Learning how to use FreeBSD

[CougTek]

I need to learn how to run a BSD server. It will probably be an OpenBSD installation, but I still don't know, so I chose to try FreeBSD instead as it seems to be more user-friendly.

I made a bootable USB stick with FreeBSD 6.2 64-bit on it, using Universal USB Installer. I installed it on a very modest system (Celeron 420 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, Intel 945G chipset, old WD400BB hard drive). The installtion went well, but nowhere did I see a place to tell to configure a window environment on bootup. Command line is ok for someone who's familiar with the OS, but for a newbie, it's a lot easier and faster to get the overall picture of where each things are in a window environment. At least that's my view. At the end of the installation, I had to log on and was simply greeted with a flashing cursor and that was it.

I should have tried to type "startx" to begin with, but didn't. I went to FreeBSD's web site and learned what to do to configure Xorg. Maybe it was already configured, but I'll never know. I moved to /usr/ports/x11/xorg and tried to "make install clean" : denied. Loggued as root and then retried and it worked. It's been compiling Xorg for the past three or four hours now. I don't know what I'll do next.

I want to learn how to set it up as a basic web server and also try to make a file share accessible from a remote Windows computer. I've always wanted to learn how to use BSD, but never really tried hard enough. Now I have to for a job. I have maybe two or three days. Solaris is next, even if I don't think it has much of a future.

 

[Bozo]

Why not use CentOS. It installs with a GUI and during the install you can configure it as a web server. It's also free.

 

[CougTek]

Because the customer has a few BSD servers. I'm already familiar with CentOS since I've used it for a few computers of my folding@home farm. It is my understanding that there are significant differences between Linux and BSD, so I want to see if I can work with both. I never made a shared folder for Windows users on a NIX machine though. I'll have to learn how to do it. It must not be that hard.

It is still compiling Xorg. I never thought it would be that long.

 

[LiamC]

Check your HDD activity light. I bet it's flashing like mad. It's probably the slow drive holding things up.

Funny you should mention FreeBSD. I'm going through my own learning curve with it because FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD. And I want to install FreeNAS in an ESXi 5 VM. But I cannot install the VMWare tools within the FreeNAS shell, and there appears to be some pkg dependency (missing) from FreeBSD 7.3. There are a couple of references to this issue 'round the web, but they all deal with older versions, or with FreeNAS 8.0

 

[Chewy509]

I thought Desktop installation was covered in the FreeBSD Handbook?

For sharing files with Windows, you'll need to use SAMBA (exactly the same as Linux).

If you need a hand with Solaris 10 or 11, let me know and I can be of assistance. (Are you installing in a VM or on real hardware)?

Solaris 10/11 is a different beast to Linux/BSD, and has many advanced items only now just making into the Linux world... (SMF vs systemd, ZFS vs brtfs, DTrace vs ..., Kernel mode CIFS/SMB services vs SAMBA, Direct integration with Active Directory vs ...)

 

[Mercutio]

It certainly should be well documented. Absolute FreeBSD is highly regard, and if you REALLY want to learn about operating systems, you can pick up either the source code commentary or "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System."

The ORA book "Essential UNIX System Administration" is also quite handy, since it frequently compares and contrasts how different UNIX systems do the same things.

 

[LiamC]

I thought Desktop installation was covered in the FreeBSD Handbook?

That's gold Chewy, thanks. But why is it in that funny language no one speaks?

:-D

 

[CougTek]

I thought Desktop installation was covered in the FreeBSD Handbook?

Thanks Chewy. I already found it yesterday before you posted it, but it's a nice touch to have linked it here.

Xorg finally finished compiling, but now it freezes as soon as I launch it. I'll have to configure it I guess. More things to learn...

 

[timwhit]

You could install PC-BSD, which is built on FreeBSD, but includes a GUI. The other configuration should all be the same.

 

[CougTek]

Thanks, I forgot about PC-BSD. I've downloaded the iso and I'll install it later this evening.

 

[CougTek]

I'm now typing from the PC-BSD installation. It's actually quite nice, but very spartan. There's not even a Net browser installed by default. The AppCafe lets you install a bunch of available softwares smoothly though.

I replaced the original single-core CPU on which I made the installation by a dual core processor. Is there a way to update the OS so that it recognizes and uses both cores?

 

[Mercutio]

I'm about 99% certain that any modern OS should support SMP with its default kernel. Go back and look at your kernel messages (dmesg) to check and make sure. Worst case you'll have to recompile the kernel (there are step by step instructions out there) or reinstall.