

Code:

cd /usr/ports;
make search name=kde | more

which will search for ports that haver a name which matches the name variable (which in this case is kde) or you can do this:

Code:

cd /usr/ports;
 make search key=kde | more

which will find ports that have kde (in this case) in the description.

I think that covers the setup and usage of ports well enough. Try it out and see how well it works for you.