FreeBSD nubie questions

[dysharmonic]

Hi

FreeBSD5 here.

A couple of questions:

1) how do I make FreeBSD start in level 5? I'd like to have the GUI login manager (gdm or kdm) when my system starts instead of having to login at a login prompt.

2) when I'm logged in as a normal user in X, I dont have the option to shutdown my system. Can it be somehow enabled?

3) in a terminal, the command su - gives an error, something like sorry bla bla.. How do I su - into the system from a terminal then?

Thanx :)

[Gertrude]

In FreeBSD you need to add yourselft to the wheel group.

so in /etc/group

its going to say somethign like

wheel::10:root

change it to

wheel::10:root,your_username

you have to be root to edit the file..

[z0mbix]

Originally posted by Fahrenheit451
Hi

FreeBSD5 here.

A couple of questions:

1) how do I make FreeBSD start in level 5? I'd like to have the GUI login manager (gdm or kdm) when my system starts instead of having to login at a login prompt.

5.6.2 Using XDM:

http://www.uk.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-xdm.html

2) when I'm logged in as a normal user in X, I dont have the option to shutdown my system. Can it be somehow enabled?

Depends on your wm/de? In GNOME no, in KDE, I have no idea, in *box, yes just use sudo and add a shutdown entry to the menu.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by Fahrenheit451
Hi

FreeBSD5 here.

A couple of questions:

1) how do I make FreeBSD start in level 5? I'd like to have the GUI login manager (gdm or kdm) when my system starts instead of having to login at a login prompt.

I think z0mbix had that one under control... The only thing I can add to it is that FreeBSD doesn't use run levels. You basically have to add the command to start xdm/gdm/kdm into either /etc/rc.local (or /usr/local/etc/rc.d as a sh script), or into /etc/ttys.

2) when I'm logged in as a normal user in X, I dont have the option to shutdown my system. Can it be somehow enabled?

Again, z0mbix had the right idea about the boxes. However, I don't think that there's any way to do it via KDE or Gnome. The only thing I can think of is to use KDM instead, as KDM gives you the option to shut down from the login screen. I think that GDM does it, too.

[dysharmonic]

Thanx for the info + links.

However I'm having this error again:(

Just after the fresh installation and startx to Windowmaker, quit and gave the shutdown command from the CLI.

The system said that it had halted and asked to press any key to reboot.

And upon reboot I got the following:

Mouting root from ufs:/dev/ad1s1a
pid 88 (fsck_ufs), uid 0:exited on signal 8
pid 89 (fsck_ufs), uid 0:exited on signal 8

Could this be a bug?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

It could very well be one.

Try running fsck once the system finishes booting. Heck, if the system boots fine, I'd just ignore the errors myself.

[dysharmonic]

No, it doesnt boot at all, it just sits there forever waiting to be rebooted and get stuck again.

How do I use the Fixit disk?

I tried booting off CD#2 and at the Fixit# prompt, did fsck / (not even sure if that was the right thing to do). It said something like cluster size being 0.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Try

fsck /dev/ad1s1a

That should run fsck on your root partition.

[dysharmonic]

I got the following error:

Fixit# fsck /dev/ad1s1a
fstab:/etc/fstab:0:No such file or directory
fsck:exec /usr/sbin/fsck_4.2bsd for /dev/ad1s1a: No such file or directory

I noticed there was this sbin@ under /, so cd'ed into it and there wasn't any fsck file, but there was nevertheless fsck_ffs@. So I thought this could do the trick...

Fixit# fsck_ffs /dev/ad1s1a

** /dev/ad1s1a
** Last mounted on /
** Phase 1 - Check blocks and sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl Groups
85908 files, 632940 used, 1482995 free (31635 frags, 181420 blocks, 1.5% fragmentation)

Rebooted but still got stuck at the signal 8 error.

Then I tried fsck_ufs, same result...

Thanx.

[dysharmonic]

That's it. I'm ditching FreeBSD5...

I got it installed again today, and as soon as I got X working, shutting down the system and rebooting it again only made my system hang at that exit 8 signal.

W/o X it wouldnt mind how many times I shutdown/reboot. Guess this is one bug w/ X maybe...

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

With all of these errors you're running across, have you taken into consideration that the FreeBSD-5 series isn't the -STABLE series of FreeBSD. The most recent -STABLE version of FreeBSD is version 4.8. I run it, and it's rock solid. Just because it's a version behind FreeBSD 5 doesn't mean that its hardware support will suffer or anything. In fact, FreeBSD 4.9 is yet to be released, and it will be released even though FreeBSD 5.1's on its way out.

So, before you drop FreeBSD completely, give 4.8 a try. You might have better results with solving your problems.

[dysharmonic]

Yea, I guess so. I'll pm you for the 4.8 CDs and maybe a Debian too.

Just wondering, when FBSD 5.1 is out, will it be a stable release?

This is off-topic but anyways, is Debian really that hard to get up and running?

Thanx.

[sharth]

not really. x is a pain, but beyond that, you're fine.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by Fahrenheit451
Yea, I guess so. I'll pm you for the 4.8 CDs and maybe a Debian too.

Just wondering, when FBSD 5.1 is out, will it be a stable release?

This is off-topic but anyways, is Debian really that hard to get up and running?

Thanx.

I'm actually out of the CD business. It took up too much of my time, but didn't generate enough money for the effort.

AFAIK, nothing in the 5.x series will be -STABLE. It's kind of a new technology release. I think the 6.x series will hold the new -STABLE release. As of now, here's a comparison between Debian releases and FreeBSD releases:

FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE == Debian Stable (Woody)
FreeBSD 4.8-CURRENT == Debian Testing (Sarge)
FreeBSD 5.x == Debian Unstable (Sid)

But, Debian's not that hard to configure. It's predominantly text menu-driven, so if you can follow a text prompt, you can set up Debian. Also, IMHO, X isn't that hard to configure or reconfigure, for that matter. I always use

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

to reconfigure my X setup in Debian.

[xulfralos]

From what I have read, 5.2 is supposed to be where -STABLE will begin for the 5 series. 6.0 is still a long ways off...

5-STABLE Roadmap (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/5-roadmap/article.html)