Enlightenment
Administrator
 108 posts | This topic is dedicated to people requesting assistance with setting up, installing, configuring FreeBSD. Any subject is welcome, but if your question involves storage (geom RAID modules) then post on the Storage forum, thank you!
And don't be afraid to ask; those who do not ask do not learn.  Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
Jeryn
Unregistered | What filesystems are supported by FreeBSD? Can i use linux filesystems like XFS, Ext3, etc?
And maybe a lame question: but how fast is FreeBSD compared to Linux? I'm using apache, PHP etc on a Dual Opteron system with 2GB memory. |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | FreeBSD supports UFS, UFS2, FAT and ZFS (only in the development version; FreeBSD 7-CURRENT). You cannot use XFS, Ext3 as "root" fs, though read-only Ext2 support may be available.
FreeBSD's storage framework is quite advanced and is quite fast. Regarding general "server" speed it really depends on what you test. MySQL has in the past been bad performant on FreeBSD, new threading has put an end to this.
Comparing performance is difficult because of different default options, features and architectural differences. For example, writes on Linux happen Asynchronously by default, very unsafe for production servers. While on FreeBSD metadata is written synchronous. This proves more slowly but more securily in case of a crash, power failure or sudden reset. Also, some applications might be optimized specifically for Linux. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
Morgan
Unregistered | Hm i'm kind of doubting about chosing FreeBSD or FreeNAS for my new NAS box. What do you people think? I won't really use it for anything else than NAS, though a bittorrent client would be nice. Is that possible in FreeNAS? |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | Sorry i missed your posts. FreeNAS has no option for a BitTorrent client. I prefer FreeBSD, since it gives me a full fledged operating system. FreeNAS allows few tweaking but is more easy if you're unfamiliar with the BSD's. Try them out both and see which one you like most. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
happy_freebsd_user
Unregistered | I have two problems..
1
After some recent portupgrading my sudo suddenly fails on me
superbak# sudo mount
/dev/ad0s1d on / (ufs, local, soft-updates)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
/dev/ad0s2c on /home (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/ad0s1e on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/ad0s1g on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/ad0s1f on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/ad1s1 on /mnt/fat32 (msdosfs, local)
superbak# exit
exit
$ sudo mount
Password:
sudo: mount: command not found
$
(my guess is something is wrong with paths)
When i google the error i only find MacOS things  
After i switched my freebsd to another HDD using sysinstall and then copying with cpdup
i dont have a ad0s1a anymore, somehow sysinstall refused to cooperate.
So when i boot i have to type manually everytime
ad:0(0,c) or something
Any idea if i can fix that?
Next paragraph is timewaste (and about timewasting reboots):)
Not that i mind alot since i boot only once a day.. Like it should, unlike when i was using other commercial products as OS that require a penetration of the rebooty function every 5 minutes you do something. l ![>:\]](/images/smiley-19.gif)
kind regards, bart at redbox13.com |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | Hm could you give me your "env | grep -i path" output, both as root and as normal user? I think the problem is in here.
FreeBSD assumes you have your /boot on the "a" partition. You should follow this convention else you would have to do this manually everytime. Why did you change the partitions if i may ask? Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
happy_freebsd_user
Unregistered | Hey thanks for reply
It is appreciated very muchos.
I'm not sure why sysinstall didnt made me a "a"
I guess it had something to do with running post-configure in sysinstall from another running freebsd copy on a different hdd?
$ env |grep -i path
PATH=./:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
$ su
Password:
superbak# env |grep -i path
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/games:[added_lb]
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:[added_lb]
/root/bin
superbak#
so the path seems wrong but now the question is how do i fix that lol
And why did portupgrade made paths weird in the first place 
I'm not sure cuz its like a month ago, but when i create a new user in wheel group, sudo works fine for that user if i recall correctly.. |
happy_freebsd_user
Unregistered | Hi again :-)
I have traced the problem, it appears only in xterm, even when i make a new user (in wheel)
Eterm/normal console works fine. I'm not sure how to fix xterm though, but i haven't searched yet. 
make config gives "no arrgs to conf.." so im suddenly beginning to believe that i should definitly try consult it's makefile.. |
happy_freebsd_user
Unregistered | The solution:
I found a new binary on my system, its called "uxterm" (in same folder as xterm) (magic command was "locate xterm |grep bin")
and when i launch it it works
or when i manually type xterm -ls
so i will update my fluxbox usermenu file to use uxterm from now on |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | Ok. Thanks for your solution. Hopefully people with the same problem can find this through google. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
jealma
Member
4 posts | Hi Enlightenment. I recently read about FreeBSD 7 again and I'd like to try it out. I've had some experience with FreeBSD 6.2 and the installation, but FreeBSD 7 gives me only problems. I'd like to setup a desktop system with KDE, but I can't even get FreeBSD installed, at least not in the way I used to install FreeBSD 6.2. Normally, I boot from disc 1/2 and, after selecting my country and language, I choose the Standard Installation. It asks for some partitioning stuff and then comes to the part where I need to choose distribution sets. At that part I would choose "All", no ports collection, "Exit" and finally "CD/DVD" as install media. FreeBSD 7 BETA3 gives the error that no CD was detected (VirtualBox 1.5.0). Suppose that error didn't occur, with a real system the installer would begin copying distribution sets to my disk and it ends in error that it cannot find a certain distribution set. I suppose it is just not yet present on the FreeBSD 7 disk. By the way, if I try to use FTP instead of CD/DVD at the installation media selection, none of the listed FTP-servers work somehow. The setup can't find any distribution set at any of the listed FTP-locations.
If I choose to install only a "minimal" system at the distribution set part, the system installs and boots to the login prompt, so far so good. But, I cannot use pkg_add to install new packages as it cannot find any. Getting the portscollection by using portsnap fetch and the rest, I can use the ports collection to install stuff, but I'd rather use the binary packages for KDE, Xorg and other stuff. With pkg_add -r I would need to edit some kind of system variable which determines the location where pkg_add should look for new packages, but as I couldn't find any more information on FreeBSD 7 at that time, I decided to try again later.
My question is, how should I install FreeBSD 7 Beta 3 on a normal computer (with sata dvd/disk) and be able to install stuff with pkg_add as well as the ports collection. |
jealma
Member
4 posts | Hi, I just managed to install FreeBSD7 on a computer. The problem was in that I didn't need to select any distribution sets, after which it automatically installed the sets "base" "generic" and one or two more. The pkg_add -r utility also works now, probably something was missing the last time with the minimum install.
One thing I'd like to know: what's my best option for running X with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 (M54) on FreeBSD? For as far as I know, the ATI binary fglrx-driver isn't available for FreeBSD and the open-source xf86-video-ati-6.7.195 does not yet support the X1000 series graphics cards. |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | My recommendation is to perform a "minimal" installation with base and kernel, and then optionally all the sources listed under "src" and the manual pages "man". Then setup a portstree and begin installing KDE.
Regarding your video card, i think you might have success with the "vesa" driver. It isn't as fast and offers no 3d glory, but somehow i'm guessing you need only a functional desktop. By the way, you might also run a virtual desktop using TightVNC. Then you can connect from any computer (windows/linux/bsd/mac) to your virtual freebsd desktop and run torrents and whatever. There are also web-based torrentclients that do not need X.
In short, a lot of things are possible, you just have to find them and make them work. 
If i can help you with anything else, please just ask! Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
jealma
Member
4 posts | I tried a minimal installation, but somehow pkg_add didn't work then. It might have been a problem with the Beta (beta 2 it was then) or it might have had to do with something else. What is the exact difference between a default install (not selecting anything in the distribution sets window) and the minimal install?
The vesa-driver worked for me, but the resolution was very poor (only 1024x768 while my display supports 1680x1050) and it didn't work very well. I'd like to use FreeBSD as my primary/secondary OS on my laptop someday, and if the Ati graphics card was an addon-card I would have swapped it with a Nvidia card long ago, but that is simply not possible.
I recently read an article on Phoronix (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjIxMg ) about AtomBIOS being merged into xf86-video-ati. The article gave instructions about how to use GIT to get the latest sources from anongit-freedesktop.org and install them under Ubuntu. This worked very well for me, as I can now use xf86-video-ati with my x1400, having very good 2d, video playback and initial 3d support, from an open-source driver. Is it possible to compile those sources under FreeBSD myself? I already have GIT working and a copy of the xf86-video-ati sources already resides on my harddisk. Compiling the sources will however not succeed. |
Enlightenment
Administrator
108 posts | Hm this is going to be a kernel module, right? Because it interacts with physical hardware. That means that you cannot easily compile this if it's not already in the FreeBSD kernel sources. At least that's what i think.
I'll have a look if i can find a newer version of that driver somewhere...
As for your install problems, did you make sure the network/internet connection worked by pinging? Maybe you just forgot to activate DHCP on the interface, so pkg_add -r could not download the package from the internet? You can activate an interface using dhcp with:
dhclient <interface>
see "ifconfig". Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. |
