Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 22:36:46 +0200 From: Marc Fonvieille <blackend@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Items missing from the handbook and/or FAQs. Message-ID: <20040423203646.GA35640@abigail.blackend.org> In-Reply-To: <20040423193700.GA5329@isite.net> References: <20040423193700.GA5329@isite.net>
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On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 12:37:00PM -0700, Joe Rhett wrote: > Sorry, it's been quite a while since I've played with FreeBSD and some > things are taking a while to get used to. The configuration system has > come a long way... but the documentation seems to be lacking a bit. > > This is a quick list of items that I had to struggle through without > references from the documentation. I have figured most of them out from > reading through the rc and init scripts, but that's hardly an easy way to > handle this. > > version: 4.9-stable installed from ISO images. > hardware: Sony VAIO PCG-F350 > (not relevant, because I have no hardware issues...) > > 1. How to disable ppp ? > > The handbook has lots of information on how to configure it. Apparently I > chose to enable it during install (I don't remember this) and I'm trying to > get rid of the ppp0 and sl0 interfaces. The answer was to copy related > parameters from /etc/defaults/rc.conf to /etc/rc.conf and change them. > > (The handbook actually does say "modify rc.conf" but it doesn't say what > items should be modified!) > Wrong, read http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig-config.html about sl and ppp > 2. How to configure a wireless card? > > If you're coming from any other unixy OS, you're going to be looking for > iwconfig and relatives. Just a note somewhere that all wireless > configuration is handled through ifconfig would have saved me some time. > > Also a note to create /etc/start_if.{ifname} to put the wireless options in > would also have saved me reading through the rc scripts. I asusme that's a > general case for all interfaces, but it could bear repeating in the wireless > documentation. (when there is some...) > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.html http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-bluetooth.html > 3. Choosing filesystem types > > During setup you can create filesystems other than FreeBSD, but you are > supposed to magickally know their filesystem type numbers. The setup > documenation and the fdisk tools only tell you the filesystem numbers for > freebsd, linux and dos. An option to get a list would be nice. > Documentation of the filesystem types would be nice too. (I had to use > fdisk on a linux system to get the filesystem numbers I needed) > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-pre.html especially 2.2.3.1 Disk Layouts for the i386 > 4. Why is xdm still listed as the way to set up X? > > Okay, I'm certain that a bunch of people will respond to tell me that gnome > and kde are evil and should be destroyed, but the vast majority of people > are expecting modern graphical interfaces. > > Suggestion: put a gdm configuration script there right next to the xdm > configuration. The people who love twm know what to do to make it happy. > Forcing people who aren't in love with twm and startx to hack at and make > their own gdm startup scripts doesn't make much sense. > > (yes, there is an example gdm startup script, but it won't work be default > and you have to search for it, edit it, move it to the proper directory, > etc....) > Well XDM and KDM are covered in the Handbook, we can't cover everything. However the FreeBSD GNOME team provide some docs: http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/ > 5. Why doesn't the gdm package set up the gdm user? > > Running gdm fails because of the lack of a gdm user. Why isn't this > handled by the package installation script? > It's not a doc issue, if it's real, it's a GNOME ports issue. > LEFTOVER: > There's a few things I'm still hacking at and haven't solved yet. I'll > probably figure these out in the next few hours, but anyone who wants to > clue-by-four me would be appreciated. > > 1. How to put DHCP on the wireless card? > > I still haven't figured this out. I run dhclient on the interface by hand > after every reboot and it works fine, but I'm assuming there is some > standard method of telling the system that wi0 should be a dhcp-managed, right? > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-dhcp.html > 2. What is interface faith0 ? > > It took a ridiculous amount of searching to determine that faith0 was an > ipv4 -> ipv6 interface. And I can find nothing about how to disable it. > (and if you say compile a new kernel and make world, excuse me while I puke) > man faith Marc
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