From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 7 23:32:27 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95D471065670 for ; Sat, 7 Jan 2012 23:32:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F4AB8FC0C for ; Sat, 7 Jan 2012 23:32:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-26-82.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.26.82]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4BB3A3D1FD; Sun, 8 Jan 2012 00:32:26 +0100 (CET) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id q07NWP1n002478; Sun, 8 Jan 2012 00:32:25 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 00:32:25 +0100 From: Polytropon To: Message-Id: <20120108003225.dc64798a.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20120107150555.BYL92929@ms5.mc.surewest.net> References: <20120107150555.BYL92929@ms5.mc.surewest.net> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Installing FreeBSD ver. 8.2 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:32:27 -0000 On Sat, 7 Jan 2012 15:05:55 -0800 (PST), leeoliveshackelford@surewest.net wrote: > (1) Does anyone know how to get FreeBSD to read the > motherboard name? This name, on an xw4400, starts with > "HP" followed by a eleven digits, and is given in Windows > XP as "Full Computer Name" on the "Computer Name" tab > of the "System Properties" window. Among other purposes, > this name is used by Novell network operating system to > distinguish hosts on a subnet. The OS provides the output of dmesg and maybe the output of pciconf -lv, as well as the sysctl value dev.acpi.0.%desc which may contain the required information. However, I'm sure there is a program in the ports collection that can be used to obtain that kind of information. Try: dmesg | grep "HP" sysctl -a | grep "HP" pciconf -lv | less and see if there's such a number mentioned. Maybe you can also use acpidump to retrieve that information from the ACPI datasets. > (2) I cannot get the "find" command to locate files > that I believe were installed at the time of sysinstall. > If I understand the Handbook correctly, when one runs > "find" from the "/" directory, it is supposed to inspect > all directories and subdirectories of all partitions, > which it is not doing. What concept am I missing here? It would be easier to answer if you could provide the find command line you've been running. :-) See "man find" for more information. Basically, "find / -name -type f" should be sufficient to access all partitions currently mounted to search for specified regular files. > (3) I thought that I would obtain a better understanding > of the file system by running "man heir." This command > runs fine under "sh." When I switch to my preferred shell, > which is "bash," I type, and receive echo on the screen, > "man hei." As soon as I depress "r," the entire previously > entered command echos to the screen, starting where the > "r" should have appeared. In checking the bash manual, it > says that this response is correct for "control-r." I > could not find "non-shift-r" to be called out as a command. > Am I doing something wrong? Is this a hardware bug? Is > this a software bug? Is there something that needs to be > defined or undefined in a configuration file? No, bash's configuration files provided after install should be fine. However, I think you have a typo. The command you're intending to run is "man hier" ("hierarchy"). I've tested both csh and bash here, both allow the command to be entered without any interruption. When I type "man hei" followed by Ctrl+R, I get the following output: "(reverse-i-search)`': man hei". > (4) Not having very good luck with the "find" command, > I thought I would try to use the "locate" command. > To use this command, one must create a database. > On www.us-webmasters.com, I read that this database > could be constructed by running the command > "#usr/libexec/locate.updatedb." The required task is usually executed by the system's "night job" at 3:00 once a week. The script that will be run is /etc/periodic/weekly/310.locate which you could run manually. It will deal with the correct call of /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb (instead of running it as root!). > I entered "cd" to get to this directory, I entered > "ls -lt" to read the directory and to verify that it > contained a file named "locate.updatedb," which it did. > But when I entered "locate.updatedb" at the command > prompt, I received the response "command not found." > Why can the command shell not find the command when > "ls" clearly indicates it to exist in the current > directory? Because execution of programs will only be done from directories that are listed in $PATH. Check the output of "echo $PATH" and you'll see that /usr/libexec is not on that list. Intendedly. You need to explicitely call such programs with the full pathname, or from within the directory by prefixing it with ./, e. g. "./locate.updatedb". However, doing that as user or as root is not the correct way to perform the required action. Call the script from /etc/periodic instead to issue the building of the database now. > How do I, as a user, distinguish an executable binary > file from a data file? This is done by file attributes. The "executable" bit must be set. Shells that call the ls command have the ability to use a color scheme and a suffix to show this directly: % ll /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.local -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1563 Aug 24 06:43 /etc/rc.conf -rwxr----- 1 root wheel 602 Dec 11 2009 /etc/rc.local* The asterisk indicates an executable, as well as the "x" in the attributes field at the beginning. Furthermore, the filename "/etc/rc.local" appears in bright green color. For the C shell, use setenv LSCOLORS ExGxdxdxCxDxDxBxBxegeg and for bash, use export LSCOLORS="ExGxdxdxCxDxDxBxBxegeg" to configure the colors. See "man ls" for details. Oh, and the "ll" from my example is "ls -laFG" which also includes the suffix to indicate the type of file (directory, executable, pipe and so on). > FreeBSD does not seem to use file extension labels for > this purpose. No, why should anyone do that? It's dangerous! :-) > (5) What device driver must be installed for the sound > board to be able to receive a m.i.d.i. over u.s.b. signal? > This signal would be generated by a musician's keyboard, > and would control a music synthesizer application, to be > installed. I could find no mention of this topic in the > Handbook. I'm not familiar with "modern" USB hardware for that purpose. My MIDI times are long over, sorry. :-) > (6) In the book "Absolute FreeBSD" by Urban and Tiemann, > I found a two line command to cause the bash prompt to > display the file path and current directory. Unfortunately, > the text is quite unclear as to the name of the file to > which these line are to be added, or the directory in which > this file is located. I assume that somewhere there must > be login configuration files, bearing each user's name, > that give his or her shell configuration instructions. > What are the names of such files, and where are they > located? I've put my prompt configuration for bash in ~/.-bashrc locally to my user, and the setting for a standard UNIX prompt is export PS1="\u@\h:\w\$ " which I have in that file. You can find more suggestions at http://www.gilesorr.com/bashprompt/prompts/ for customizing your bash prompt. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...