Installing FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE

[gore]

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!