From owner-freebsd-stable Tue Aug 14 4:34:38 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from l04.research.kpn.com (l04.research.kpn.com [139.63.192.204]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3D4FD37B408 for ; Tue, 14 Aug 2001 04:34:33 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from K.J.Koster@kpn.com) Received: by l04.research.kpn.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Tue, 14 Aug 2001 13:34:31 +0100 Message-ID: <59063B5B4D98D311BC0D0001FA7E452205FD9EAD@l04.research.kpn.com> From: "Koster, K.J." To: 'Martin Krzysiak' Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: 4.3-20010812-STABLE: xsm coredump ... and some experiences of a newbie Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 13:34:31 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Dear Martin, > > 1) Anyone knows how to setup the hostname at installation > time? It's not fair to call me Amnesiac when there is no > option to adjust it! :P > It's part of the network setup dialog in /stand/sysinstall. Since your box is already running, edit /etc/rc.conf. That file is documented in /etc/defaults/rc.conf. 'man rc.conf' is likely to be helpful. Hint: copy lines that you want to change from /etc/defaults/rc.conf to /etc/rc.conf and set the new value there. > > 2) When installing from a snapshot and a package is not > available in the package-tree, it means you have to > take the old one from latest STABLE? > STABLE is actually newer than RELEASE. Think of RELEASE of a snapshot off of the STABLE trail. Have a look at the FreeBSD handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/handbook, section 20. You will find this handbook quite useful. Then there is http://www.freebsddiary.org/ which has quite a few useful tutorials and http://daily.daemonnews.org/, a slashdot--type news site, although far more quiet. :) > > 5) I know there is /stand/sysinstall, but I would prefer to > have a reasonable fdisk. > /stand/sysinstall strikes me as quite a reasonable fdisk. You can always use the tools from the olden days. "man disklabel", "man newfs". > > 6) I don't like the FreeBSD boot-loader WRITING TO MY > BOOT-SECTOR AGAIN AND AGAIN (each time > I start my computer) ! Any way to stop it? > (Don't come up with stupid responses to remove it > or to install lilo!) > It's only a remark that you shouldn't write so often > on the most sensitive part of the harddisk! > It stores your boot selection in there, so that it can present your last choice as the default. *shrug* I like it the way it is. > > 8) Security question: > I would like to know, which CRITICAL things can a user > do, who is member of the group 'wheel' ? > (I mean... without 'su root' of course) > Well, look for suid root and sgid wheel binaries "man find". That will tell you a lot. On the whole you will find that users are pretty limited in nasty things they can do. Without involving screwdrivers and chewing gum that is. > > 9) Is a sequence of upgrading, downgrading, deinstalling > and installing packages safe or does it leave trash on > one's hard disk? > There's sometimes some trash left. The package system makes an MD5 checksum of each installed file and removes only files that have the identical MD5 checksum upon pkg_delete. Thus, if you edit a config file, and delete the package, the config file will remain in the filesystem. Have a look in /var/db/pkg/. Welcome to FreeBSD. Kees Jan ===================================================== You can't have everything. Where would you put it? [Steven Wright] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message