FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE

I finished installing this yesterday, as I wanted to set up a BSD box to mess with, and after deciding on letting go on a Linux partition...Which wasn't easy because I really liked it...But the only other boxes available were both in use and needed for testing, I decided to let it be and go for it.

I looked around my software collections (Yes, Plural, I keep Windows and Windows software in two spots depending on what it is, as in OS or apps.. and then Linux and Linux tools on CD in two other locations, and then Solaris and Solaris Software in another and all my BSD stuff is in two spots).

I noticed that I couldn't find my 7.0 CDs, and the only complete set I could find for some reason was 6.0. I didn't want to use one that old now that 7 was out, so I just downloaded the 3 CD set. It really only took about half an hour before I could start installing the first CD so no big deal.

Anyway, the installer is still the same as it was in 6.0 so no having to learn a new install script like when I first installed one of the 5.X series and saw they had changed it a bit.

The install was pretty fast, and the machine it's on has TWO HDs. One is the 80 GB drive it came with, wich has my Windows XP install on that so I can play Doom.

The other HD is about 160 GBs and had Linux, so I chose that one and dedicated the whole disk for BSD.

Once it was finished, I gave it the OK to use the FreeBSD boot manager since grub obviously wouldn't work after this, and then made a small mistake. It kind of caught me off gaurd.

I was doing partitions and giving BSD the whole disk, and right after I delected the drive again by accident, so I expected the screen to show up again and ask where to install to, but I had forgotten I had already set this up a screen earlier. So I ended up installing the boot loader on BOTH HDs.

At first I was like "Ah ****"... But then I realised if I take that drive out, or the first drive decided to go, I wouldn't need to do much and could just set the other drive with BSD on it as the master and not have to screw with it more than that as it would already contain a loader.

The only real difference now is that when I boot, if I don't choose Windows, I have to select to boot from the other drive, then select BSD from THAT loader's menu.

In other words not only is it no big deal, it makes dealing with a disk failure easier.

So, how is it?

Well, the system is fast. I've had it running since the installer finished. I have KDe loaded right now but I first messed with Window Maker, FVWM2, and others to get a feel for it.

I will point out I still haven't configured X yet. The video card in the machine is a POS crappy on board card that sucks. 32 MBs you can only really use in Windows, and even then it blows.

The sound card is the same.

However, I didn't have to configure X, I just loaded up the OS, logged in as root, and typed GDM and then went from there.

Then I wanted to play with KDM, so I killed off GDM and typed this:

kdm

Then that loaded for me and I logged in again noting the small differences in a non Linux vendor configured specialty look that I'm used to. The defaults look nice though.

After loading KDE, I wanted to see if the adage I've dealt with for about 7 years now would be true.

I've had a love hate relationship with FreeBSD since about 2000 to 2001. I could install it very easy without reading the installation help. I could set it up and have the thing online without much info or needing to hack anything.

I could NEVER get sound working. I guess the idea of having to play with a Kernel just for sound because it's off by default annoyed me.

Well, this was no different there. But I had to try because the speakers hooked up to this box can shake the house next door and I like that.

(We've had two neighboor's in and out in the last year).

I checked the FreeBSD docs page instead of searching through my FreeBSD book collection which I might add is quite impressive.

I found a page here:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...und-setup.html

I follored that and did the generic one of kldl snd_driver and.... IT WORKED!

I actually got sound to work.... For the first time ever. I saw my POS sound card in dmsg output, grabbed an MP3 from my Slackware FTP server, and as root did this:

pkg_add -r mpg123

It grabbed it and installed it and I used it to play a song, and it actually worked!

By the way, the ability to type this:

pkg_add -r AnyPackage

And have it not only grab packages and software, install it, and be done, is awesome. It's something I've always liked.

Anyway, so far, in my day of using it, I'm actually impressed.

I like the fact that this one seems to have some decent speed going, and of course, the fact that I actually got sound working good.

I guess all along I should have installed it on this machine. I have.... about 9 Desktops here, and I've installed FreeBSD on most of them, and never gotten sound to work properly. I try ONCE on here with this new release and it works the first time.

I still haven't loaded it into the Kernel, because, well, I'm screwing around with other stuff, but at least it works! The installationonly took like 20 minutes or so, and I did a fairly custom install too.

After I have the Kernel loaded with Sound Support, I won't have to type this command whenever I boot it, but really, let's be honest here. It's not like FreeBSD needs to reboot a whole lot heh.

Oh, one more thing before I go:

For the newbies of UNIX / Linux / BSD in general:

If you decide to install this or a distro of Linux, PLEASE, PLEASE, do NOT come on here asking why some obscure command someone told you you had to do to get networking working isn't working.

A few years ago my inbox used to get loaded up with people askign why they couldn't configure sound or X and the general reason was, THEY THOUGHT THEY ACTUALLY HAD TO TO MAKE IT WORK... I told them to reinstall, NOT configure, and just load it up out of the box, and boom, it worked. You don't have to configure everything by hand anymore. It isn't 1992. Most hardware works right out of the box on here.

With FreeBSD you will have to get your hands dirty to get everything to work. That's one thing I like about it, you're not forced into any desktop, you have a choice. The handbook is the most overlooked even though it contains most of the information you will need to get going. And it's quite good.

BSD newbies should probably start with PC-BSD just to get the hang of the BSD way of doing things. PC-BSD would be more like the linux install everybody is familiar with.

I actually have PC-BSD, I just don't really use it much.

For books, literally you could tick off anything from the BSDmall and I most likely have it. One of my favs is "The Complete FreeBSD" which I have two copies of.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gore

I finished installing this yesterday, as I wanted to set up a BSD box to mess with, and after deciding on letting go on a Linux partition...Which wasn't easy because I really liked it...But the only other boxes available were both in use and needed for testing, I decided to let it be and go for it.

I looked around my software collections (Yes, Plural, I keep Windows and Windows software in two spots depending on what it is, as in OS or apps.. and then Linux and Linux tools on CD in two other locations, and then Solaris and Solaris Software in another and all my BSD stuff is in two spots).

I noticed that I couldn't find my 7.0 CDs, and the only complete set I could find for some reason was 6.0. I didn't want to use one that old now that 7 was out, so I just downloaded the 3 CD set. It really only took about half an hour before I could start installing the first CD so no big deal.

Anyway, the installer is still the same as it was in 6.0 so no having to learn a new install script like when I first installed one of the 5.X series and saw they had changed it a bit.

The install was pretty fast, and the machine it's on has TWO HDs. One is the 80 GB drive it came with, wich has my Windows XP install on that so I can play Doom.

The other HD is about 160 GBs and had Linux, so I chose that one and dedicated the whole disk for BSD.

Once it was finished, I gave it the OK to use the FreeBSD boot manager since grub obviously wouldn't work after this, and then made a small mistake. It kind of caught me off gaurd.

I was doing partitions and giving BSD the whole disk, and right after I delected the drive again by accident, so I expected the screen to show up again and ask where to install to, but I had forgotten I had already set this up a screen earlier. So I ended up installing the boot loader on BOTH HDs.

At first I was like "Ah ****"... But then I realised if I take that drive out, or the first drive decided to go, I wouldn't need to do much and could just set the other drive with BSD on it as the master and not have to screw with it more than that as it would already contain a loader.

The only real difference now is that when I boot, if I don't choose Windows, I have to select to boot from the other drive, then select BSD from THAT loader's menu.

In other words not only is it no big deal, it makes dealing with a disk failure easier.

So, how is it?

Well, the system is fast. I've had it running since the installer finished. I have KDe loaded right now but I first messed with Window Maker, FVWM2, and others to get a feel for it.

I will point out I still haven't configured X yet. The video card in the machine is a POS crappy on board card that sucks. 32 MBs you can only really use in Windows, and even then it blows.

The sound card is the same.

However, I didn't have to configure X, I just loaded up the OS, logged in as root, and typed GDM and then went from there.

Then I wanted to play with KDM, so I killed off GDM and typed this:

kdm

Then that loaded for me and I logged in again noting the small differences in a non Linux vendor configured specialty look that I'm used to. The defaults look nice though.

After loading KDE, I wanted to see if the adage I've dealt with for about 7 years now would be true.

I've had a love hate relationship with FreeBSD since about 2000 to 2001. I could install it very easy without reading the installation help. I could set it up and have the thing online without much info or needing to hack anything.

I could NEVER get sound working. I guess the idea of having to play with a Kernel just for sound because it's off by default annoyed me.

Well, this was no different there. But I had to try because the speakers hooked up to this box can shake the house next door and I like that.

(We've had two neighboor's in and out in the last year).

I checked the FreeBSD docs page instead of searching through my FreeBSD book collection which I might add is quite impressive.

I found a page here:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...und-setup.html

I follored that and did the generic one of kldl snd_driver and.... IT WORKED!

I actually got sound to work.... For the first time ever. I saw my POS sound card in dmsg output, grabbed an MP3 from my Slackware FTP server, and as root did this:

pkg_add -r mpg123

It grabbed it and installed it and I used it to play a song, and it actually worked!

By the way, the ability to type this:

pkg_add -r AnyPackage

And have it not only grab packages and software, install it, and be done, is awesome. It's something I've always liked.

Anyway, so far, in my day of using it, I'm actually impressed.

I like the fact that this one seems to have some decent speed going, and of course, the fact that I actually got sound working good.

I guess all along I should have installed it on this machine. I have.... about 9 Desktops here, and I've installed FreeBSD on most of them, and never gotten sound to work properly. I try ONCE on here with this new release and it works the first time.

I still haven't loaded it into the Kernel, because, well, I'm screwing around with other stuff, but at least it works! The installationonly took like 20 minutes or so, and I did a fairly custom install too.

After I have the Kernel loaded with Sound Support, I won't have to type this command whenever I boot it, but really, let's be honest here. It's not like FreeBSD needs to reboot a whole lot heh.

Oh, one more thing before I go:

For the newbies of UNIX / Linux / BSD in general:

If you decide to install this or a distro of Linux, PLEASE, PLEASE, do NOT come on here asking why some obscure command someone told you you had to do to get networking working isn't working.

A few years ago my inbox used to get loaded up with people askign why they couldn't configure sound or X and the general reason was, THEY THOUGHT THEY ACTUALLY HAD TO TO MAKE IT WORK... I told them to reinstall, NOT configure, and just load it up out of the box, and boom, it worked. You don't have to configure everything by hand anymore. It isn't 1992. Most hardware works right out of the box on here.

---

do i get a BSD for x86?

Guess that depends what processor you have huh?

Im going to download it tonight. Although i dont have any spare hardware at the moment.. will figure out a way to make some space somewhere:)

Cheers.

Freebsd works great as a VMWare guest too :D

I've heard it does. I'm typing this from the install now. I finished installing the stuff I like having not to long ago. Sure is nice not having to compile hydra, Hping, and IPSorcery. All in the ports ;)


EDIT:

Post #6,000

Wow....

Brang home a few machines from work that were destined for the dumpster, pulled them apart and used the better parts to make 1 good machine.

just finished downloading and in the process of burning the .iso ta'h disc. :)

Quote:

---

Post #6,000

---

That's nothing. I want OVER 9000!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by t34b4g5

Brang home a few machines from work that were destined for the dumpster, pulled them apart and used the better parts to make 1 good machine.

just finished downloading and in the process of burning the .iso ta'h disc. :)

---

Yay Coffee Cup is moving up in the World!

Oh in case anyone cares I almost spun out of control. dumb ass in front of me, who is driving around 50 MPH as is the speed limit on this two lane road, smacks the breaks, HARD, forcing me to do the same or smash.

I had a blast because when you start to spin at over 40 MPH on ice on a road that hasn't been plowed yet in the middle of a snow storm, it is kind of fun except for that whole dying thing. There was a van coming head on and I managed to use my street racing days as a good way to not hit something or someone, and landed in a parking lot without smashing up anything.

Wife hated it, but WOW the adrenaline.

Anyway, if crashing like that worries you, you can be sure it isn't gonna happen with this release of BSD ;)

I was trying a little harder not to smash stuff, I haven't been to bed yet since when I woke up at 6 yesterday.

Quote:

---

That's nothing. I want OVER 9000!!!!

---

OMG! You are going to have to behave yourself for a very long time then; aren't you?

:drink:

ell, after two cans of Wired X344 and this:

pkg_add -r wterm

I attached a screen shot of my FreeBSD-7.1-RELEASE box.

I'm currently running Window Maker on it right now. I do have KDE, Gnome, FVWM2, Enlightenment, and others installed, but for some reason I really like Window Maker lately. So anyway, the attached image is a screen shot.

I found the theme on some web site, and downloaded it for a Linux installation, but it works just fine on FreeBSD too.

Anyway, enjoy.

PS:

The reason I have so many wterm windows open is simple:

I was screwing with the -pixmap image.xpm thing.

I thought it was interestnig, so I grabbed a few pixmaps from the system and tossed them in a dir in my /home so I could play with them and see how they looked on a wterm.

I was messing with the fg color too.

Basically do this:

pkg_add -r wterm

Wait until it's finished

Run this command:

wterm -fg green -pixmap /home/gore/pixmps/imageToUse.xpm

After you run it, it's neat looking ;)

Oh, and pay no attention to that play list. It's probably ging to offend someone. The Genitorturers aren't exactly PC, and neither is Cannibal Corpse.

Other stuff on that play list if your interested is basically what I listed, and The Crystal Method, Rammstein, R6.3zist (Industrial, I think from France), Body Count, Exhumed, Dying Fetus, Acid Bath, Mortician, Danzig, Bolt Thrower, Atari Teenage Riot, Gorguts, dieKrupps, Samhain, KMFDM, Hate Plow, Black Flag, and the Dead Kennedys.

Just in case you want your desktop to look exactly the same, ;) lol. Oh and it's XMMS playing ad some WM Apps loaded. Now you too can make your desktop look like mine! All the way down to the MP3s and OGGs!

Quote:

---

The Crystal Method, Rammstein, R6.3zist (Industrial, I think from France), Body Count, Exhumed, Dying Fetus, Acid Bath, Mortician, Danzig, Bolt Thrower, Atari Teenage Riot, Gorguts, dieKrupps, Samhain, KMFDM, Hate Plow, Black Flag, and the Dead Kennedys.

---

If you had not included Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys, I would have thought this to be a list of virus in your machine.

My current XMMS playlist... Tom Waits, Neil Young, Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, Springsteen, Sinatra, Pavarotti, The Clash, Sex Pistols, Stones, AC/DC, Allman Bros, Grateful Dead, Nora Jones, Ella Fitz, Louis Armstrong, Billy Holiday, Etta James, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Clapton, Dylan, Roy Orbison, Petty, ELO, Elvis.

.. and hosted on suse 10.3

Too each his own. ;)

Mine are virii? Lol, TRY googling John Lee Hooker, see if you get even ONE valid result ;)

The only reason I know who that is, is from BOFH.

The rest I know though. My Wife Loves Tom Waits and, let's see here, Muddy, Armstrong, and probably a few others.

One thing though; How do you know the Sex Pistols, and not Samhain? or even Danzig?



EDIT:

"Location: Swamps of Jersey"

If you don't know who Danzig is and you're from NJ, I'm gonna slap you.

I was a bar rat in the late 70s early 80s. Went just about everywhere in the NJ/NYC/Philly area that hosted original music.

I cant say I know Danzig, but I saw the Misfits a few times in the late 70s in NYC (CBGB?). I started listening to the Sex Pistols after Sid OD'd. The girl I was "dating" at the time introduced me. (BTW.. She was very "talented".) Never Mind the Bollocks was her "mood" music. :D

Poor kids today... I can see why they stay home and spend countless hours install different *inux distros just for kicks. 'cause they aint too many places to go to listen to good original music anymore. In fact, there aint too much good music being made.

csr

Finished rebuilding my workstation this weekend. It's updated to GNOME 2.24, I've got my X-Fi working and I even managed to get flash9 going...

/me is a happy camper :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nihil

OMG! You are going to have to behave yourself for a very long time then; aren't you?

:drink:

---

You know you are itching just to pull the trigger. :D ::hide-beh

If you want Flash I thought I might link to this:

http://crnl.org/blog/2008/11/01/flash-9-for-freebsd-71

I'm doing it now on my test box to see how it goes before doing it on this one. So far so good. And then you can watch stuff on You tube, listen to my music on Myspace, and generally get annoying looking sound effects included ads on other pages.

Who all is using BSD here anyway?

Been using openbsd reguarly for a while now, never really had time to properly play with FreeBSD.

have a laptop running DesktopBSD .

don't know why it's called Desktop when it runs perfectly fine on a laptop. :D the ads are easy enough to block out if you have a little time on your hands to setup a few things.

and the real question should be who here is using Suse?? ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gore

If you want Flash I thought I might link to this:

http://crnl.org/blog/2008/11/01/flash-9-for-freebsd-71

---

I actually didn't use it. Just installed linux_base-f8, nspluginwrapper and proceded to install linux-flashplugin9.

Youtube works with 7 too..

Quote:

---

Who all is using BSD here anyway?

---

Me :D

I didnt think youtube worked with 7 anymore because of the change when they added Flex in?

Apparently a lot of people have gotten flash working just fine. I've yet to get it going on my systems yet but I haven't exactly tried. I started some of the downloads but just haven't gotten around to giving it a try yet. Been a bit busy with other stuff. And my "free time" has been spent looking up new ideas for my boxes to see what new project I can start and not finish lol.

Well, that and UT2003 and 2004.

Booo! UT 99 was the only good one out of all of them IMO. After playing it for so long I may be biased but it was a brilliant game for its time :-P

It is great. It was the first one I had after seeing it in a store and thinking it was great.