Installing FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE

Installing FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE

Installing OSs with gore series


Introduction -

This is a Tutorial to install FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE on your machine in a very simple manner. I'm going to show you exactly how to install FreeBSD, from start to booting up at a shell, step by step, and, make it so easy even someone with little knowledge of a Computer in General would be able to follow along, and successfully do this.

After reading on the Internet that some users "Would Love to try BSD out, and would love to try FreeBSD because of how stable and Secure it is, but are scared of the text based installer" I've decided it's time to do another one of these.

I've written quite a few Operating System Installation HOWTOs / Tutorials in my day, and whoever is reading this, if you want more, just let me know. You most likely found it on a forum I'm a member of, so, you can just ask there, or reply to the thread asking. If I'm now a member of the Forum you found this at; Whoever posted it DOES know where I'm a member and can probably tell you where they got it.

My first FreeBSD Installation Tutorial was posted to AntiOnline.com under my username "gore" and most of everything I've written has ended up there. I started writing these when I started to love installing Operating Systems.

I've written a lot of them; Everything from FreeBSD to 30 different versions of Linux, and even BeOS.

I've been told that one of the most popular I've ever done however, was my FreeBSD 5.0 Installation tutorial. I haven't written to many for FreeBSD because basically, the installer rarely changes, so you don't NEED to re-learn the whole process.

However, with my finished download of FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE, not only do I feel "it's time" again, I feel it's changed a little and, a nice easy guide the way mine have always been may help :)


Assumptions! -

I'm Assuming you're installing from THIS:

FreeeBSD 8.2-RELEASE - CD 1! (This is one of your options when you grabbed it. You could have gotten the DVD, and if you did, then, most of this is still the same. However, I'm out of DVDs to burn, so you're stuck with me doing with from the basic install CD. Your other option is the BootOnly CD which is very basic like the CD, but more so, and you just use FTP to install everything).

I'm Assuming you can make your own Microsoft / DOS / Windows Partitions. I'm not holding your hand to Dual Boot this with Windows.

Actually, this has gotten some questions I've been asked over the years, as to why I don't seem to write how to install FreeBSD AND how to dual boot Windows with it, and so on.

I've written a few Tutorials on installing Slackware, and installing and dual booting Slackware with Windows, and even Debian.... Well, I had more time then.

And the reason I never did with BSD.... Call it Lazy, call what you like, I just simply don't care. FreeBSD's reputation on being hard to install is in no way true, as I'm writing ANOTHER one of these, and I've YET to read documentation for installing it. I haven't read an Operating System Installer, yet I've written docs on installing them heh.

Anyway, I just simply have no plans of using a machine with FreeBSD, and also using Windows on it. Why waste disk space? Even with as cheap as HDs are today, and how cheap it is to get even a TB of Disk, I'm still not wasting even the minimum on Windows when FreeBSD is going on the machine. Mostly because I rarely reboot, ever.



Let's Begin!

Start by taking the FreeBSD Installation Media (The DVD you burned, or the CD you burned of Disc 1, whatever it is) and putting it on the drive of your computer.

Then shut the machine down, or reboot if you want to wait the extra few seconds.

If you're dual booting your machine with Windows, or something else, be sure to have copied the needed data. FreeBSD has you make Partitions for it anyway, so, making some for another OS is two extra buttons being pressed.

You should be seeing Text on the Screen and some Numbers and something spinning at first, which is normal.

After this, you'll get to a screen that says "Welcome to FreeBSD!" and has a neat looking FreeBSD ASCII logo.

It also has numbers.

Press "1" on your keyboard to boot FreeBSD, which is the Default.

After you press "1" you'll see that spinning, and some MUCH brighter White text.

Once this Brighter text starts to appear, which is pretty quick, you'll see a screen with a Blue Back Ground, and the Country Selection Screen.

I'm in the US, and by default, the "United States" Option is selected by Default. My screen has a Blue Back Ground, with a Grey section with Countries listed, and, "232 United States" Selected already.

Just Press ENTER here.

After you've pressed ENTER:

Now you're at the FreeBSD Installation screen!

By Default, you'll see "Usage" selected. If you've never used a text based installer before, and you aren't sure, go ahead and press the UP and DOWN Arrow Keys a few times, and see how it highlights different Options.

This is basically how you're going to work on this.

Now, by Default, like I said, it has "Usage - Quick Start" Selected By Default. So, I do this:

Press the DOWN ARROW KEY once, and you've now selected "Standard" to begin a Standard Installation. Press ENTER.

Once you've Pressed ENTER:

You'll now see a screen that says how it's going to show you a DOS style "Fdisk" Partitioning Scheme for your Hard Disk.

On the Screen that says you're going to see the DOS Style "Fdisk" press ENTER.

After you've Pressed ENTER:

You MAY see a screen around here saying "Having a geometry Blah Blah screen with these numbers isn't OK for older BIOS systems" and so on...

You can safely ignore this normally. In fact, unless you're installing this on REALLY old Hardware, you're fine.

It's basically saying "Would you like to keep using the current Geometry?"

By Default, "Yes" is selected, so, just Press ENTER here.

After you've Pressed ENTER :

Now your screen is Black.

You should see a Black Screen that has White Text, and this is Fdisk. Well, sort of....

If you came over from DOS / Windows, and you've used Fdisk there, you're probably wondering how a "Hard to learn Operating System that's old, out dated, and archaic" like Microsoft told you, has a way nicer looking screen, and is all around better, then, well, welcome to Unix! There are no lies here.

In Unix, if it's hard, that's because it's at least possible. This might be a shock for you if you've come from DOS and Windows and Microsoft Products where there are actually limits.

So, now, you're looking at this black screen, and you can take a minute to look at it if you'd like, or, you can simply follow along to get the install done as fast as possible.

If you look that the middle of the screen, above the "Commands" at the bottom, you'll probably see Partitions that might say NTFS, or Windows, or if you're installing this over a Linux distro, you may see some numbers, and then "unused" and then "Linux_Swap" and then "ext2fs" even if you're using Ext4FS.

This is what you're going to do:

Press the UP and DOWN ARROW KEYS:

See how it selects Partitions? Well do this:

Press the DOWN ARROW KEY until you've got the Bottom Partition (Which, again, could say Ext2fs, or Windows, or DOS, or FAT, or NTFS) and then Press "d" on the keyboard ONCE.

This Deletes the Partition. Note that if you ARE dual Booting, DO NOT do this. You should have made space for FreeBSD before hand.

After you press "D" you'll notice it becomes "unused" and you may have more partitions listed now.

Basically, just use the UP and DOWN ARROW KEYS Highlighting Partitions and pressing "d" until you see just ONE Partition saying "Unused".

Now, on my screen, I see "unused" and no other Partitions.

Press "a" now. This will tell FreeBSD to use everything on the disk.

Once you've pressed "a" you'll see a FreeBSD Partition.

Now press the UP ARROW KEY ONCE to highlight the new FreeBSD Partition, and press "s" to make it Bootable.

You'll see an "A" under "FLAGS" after this.

Once you've press "a" and made FreeBSD's Partition Bootable, press "Q".

Once you've pressed "Q" you're back at a Blue Colored Screen.

If you're not dual booting, and I'm not, then by default, you'll see that "Standard" is Selected by Default. Press ENTER.

After you've pressed ENTER:

Now you see a screen saying that you need to create BSD Partitions inside that new FreeBSD Partition we just made. Just Press "ENTER".

After you've Pressed ENTER:

You're back at a Black Screen with White Text, and, you'll see Commands at the bottom.

Press "a" and notice it makes multiple Partitions. This is telling FreeBSD to basically set all Defaults up. This is simple, and generally, for ANYONE who is reading this, which is made to be easy, it's incredibly simple.

Once you've pressed "A" you can now press "Q" to exit that screen.

Once you've pressed "Q" you can now see another Blue Screen. Just do this:

Press the DOWN ARROW KEY ONCE to select "all" and hit "ENTER".

Once you hit ENTER, you see another screen that says "Would you like to install the Ports?" and so on.

Just Press ENTER here, as "YES" is already selected.

Now you're back at the screen we saw before.

Press the UP ARROW KEY ONCE and hit ENTER to exit this screen.

Now you'll see the "Choose installation Media" screen.

I've put the CD in, and it's Selected by default, so just hit "ENTER" here to install from a CD/DVD.

After you hit ENTER, you'll see a screen asking if you're sure, and telling you it's the last chance and that you have to be sure you want to continue the installation. By default, "Yes" is Selected, so press ENTER.

Once you've pressed ENTER, it'll make new File Systems and so on, and then, you'll see it go to another screen saying "Extracting base in / directory" and so on. Let it run.

You can safely get yourself a Cup of Coffee here, or, a can of Jolt, or Monster, or whatever else. I lit a Cigarette and started smoking it.

You'll also see it extracting other things into other directories during this process, and it's going to take a little time. It won't be a whole long time though, so, basically, just sit back for now.

Finishing the Base Installation -

After a while, you'll see a screen saying "Congratulations! You now have FreeBSD installed on your system." So now, just hit ENTER.

After hitting ENTER:

It asks if you'd like to Configure an Ethernet Network, and I say yes to this because I have a LAN here that shares my Net connection.

You can skip this and do it later of course, but I'm going to now:

I press Enter, and select my card. You can see two normally, but the PCI option is usually what you want. It's selected on my screen by default so I simply press ENTER.

After hitting ENTER, you'll see it ask about IPv6, and unless you know you need it, you don't. By default, NO is selected already, so I press ENTER again.

Then it asks for DHCP. I personally DO need this, so I press the LEFT ARROW KEY ONCE to highlight yes, and hit enter.

It scans for my Server and then shows me a page of information to fill out. I type out my host name, which can be anything I want really, like "FreeBSDBox.org" and the Domain has my ISP's info already there. You get to the next box by hitting "TAB" so after filling out the information, I TAB my way to "OK" and hit ENTER.

After hitting ENTER, it'll ask if I'd like this to be a gateway. No is already Selected so I press ENTER.

Next is the Configuration of InetD. I select Yes because I want to be able to log in over SSH and use this for FTP.

I press the LEFT ARROW KEY once, and hit Enter.

It asks if I'm sure and I hit Enter.

Then it asks about Configuration, and I hit Enter again.


Editing the Text File for InetD -

Now I'm in a text Editor. I press the DOWN ARROW KEY until I get to the "#" symbols of what I want. I press Delete to Enable the things I want.

By default, and for a new user, I wouldn't enable much. SSH might be OK just in case the GUI ever freezes up, you can log in over SSH, kill it, and get your machine to un-freeze.

When I'm done, I hold down CONTROL and press the "[" button, next to the letter "P" on the keyboard.

This brings up my menu. I hit Enter as leave editor is already selected.

I hit Enter again to save the Changes.

It asks me if I want SSH and I hit the LEFT ARROW KEY to select Yes, and hit Enter.

It then asks for Anonymous FTP. No is already selected to just hit Enter again.

Then hit ENTER again to select no for an NFS Server.

And Enter again for NFS Client.

Then press ENTER again to say no to customizing the settings of the Console.

Then, Press Enter to do the time zone.

It asks about UTC, and whatever you want to put is fine. You can change it later if you picked the wrong one.

You come to the screen showing the Regions, and I'm in the US, so I press the DOWN ARROW KEY once, and hit Enter.

Now you press the DOWN ARROW KEY until you see your country and hit Enter.

I'm in an Eastern Time Zone, so I Hit Enter. EDT looks fine to me, so I hit Enter again.

Now it asks for the Mouse. I have a USB Mouse so I hit ENTER as NO is Selected by Default.

It then asks if I want to look at the Packages. I recommend you wait for this. It's easier to just use pkg_add and get what you want.

I press the RIGHT ARROW KEY once, and hit ENTER to select No.


Adding User Accounts to your new FreeBSD System -

Now you add user accounts. You should add at least ONE for yourself. Logging in as root all the time is incredibly stupid. Don't do it.

So hit ENTER and make an account for yourself.

You come to a screen showing the User and Group Management, so hit the DOWN ARROW KEY ONCE and select User, then hit ENTER.

The Login ID is the Username you'll log in with, so put whatever you want here. Once you've typed the username, just hit TAB a few times until you're at Password, and type the password for the account in.

UID and Group won't matter right now. And probably won't ever for an average user.

Where it says Full Name, you can hit Backspace to delete the "User &" and enter your name.

For member Groups, if you want to add one, you can add "wheel" if you want this account to be able to become root. Otherwise, you won't be able to "su" to root.

You can then hit TAB until you have "OK" selected, and press ENTER.

After you're Happy with the accounts, hit the UP ARROW KEY once, to exit, and hit ENTER.

Now it's time to set the Root Password - .

Remember that root is the super user account, so, don't make this something on a sticky note on your desk.

Press ENTER to set the Root password.

Now it'll ask you to type the Root Password. Type the password, and then hit ENTER. It'll ask you to do it again, to make sure you didn't have a typo, and hit ENTER again.

Now it'll ask you if you'd like to go back to the Configuration menu for a chance to change anything. I don't need to, so, I press ENTER, as no is selected by default.

Now you're back at the screen you saw when we first started. Press the RIGHT ARROW KEY to select "Exit Install" and hit Enter.

It'll ask if you're sure, so, Press the LEFT ARROW KEY ONCE and hit ENTER to select Yes.

It should now spit the CD you used to install out of the drive, so go ahead and grab that, and then, press ENTER to tell FreeBSD you've taken the disk out.

Once you hit ENTER the machine reboots, and you now can see your FreeBSD boot screen. The Timer is really only there to boot the OS if you don't already. If you don't want to wait for a few second, you can press "1" and boot your new FreeBSD Operating System right away.

If you want to look at the options, you can press the SPACEBAR key, and it'll pause the timer.

Once you've hit the number "1" on your keyboard, FreeBSD begins to boot, and after some text scrolls on your screen, you see your log in prompt.

Log in with the account you made for yourself, and you're done.

You can of course become root and do this too:

pkg_add -r kde xmms pidgin xterm xorg

And so on. That way you can use a GUI.

Enjoy!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gore

Next is the Configuration of InetD. I select Yes because I want to be able to log in over SSH and use this for FTP.

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Don't enable inetd. It's a relic from the past. It's also not needed for either SSH or FTP (both run as regular daemons).

Quote:

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It asks me if I want SSH and I hit the LEFT ARROW KEY to select Yes, and hit Enter.

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This actually enables the SSH daemon, not the inetd stuff above.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirDice

Don't enable inetd. It's a relic from the past. It's also not needed for either SSH or FTP (both run as regular daemons).

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I know it's a relic, but I wanted it in this tutorial mostly because I was thinking to myself "OK, I'm writing this thing basically with the type of user in mind who's never installed ANY OS before EVER. So basically, I'll make it where it's so easy anyone can do it because I'm telling them not only which buttons to press and when, but what to expect on the next screen and so on. So OK, now I have this thing all easy and anyone can now install FreeBSD as long as they have a spare machine to pop it on, but, what about Inetd? I mean this is a pretty OLD technology here.... But what if someone is reading my tutorial because they are installing FreeBSD because they need a cheap Server at work where the sys admin there has things using Inetd?"

Basically, I thought it through WAY to much, but, in my defense, I've got like 10 messages in my inbox on here from people thanking me for the first one, and asking for permission to print it out so they could use it at work.

I told everyone who asked me yes as long as I was given credit for writing it, and that was all I asked for. But I got to thinking; Why would someone ask me to print it out at work?? Wouldn't the Company they are at have some policy on this sort of thing????

Well, basically, I came to the Conclusion (After reading an article that stated a lot of shops, have Linux and BSD installations on Servers and don't even know it. Apparently the Sys Admins at these places would install BSD or Linux and set up the machines as servers and just not tell their bosses, because they were comfortable with it, and, since it costs nothing, no one found out really) and basically, after reading that, I figured someone who's working in a Company that's a traditional Unix Shop, like, the old school ones, maybe they wanted to to try and use BSD there.

Well, if the person doing this is at work with a bunch of Unix Servers and things, and has been trying to get their Boss to allow them to migrate over to FreeBSD, but needs to prove it can handle the loads of their traditional machines using Unix,.... Actually, you know what, I'll end up rambling on about this for hours lol, I'll just say that I added that portion in mostly so that if a person reading this DID accidentally hit Yes instead of NO, they wouldn't be wondering WTF to do. I wanted to make sure they'd understand how to edit it and then get out of it without worrying about messing anything up.

So, anyway, yea, I only added it for just in case.

Quote:

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This actually enables the SSH daemon, not the inetd stuff above.

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I know man ;) I'm not a Unix Guru, or Wizard, by any means, but I have been a loyal FreeBSD Lover for a while now. It's kind of funny how I actually got my start with it; I was at Best Buy one day, and they had a VERY good selection of software back then (They sold BeOS, RedHat Linux in multiple forms, Mandrake Linux in multiple forms, SUSE Linux in multiple forms, and Ubuntu after a while) and one day, I'm there, and I'm looking around at the software section, and I happened to see "BSD Power Pak" on the shelf.

First off, I was amazed they had it there. Second, I saw on the box "BSD Power Pak. The COMPLETE FreeBSD OPERATING SYSTEM for PCs. ROCK SOLID STABILITY. High reliability and High performance. The OPERATING SYSTEM of CHOICE for SERIOUS INTERNET USERS! UNIX BASED OPERATING SYSTEM 4.0 - BSDi. INCLUDES - 10 CD ROMS - 800 PAGE BOOK".

When I saw it I was blown away. This was back when FreeBSD 4.0 was the newest release, and was like 2000 or something like that, and, I was amazed to say the least because I'd only ever heard of it.

At the time, I had only had a Computer for a Few Months or so, and during that time, from having Hacker friends, I'd heard about Linux, and knew about that, and eventually, while looking into what Linux was, I learned that there was more than just Windows out there.

You have to remember, in my defense, that I had JUST got my first Computer, and it was one my Mom bought from my Uncle for me, and had no real manuals really, so I didn't know anything, and, after guessing my Uncle's Password for Prodigy (Which was his ISP) I managed to get online.

Well, after a while, I had met some people I considered good friends, and one of them was a Hacker who didn't live all that far from me. I remember when I first got interested int his world, that I was asking him how he had his machines set up. HE said he didn't run Windows much, except for Windows NT on ONE Partition on one of his machines.

Well, I asked him what he had then, because, remember, I don't know much about anything at this point, and he said he ran Debian Linux. I was like WTF?? And I started looking up things about Linux.

That's when I learned that Linux was an OS, and that there were actually other OSs you could use. I thought that was awesome. Anyway, I eventually found out about FreeBSD, because I was reading an article about Linux, and learned that it was made to be like Unix.

So obviously, I had to look up Unix now, because now I wanted to know what that was. And anyway, I don't remember exactly which time it was, but I eventually heard about FreeBSD. I do remember that it was FreeBSD in particular that I'd heard about, and from there, I learned about the other BSDs, and I just thought it was awesome.

So anyway, when I saw it on the shelf, I grabbed it. It was $59.99 for the FreeBSD PowerPak for FreeBSD 4.0, and it came with 10 CDs, and, a GREAT book called "The Complete FreeBSD - 3rd Edition".

I know all the stuff that it says on the box, because I have it on my desk right now. And I know which version of The Complete FreeBSD it came with, because it's right next to my desk.

I kept these things for so long because I LOVED it. I mean, the book, just that, is amazing. I STILL read it to this day, and the information in it, is old and out dated, but I just simply don't care. A lot of the information that's in it, might be out dated, but a lot of it still works just fine, and not only that, this is the version that has the nice colored cover, and the great stories in there, and alla round I've Loved it since I got it.

I DID buy the newer version of "The Complete FreeBSD", the one that O'Reilly made, and though Greg did in fact write that one too, I just don't like it as much as I do that third Edition.

I've read through this book so many times that you can literally see the creasing on the side of the binder thingy.

Anyway, sorry about rambling on so much, I kept having interruptions while I was typing out this post, which, since I have ADD, means my train of thought gets derailed, so sometimes when I pick back up, it's not so easy to comprehend.

Either way, I actually respect you. I've always respected you, and you're also one of the few people here who actually uses FreeBSD, so I was glad to see you on their forums as well :)

One of these days I need to take a roll call on AntiOnline here, and make a list of all of the BSD users. So many people here use Windows, or Ubuntu, or Gentoo, and it just sickens me lol.

Anyway, what did you think of the information itself? I know you don't need my tutorial by any means obviously, heh, you know more about FreeBSD than I do by far lol.

But I wanted to make this one more like the last one I did, as I got a REALLY good response to it, and had a lot of people telling me that what they liked about my tutorial over the normal FreeBSD Docs, was that mine was incredibly easy to follow.

I don't know if I still have all the PMs I got on here from doing it, but I do remember I got a lot of them from people telling me that they were very VERY glad I did it, because they'd wanted to install FreeBSD for SO long just to get a chance to try it finally, but that they had some trouble understanding the Documentation on FreeBSD's Documentation page, and that even though they could get Linux installed, they for some reason just couldn't seem to get FreeBSD installed, and the fact that mine went down to the basics, and all the way down to telling you not only which buttons to press and when, but also what to expect on the next screen.

so that's why I did another one finally :) I hadn't made one in a long time, and the installation sure has changed from the 5.0 days, so, I decided it was time to do another one.

My test machine died on me, and then, my FreeBSD box died on me too, and my Mom recently bought a new Computer because the one She had, was a POS, and super slow...

It had Windows XP Home Edition, and 256 MBs of RAM.... Lol.

Imagine a Computer that has an Intel Celeron D, and not a very fast one at that, and only 256 MBs of RAM, and a totally piece of **** slow start up..... I'm not kidding dude, when my Mom would turn Her Computer on; It took 20 minutes to get to a loaded Desktop!

I know, because I had the Admin password and wouldn't give it to Her, because that least then, when She or my aunt ****ed it up, it wouldn't be as bad as if they'd been using the Admin account.

Well, I told my Mom about two of my machines going on me, so, She decided to let me use that one. When I first turned the machine on, I had some MAJOR weird video troubles....

It still had XP Home on it, and at first, I installed Slackware 13.37 on it, and, everything was going fine, until of course the machine booted up, and THEN it started looking like it did with Windows XP Home Edition on it, where it looked all squiggly.... It was weird to say the least. I mean, it looked like a mix of those Channels you don't get on your TV, that are all squiggly, and RF Interference all mixed into one cluster **** lol.

Well, my download of FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE finished, so I burned the CD, and popped it in. First, it started going smooth, just like the Slackware installation had, except, unlike Slackware; When I finished the install, and the typing of this Tutorial, it STILL looked good!

So I was pretty damn Happy about that to say the least lol. So, now, it has FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE on there, and is still going good.

Oh, by the way, you might also notice that I said NOT to install Ports while installing the system, because I've had that happen a few times, where you're installing the OS, and then ports start getting installed, and if one fails.... For some reason, I had one that would always fail, and since your option is try again, or skip, eventually it gets to a point where it won't let you skip it because it's the only one oeft, and you can't tell the thing to just simply NOT install it, or the things that are required from it, which would be nice, but I've had to restart installs before because of that.

So that's why I put in the tutorial NOT to install any packages. It's much easier to just install the bare bones, and then build what you want from there.

That's why at the end I said to do the whole "pkg_add -r package package2" and so on. :)

Nice. Greenies for you. Just for the sake of courtesy at this point :). Very detailed. I think I might just have to save this for a rainy day.

I once had an Amiga, Commodore was already pretty much dead but my faithful 4000 even made to the internet with a 14K4 modem :)

Wanting to try new stuff I looked for alternatives for AmigaOS, NetBSD was the only thing that would run on the hardware IF I had an MMU. I didn't. So at one point I had a choice, either spend a wad of cash on the old Amiga or spend the same amount to buy a complete decked out PC. So, a 60Mhz PowerPC/68060 board or a P-2 350MHz with everything on it. The Amiga was really old by then so I opted for the PC. Windows 95 made me seriously regret ditching AmigaOS. But the hardware was much, much better obviously. Pretty quickly it dual-booted Linux and Windows. Loved the unixy feel but Linux just wasn't doing it for me. Way to much trouble installing stuff. The never-ending dependency hell when you have to compile everything from source.

So I remembered BSD.. Started looking around again and had a choice between NetBSD and FreeBSD. FreeBSD was the better choice on i386 hardware (it still is). On it went. Fell head over heals in love with the ports system. I still compiled everything from source but rarely ran into the aforementioned dependency hell. I think that was FreeBSD 3.2 or something around that number. Building Xfree86 took about a day or so :drink:

I bought the same powerpack at the same time as you LOL. Came across it hunting in a local book store for interesting stuff to read. Already quite familiar with FreeBSD I just had to have it. Loved the printed handbook.

Over the years the amount of hardware only increased. Every few years I buy a new "workstation" and the old one get's "upgraded" to server. Usually have at least 3 machines running FreeBSD 24/7. Currently 8.2-STABLE custom installs with a ZFS root :cool:

As for ADD, don't worry, I too have the attention span of a goldfish. The drugs certainly seem to do their thing when I'm at work. At home not so much hehe. I already forgot why I wanted to post a reply. Don't worry, it'll come to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirDice

unixy

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Right click. Add to dictionary.

Wasn't the Amiga 1000 the machine that had that amazing GUI? It looked like a mix of Mac OS and IRIX and I always kind of liked that look of it.

Probably can find some here:

http://starringthecomputer.com/

Just remember not to ever watch Jurassic Park with me unless you want to see me cussing out a Raptor for stepping on an SGI keyboard.

I swear if I ended up at that park, I'd have ended up stealing the Aussie guy's Shot gun and playing a game of "Get the **** off the SGI! *BANG*".

By the way, that web site rocks.

Another worthwhile OS install tut Allen.

it's basic & straightforward and really easy to follow. It would be as though your there holding the person's hand while they perform the installation.

kudos..

Thanks Coffee Cup :)

I popped in on Linuxquestions too, and got the basic "The normal FreeBSD install doc is simpler" and I said the usual "No, here's why" and then a few people chimed in saying I did good. Lol it's like "Put a GOLD star next to.." heh. But yea, mostly, I did it because it's been a long time since 5.0, and whenever I see ANY BSD Docs, I tend to cringe because the "Aimed at the average user" ones, are really not that easy to grasp if you came from Windows and not DOS or Unix, so, I make my own. Kind of that mentality "I don't like it so I did my own" thing we all have heard. Anyway, thanks :)

Hi,

I just wanted to add something real quick that I probably should compile into a multi-part Tutorial for those who installed FreeBSD but didn't listen to me when I said NOT to install Ports while you were not fully finished with the install first, and are now watching your infinite loop screen showing "linux-f10-base-numbers_.tbz installation failed!" and are wondering what is going on:

OK, in FreeBSD you have the amazing ability to run Linux programs.... OK, not that amazing, a lot of OSs have some form of Emulation in them now right? Well, the thing about FreeBSD is that some Linux programs RUN FASTER in FreeBSD. Which makes no sense of course since, well, they're being Emulated.

This is because FreeBSD has one of the BEST Emulation ideas of any OS out there. Period. FreeBSD has something like 30,000 Ports / Packages you can install by simply typing "pkg_add -r NameOfSoftware" and it will grab it for you.

This is quite possible what RedHat wanted RPM to be but failed at so hard. FreeBSD can emulate OSs like Linux with ease, and the Packages work VERY well. In fact, if you came FROM Linux, you may even be Jealous :)

Now, Linux and BSD both can run Windows apps with WINE, and since everyone and every page covers that, I won't...For now...

However, FreeBSD's Ability to do what it does comes at the price of a small amount of confusion for the new user:

FreeBSD can run your Linux Applications just fine, but, you need to do something BEFORE you can get the F10 Base installed.

I admit fully that the first time I did this, I was a little confused too (Mostly because I don't read docs on installations for OSs. I make my own ;) ) but anyway, here is how you get Linux Emulation working so you can install AIM:

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Linux Emulation in FreeBSD -

To get Linux emulation to work, do this:

Make sure you are Root!

As root, type this into your shell:

kldload linux

This loads it for you, but, you can also make it so that it be loaded at boot so you don't have to type it all the time:

You can start by typing this:

vi /etc/rc.conf

Use the Arrow key to move down to the bottom, and then, when you get to the VERY last line of this text file, and you're at the very beginning of it, press the "End" Key, on your keyboard, so you're at the end of that line.

Now Press "a" on the keyboard to start to Enter in Text AFTER that line. You can press Enter to after you pressed "a" if you aren't on a new line.

Now, type this:

linux_enable="YES"

After you type that, press the Escape key to go to command mode in Vi, and then press the ":" and then "w" and then "q" and then press Enter. This saves the text in Vi and leaves Vi.

Or you can open that file as root with a text editor you know how to use too, of course, and then just save it once you've typed that line in.

Now, once you've done this, you can do this:

pkg_add -r aim

That will install AIM, which requires the Linux Base. (By the way, if you're wondering why I'm not just saying to grab the Compatibility Layer Packages, it's because it's a lot more typing =) ) and anyway, once it starts to grab AIM, it will NOW grab the Linux packages, and actually work now !

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You can read more about this here:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO.../linuxemu.html

And here:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...c-install.html

This also shows you that you can just go into your Ports directory, and simply use the make install and so on way of doing it, if you prefer it.


Now, if you came over to FreeBSD from Linux, this article should help you out:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO.../commands.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gore

Wasn't the Amiga 1000 the machine that had that amazing GUI? It looked like a mix of Mac OS and IRIX and I always kind of liked that look of it.

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Yep, it could render 4096 colors out of the full 16.7 million pallet at a time when PCs only had 16 colors. It also had (or rather has) a 32 bit pre-emptive multitasking OS when Windows was still stuck with a mix of 8, 16 and 32 bit code and cooperative multitasking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gore

Well, the thing about FreeBSD is that some Linux programs RUN FASTER in FreeBSD. Which makes no sense of course since, well, they're being Emulated.

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Well, it's not exactly emulated. What it does is 'convert' a Linux Kernel ABI call to the respective FreeBSD Kernel ABI call. So it's actually a full-on ABI implementation, not an emulation.

Everything else, keep it up :thumbsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirDice

Yep, it could render 4096 colors out of the full 16.7 million pallet at a time when PCs only had 16 colors. It also had (or rather has) a 32 bit pre-emptive multitasking OS when Windows was still stuck with a mix of 8, 16 and 32 bit code and cooperative multitasking.

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Wow, that's right! Windows had Coop Multi Tasking.... God I can't think of one person who thinks that's a good idea...I'm not sure why Microsoft, who was already getting bad press for their products, would use a type of Multi Tasking that more or less sucks. Letting Applications do what they want and control anything, is a bad idea.

But anyway, I think it was like 7 years ago or so, I was looking up some Operating System stuff, and happened to come across some older ones on old machines, and I saw an Amiga.

I admit I was surprised to see it, I mean, I knew they existed, but I sure didn't know how neat the Interface looked. I think it was an Amiga 1000 I saw (It seems familiar for some reason) and the GUI it has and overall look is nice.

Quote:

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Well, it's not exactly emulated. What it does is 'convert' a Linux Kernel ABI call to the respective FreeBSD Kernel ABI call. So it's actually a full-on ABI implementation, not an emulation.

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Ahh, thanks. I wasn't exactly positive how that worked, and I sure wasn't going to ramble on about it much when I wasn't even sure. I tend to just go over something a small amount if I don't know for sure what it is, and when it comes to OS Emulation, or to OS translation / whatever, I'm not an expert.

Quote:

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Everything else, keep it up :thumbsup:

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Thanks :) As one of the few actual BSD users we have here, that means a lot :)

Hi gore,

What would be YOUR recommendations as to minimum hardware specs? and what would you say would be "comfortable"?

Also // a bit off topic?

A mate of mine and myself have been having this discussion regarding multicore processors. He has 3 AMD dual cores and runs XP Pro.

How does this distro handle multicores? //

For myself, I have 2 boxes I might try:

IBM PIII/533 with 512MB SDRAM and a PII/450 with 384MB SDRAM.......... any chance?

:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nihil

Hi gore,

What would be YOUR recommendations as to minimum hardware specs? and what would you say would be "comfortable"?

Also // a bit off topic?

A mate of mine and myself have been having this discussion regarding multicore processors. He has 3 AMD dual cores and runs XP Pro.

How does this distro handle multicores? //

For myself, I have 2 boxes I might try:

IBM PIII/533 with 512MB SDRAM and a PII/450 with 384MB SDRAM.......... any chance?

:)

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A Minimum system on FreeBSD? Heh, they still have versions for a 386 around. Outdated I admit, but it works from what I've read. A 486 of course is going to get you slightly more, and as far as I know, the latest still runs fine on that too.

A Minimum that would be at least usable though... Hmm:

Without X - 486.

With X as a GUI running the minimum is going to be a little higher because even though X can run on a 386 or a 486, that's like a minimum, and that means lagging to crap.

However, in my own experience, I have a machine like I've said before to you, that has a 433 MHz Celeron Processor, and 192 MBs of RAM, and I had not only Slackware, but FreeBSD installed on that, and I got it running KDE 4, and even though it was a little slow, I was incredibly shocked to see that it would run it at all, and also, it ran it decently.

I mean KDE 4, has a lot of eye candy, and I thought it would be laggy, and slow, and even though it wasn't exactly fast with response time, it was usable.

But for a minimum, running something like maybe Window Maker, or FVWM, this is going to allow you to use even older hardware, and not have so much lag.

I mean KDE 3.5 is still around, but KDE in general, goes for making things pretty, and being more of a Desktop system, and Gnome is about the same. It's going to look like Windows or Mac OS X, and have system requirements more suited for a more powerful machine. Now, I haven't ever seen Mac OS X or Windows 7 run on hardware like a 433 MHz Celeron, so I don't know how that would work out, but KDE 4, with all the eye candy, DID run alright on it.

But, if you want me to tell you something more bare minimum that's still usable, I'd say a Pentium 2 or even a Pentium that has like 133 MHz going, and like 64 MBs of RAM, you'd probably do just fine with that if you run Window Maker, or FVWM.

FVWM is something I personally use on multiple machines, including my Pentium 4 M Laptop with 512 MBs of RAM. It's super fast, responsive, and doesn't get in the way. Window Maker, I Love. I use Window Maker all the time. And it's nice looking, and very much usable.

You could probably use EITHER one of the machines you listed, and be more than fine with it. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that with FreeBSD, and Window Maker or FVWM, you could probably get by with a lot less than the machines you listed.

They just don't really need much. So basically, either one of those machines you listed as tying, will be fine. I'm not even sure what a bare minimum would be where it's still usable, because the slowest machine I have is that Celeron that runs at 433 MHz, and it only has 192 MBs of RAM, and it ran REALLY well with Window Maker. I even had Firefox loaded on Window Maker, and had NO problems.

So basically, I don't have a machine slow enough to really slow down BSD.

I'd say either one of those you try will be MORE than enough. SirDice is a BSD user as well, so maybe he's got a few slower machines he can talk about here. But I don't have any slow enough to really press it with BSD.

Just do this once you have it installed:

pkg_add -r windowmaker xorg gdm

Maybe a few others. Just run that as root, and you'll have those installed.

http://www.freebsd.org/ports/categories-grouped.html

That's the Ports Collection, and you can look over those and see what you want installed.

I recently ditched a lot of old machines, mostly pentium 90 type machines. They did run FreeBSD without any issues but they were taking up a bit too much space.

Currently my oldest machine is a P2-350MHz with 256MB of memory. Runs FreeBSD-8 perfectly but I don't run any X on there. Should still be possible though.

As for lightweight, I'm playing around with LXDE now. Looks very promising but parts still seem to crash every now and then (especially the filemanager).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SirDice

I recently ditched a lot of old machines, mostly pentium 90 type machines. They did run FreeBSD without any issues but they were taking up a bit too much space.

Currently my oldest machine is a P2-350MHz with 256MB of memory. Runs FreeBSD-8 perfectly but I don't run any X on there. Should still be possible though.

As for lightweight, I'm playing around with LXDE now. Looks very promising but parts still seem to crash every now and then (especially the filemanager).

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90s? Hmm, although I have no personal experience with anything that far down, I'm going to take a guess that had you tried, FVWM and Window Maker both would have worked fine on those.

The Pentium 2, heh, I'd say you could even get KDE working on that if you really wanted, but FVWM and Window Maker should both run great on it.

I've used LXDE before too. It's pretty nice looking. I personally like Window Maker and Enlightenment, and have had both running on older machines.

@gore and Sir Dice:

Thanks for the advice guys, and I now have live ammo............burnt the CD and DVD :D

I guess I will have to use a brane and oppozabl thum.............. I found some new old stuff.

A PI/150 and a PII/266.................I guess that is somewhere where you were saying you couldn't try gore?

I need to use a screwdriver to shift the 30GB 7200 from the PI/150 to the PII/450

Put one of the 10GB 5400s from the PII/450 to the PI/150

And then the other 10GB to the PII/266.............It has two drives........the 2.1 goes out, and a 10 comes in with the 8.4.

Looks like an interesting weekend? :D

So, when it doesn't work............who shall I blame

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nihil

@gore and Sir Dice:

Thanks for the advice guys, and I now have live ammo............burnt the CD and DVD :D

I guess I will have to use a brane and oppozabl thum.............. I found some new old stuff.

A PI/150 and a PII/266.................I guess that is somewhere where you were saying you couldn't try gore?

I need to use a screwdriver to shift the 30GB 7200 from the PI/150 to the PII/450

Put one of the 10GB 5400s from the PII/450 to the PI/150

And then the other 10GB to the PII/266.............It has two drives........the 2.1 goes out, and a 10 comes in with the 8.4.

Looks like an interesting weekend? :D

So, when it doesn't work............who shall I blame

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The Pentium you have that's 150MHz, is more than enough. BSD isn't exactly high on the list of required hardware list. As I said before, because of the way BSD does things, you can even choose to use old versions of it to make it work better on older hardware. Now, it won't run on any 8088 or anything like that, but a 386 will "work".

You aren't going to get much out of a 386 mind you, but it'll boot.

I said that I don't have anything older than a 433 MHz Celeron, but it's in no way a limit. You can run BSD on very little. The book "The Complete FreeBSD" of which you can currently get two versions from the FreeBSD Mall, one of which is third edition, which I have, it's great and came with my BSD PowerPak, and then I bought the 4th Edition, which works with 5.0, and inside, it tells you how to make around 16 MBs of RAM work just fine.

You can get by with 4 MBs of RAM if you get the 3.x line though. I know that seems weird in the days of 4 GB of RAM coming standard, but you can!

Just remember than in most of the Unix World; RAM means more than Processor most of the time. The only time a Processor is going to matter at all really, is when you do number crunching. Most times, RAM means more.

The 386 would be the bare minimum, as most *nix like operating systems FreeBSD requires an MMU (besides needing a 32 bit cpu).

The 10GB would do fine, just don't try to build Xorg from source then, this will quickly use up about 4GB of space. Definitely forget about building OpenOffice from scratch, that needs at least 8-10GB of free disk space ;)

Not to mention the time it'll take. I can remember back in the old days it took me a full day to build XFree86 from source :eek:

Packages should work fine though.

I don't even compile stuff on FreeBSD really; I like the pkg_add -r method very much. It works wonders, and now that Dice helped me figure out WTF had happened to KDM, I'm rolling lol.

Basically, if you don't have the disk to do Compiles from Ports, you can do something even easier:

Log in as root, then, issue this command:

pkg_add -r gdm windowmaker enlightenment epplets bash zsh xorg gnome fvwm fvwm-crystal xmms audacious opera links mp3blaster dungeoncrawl vim

Do the thing I posted about, where you open /etc/rc.conf in Vim, and add a few lines to it so you'll have proper Linux compatibility, and of course adding these lines to it too:

vim /etc/rc.conf

sshd_enable="YES"
linux_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"

Once you have that all in there, hit "Escape" to go back to command mode, and then hit this:

:wq

Hit Enter, and it saves the file.

You can also add something there for sound support as well, but it's pretty easy too for the most part. The only real trouble I've ever had with that was trying to make sure I had the right name of the driver.

I've changed my Tutorial a little bit to make it easier to read. Just a heads up ;)

Linux Emulation in FreeBSD -

To get Linux emulation to work, do this:

Make sure you are Root!

As root, type this into your shell:

kldload linux

This loads it for you, but, you can also make it so that it be loaded at boot so you don't have to type it all the time:

You can start by typing this:

vi /etc/rc.conf

Use the Arrow key to move down to the bottom, and then, when you get to the VERY last line of this text file, and you're at the very beginning of it, press the "End" Key, on your keyboard, so you're at the end of that line.

Now Press "a" on the keyboard to start to Enter in Text AFTER that line. You can press Enter to after you pressed "a" if you aren't on a new line.

Now, type this:

linux_enable="YES"

After you type that, press the Escape key to go to command mode in Vi, and then press the ":" and then "w" and then "q" and then press Enter. This saves the text in Vi and leaves Vi.

Or you can open that file as root with a text editor you know how to use too, of course, and then just save it once you've typed that line in.

Now, once you've done this, you can do this:

pkg_add -r aim

That will install AIM, which requires the Linux Base. (By the way, if you're wondering why I'm not just saying to grab the Compatibility Layer Packages, it's because it's a lot more typing =) ) and anyway, once it starts to grab AIM, it will NOW grab the Linux packages, and actually work now !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shahjashua0

linux_enable="YES"

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You're also required to install emulators/linux_base-f10.

Quote:

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Now, once you've done this, you can do this:

pkg_add -r aim

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That port has been deprecated in May 2011.

I was using those mostly as examples, and when you use pkg_add -r aim, it actually will grab the Linux base for you, as a dependency, so that's why I did that.

I'm REALLY not sure why he replied to this though with something I said. It's literally word for word what I said.... Which is just weird.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gore

I'm REALLY not sure why he replied to this though with something I said. It's literally word for word what I said.... Which is just weird.

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I didn't even notice that. It might be a spammer. I've seen it happen on TAZ too. Some bot regurgitates half of someone else's post. Some other bot comes along a few days later to post the "answer". Or the original posting bot returns and edits it's posts to add spammy links.

Hmm, I'll keep watch, and see if he responds to any more posts like that, and if so, I'll just track his IP and see if any other accounts are using it, and if so, what THOSE accounts have posted, and go from there.

Good catch though; I'd have just thought that someone was replying to the thread and didn't know how to quote, and messed up a reply or something. If it's a spam bot though, I'll just ban them and the other accounts linked to that IP and report the IP, Account name, and reason, to the mods section so the rest of them can kind of keep an eye out on it.