Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2000 22:19:26 GMT From: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@nojunk.com> To: John Indra <m4v3r1ck@bigfoot.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newbie has a lot of questions... Message-ID: <20000108.22192600@bartequi.ottodomain.org> References: <20000108180905.A6865@bigfoot.com>
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Dear John Indra,
I will try to answer a few questions of yours.
They are interwoven with my text, below.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
On 1/8/00, 12:09:05 PM, John Indra <m4v3r1ck@bigfoot.com> wrote
regarding Newbie has a lot of questions...:
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> Hi list readers... =3D)
> I'm new to both this list and FreeBSD. I have a lot of questions and I=
> have decided to ask them in one long mail ( *sorry* ) considering
waste
> caused by my message headers if I ask one question in one mail.
> First of all, I'm Indonesian, so English definitely is not my mother
> language. Thus I beg your pardon for my vocab and grammatical errors.
I am Italian :-)
> I'm a novice sysadmin. I administer a small network with Red Hat Linux=
> as the core server (web, mail, and database). Have been interested
with
> FreeBSD for a long time, so I decided to give it a try. I had my
FreeBSD
> CD-ROM on Dec 31st 1999 and decided to delete a Linux partition and
> place FreeBSD over it. Know what really attract me to try FreeBSD? The=
> daemon... ;) so... here's my first question: what's Mr D'mon name? I
> can't find it on the FAQ... Maybe this question (and answer) could be
> included in the future FAQ ;)
I seem to have heard it is sometimes called "Chucky";
I am not sure :-) If this is the case then ...
Chucky<chuck
chuck: ORIGIN late 16th cent.: alteration of chick(1)(young bird)
chick(1): ORIGIN M.E. abbreviation of chicken
chicken: ORIGIN O.E. cicen,cycen, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch
kieken and German Kuechlein, and probably also to cock(1) (male bird).
Cock(1): ORIGIN O.E. cocc, from medieval Latin coccus; reinforced in
M.E. by Old French coq.
I like linguistics :-)
> Ok... now... to get to real business...
> I understand that there is a runlevel concept in Linux. I believe that=
> this was inherited from SysV. Are there any runlevel concept on
FreeBSD
> or *BSD variant in general?
> What is the boot sequence in FreeBSD? Till now, this is what I
> understand:
> Bootstrap -> /kernel -> /sbin/init -> read /etc/rc* -> invoke gettys -=
>
> login. Is my understanding correct?
FreeBSD is a *networked* OS by ... definition ;-)
As a result, Linux "runlevels" are mostly meaningless.
Of course, there are a single user and a multiuser mode.
AFAIR, this topic has also been discussed, at various levels and from
various standpoints, maybe in -questions: please browse the archives.
The booting sequence is described (elementary level) in the handbook;
there, you can find a rich bibliography (e.g. OS Internals). Also, to
begin with, you might want to read init(8), rc(8), rc.conf(5),
boot(8), loader(8), loader.conf(5), sysctl(8), ttys(5),
tty(4),ioctl(2), getty(8), login(1), reboot(8)=3Dhalt(8),
shutdown(8)...
N.B. You do NOT have to buy any "Resource Kit" or "M$ Press"
(flame bait ;-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From init(8):
The role of init is so critical that if it dies, the system will
reboot itself automatically. If, at bootstrap time, the init process
cannot be located, the system will panic with the message ``panic:
init died (signal %d, exit %d)''.
If run as a user process as shown in the second synopsis line,
init will emulate AT&T System V UNIX behavior, i.e. super-user can
specify the desired run-level on a command line, and init will signal
the
original (PID 1) init as follows:
Run-level Signal Action
0 SIGUSR2 Halt and turn the power off
1 SIGTERM Go to single-user mode
6 SIGINT Reboot the machine
c SIGTSTP Block further logins
q SIGHUP Rescan the ttys(5) file
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> AFAIK all Linux distribution use bash as their default shell. So when
I
> got csh as my default root shell, I panic! Can anyone teach me how to
> use csh? I don't need to know the details, I just need to know whether=
> csh can cycle through all the commands I've executed (in bash, I can
use
> the up and down arrow), and does csh support command/filename
> completion. If yes, how do I get it? (what key do I need to press? In
bash,
> we use tab to complete command/filename)
The following are good starters: "man csh", "man tcsh".
(I would at least add "man sh" and "man bash").
Other shells are available: please have a closer look at the ports
collection. History mechanisms are described in the man pages, which
also give you information on the main differences between related
shells (e.g. tcsh and csh).
Please browse the freebsd site *carefully*.
Among other things, you will find an "Introduction to Unix", FreeBSD
handbook, "A Comprehensive Guide to FreeBSD", a section for the lazy
and hopeless, a multimedia section, tutorials, docs, links etc. etc.
etc. etc. etc. You might also want to browse the archives.
Needless to say, "C" is very important to Oses and, in particular, to
Unix. Not surprisingly, the default shell for FreeBSD is csh.
If you just want to try a shell, type its name (e.g. bash) on the
command line. If you want to make it your default shell, please begin
to read "man chsh". Then read "man su" ;-) Of course, you are anyway
bound to read vipw(8). Also, have a quick look at the tutorial "For
People New to Both FreeBSD and Unix".
In order to find out where the shell programs are located (e.g.
/usr/local/bin): "man whereis" :-)
Finally, the ports collection is extensively described in the
handbook.
> When I login as root on ttyv*, or if I login as normal user and then I=
> su - to root, I got double "message". One outputed to
/var/log/messages
> and the other outputed to my monitor (ttyv*). How can I omit the
output
> to my ttyv? I am used to Red Hat's behaviour in that messages from
> kernel never shows up on my console...
Personally, I prefer FreeBSD's approach. However, you might want to
read the archives. In there, you should find, among other things, an
endless (!) recent discussion on root/toor. You will want to
have a look at syslogd(8), syslog.conf(5), and also at logger(1),
syslog(3), services(5) ...
> # gnuls -Al --color=3Dauto /lkm
> total 0
> What's the difference between /lkm and /modules?
Please read lkm(4), kdlstat(8,2). Also, have a look at the archives.
Many such questions have already (even recently !) been answered ;-)
Moreover, you might also want to read ld(1), ldconfig(8), link(5).
> I've recompile my kernel and now, /kernel size is only 1223818 (almost=
> half of the generic stock kernel). Is this size not too big? Sorry,
> cause I'm used to aproximately only 400 KB size of /boot/vmlinuz. Are
> there other ways I should now to reduce my /kernel size and in the
mean
> time, keep my hardware working properly. I've included options LKM in
my
> kernel config, but that doesn't seem to reduce the size. Or... am I
> missing some steps similar to make modules ; make modules_install in
> Linux? I hope I didn't skip steps similar to that when I compiled my
> /kernel. I do config NAMEOFMYKERNEL ; cd ../../compile/NAMEOFMYKERNEL
;
> make depend; make ; make install
> Oh yeah... this really bugs me ;) What's the meaning of make world?
Again, browse FreeBSD resources (handbook etc.) and the archives.
There is a very good tutorial on "making world" (also available in
French as I recall). You will want to visit John D. Polstra site at
http://www.polstra.com and learn about CVSup etc.
> # modstat
> modstat: /dev/lkm: Device not configured
> What should I do to make it work? I'm using FreeBSD 3.4 on Intel
Pentium
> 200 MMX...
> How do I start single user mode?
"boot -s". Please please please read the docs, beginning from "man
boot" :-)
> And... one last question... for the moment ;)
> I have an Intel Pentium III 450 MHz running on ASUS P3BF motherboard
> with ATX power supply. I have included APM support in my /kernel. But
> everytime I halt my system it won't shutdown automatically. Is this
> normal?
I must be missing something here.
I issue "shutdown -h now" to immediately shutdown the Os cleanly, with
no problems. "man reboot" (halt), "man shutdown" give you the details.
Besides, you might have a look at apm(4), apm(8), apmconf(8).
What kind of anomaly are you exactly referring to ?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From apm(4):
BUGS WARNING! Many, if not most, of the implementations of APM-bios
in laptops today are buggy. You may be putting your LCD-display and
batteries at a risk by using this interface. (The reason this isn't a
problem for MS-windows is that they use the real-mode interface.)
If you see any weird behavior from your system with this code in use,
unplug the power and batteries ASAP, if not immediately, and disable
this code. We are very interested in getting this code working, so
please send you observations of any anomalous behavior to us.
When apm is active, calling the BIOS setup routine by using
hot-keys, may cause serious trouble when resuming the system.
BIOS setup programs should be called during bootstrap, or from DOS.
Some APM implementations cannot handle events such as pushing the
power button or closing the cover. On such implementations, the system
must be suspended only by using apm(8) or zzz(8).
Disk spin-down, LCD backlight control, and power on demand have
not been supported on the current version.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
N.B. I am still running 3.3-release. Maybe some features you are
looking for (?) are or will be implemented in newer releases. Or maybe
there is already a way to have them now. Someone in this list will
give you the answer ;-)
> Thanks a lot...
Don't mention it.
> Regards,
> John Indra -- ICQ UIN #26095019
> Really exited with FreeBSD =3DP
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Some day or other, I must really begin to write a book ... <joking>
Regards from Sicily,
Salvo
N.B. myjokingdomain =3D=3D=3D> neomedia.it to e-mail to me.
*******************************
* *
* Windows: brain-dead limits *
* BeOS: limited apps *
* Linux: unlimited (mindset) *
* FreeBSD: no limits *
* *
*******************************
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