Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 19:41:54 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Doug Lawrence <lawrencd@uci.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Is Freebsd graphical? Message-ID: <40AD4242.2050005@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.2.20040520145340.00b036f0@imap.uci.edu> References: <6.0.1.1.2.20040520145340.00b036f0@imap.uci.edu>
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Doug Lawrence wrote: > I am very new to anything but Windows and some MAC. I bought a retail > box of 4.7 about 2 years ago.It had no printed material.I tried for > about a month to get it up and running but I gave up. I was to new. I > talked to people in my department about how to learn the program and > they suggested I get Redhat 9 off our UCI mirror site. I have done that > and have learned a lot over about one year.I got a copy of 5.2.1 off > your site and began again.I have done ok now but have questions.I > understand what I should be doing to install but areas I believe I > should select ALL I cann't figure out how to select the all choice.One > spot I select all and the next screen says no packages selected and I > cann't backup.This time I am not giving up. Can you help me get back on > track? Doug Lawrence You're hitting up against a major difference in the design mentality of FreeBSD compared to just about any other software out there. FreeBSD is developed primarily as a server operating system for people knowledgable about Unix. That's not to say that it won't work as a desktop operating system for the average Joe ... my mother is completely computer illiterate and she uses FreeBSD on her computer ... she didn't install it, though. This isn't because the FreeBSD folks don't care about the average Joe who wants FreeBSD on his/her desktop, it's because the _volunteers_ who develop FreeBSD are simply more interested in making the most technically advanced multi-user operating system available, and that takes a lot of work, but they only have so many hours in a day. Once you've got FreeBSD installed and configured, I'm sure you'll find it just as easy to use as Redhat ... getting to that point takes a bit more work. As I'm sure you've already noticed, Redhat has an option to configure it for workstation use, while FreeBSD has no such install option. This means that you'll have to _manually_ tweak the configuration for workstation use, after doing a generic install. The bad news is that this is a bit of work to get done. The good news is that you'll learn a lot in the process, and there is plenty of documentation to help you out. Based on the subject of your email, I'm guessing you're getting frustrated by the fact that your FreeBSD installs end up with a text login instead of a graphical login. If you _are_ successfully getting to the point that you have a text login, then congratulations! You've actually succeeded in installing FreeBSD, you simply have to go through the manual process of configuring XFree86 on your machine (RedHat systems, by contrast, have an automatic XFree86 configure program that does this for you) I recommend that you read through this chapter of the handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html and proceed with setting up XFree86. If you hit specific problems, don't hesitate to ask for help on this list again. -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com
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