From owner-freebsd-newbies Mon May 20 12:35:48 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from odin.acuson.com (odin.acuson.com [157.226.230.71]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D6CE37B405 for ; Mon, 20 May 2002 12:35:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mvaexch02.acuson.com ([157.226.230.209]) by odin.acuson.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA1D9A; Mon, 20 May 2002 12:35:38 -0700 Received: by mvaexch02.acuson.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Mon, 20 May 2002 12:31:14 -0700 Received: from balderdash.acuson.com (dhcp-46-166.acuson.com [157.226.46.166]) by mvaexch01.acuson.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13) id JXB8YG7Z; Mon, 20 May 2002 12:31:39 -0700 From: Johnson David To: Jeff Frederick , freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Organization: Acuson Subject: Re: Understanding FreeBSD Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 12:35:26 -0700 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.4] References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <200205201235.26629.djohnson@acuson.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Monday 20 May 2002 08:32 am, Jeff Frederick wrote: > 1. It seems like FBSD 4.5 supports USB out of the box, that I don't > have to recompile the kernal or anything. Is this correct? That is true. But be warned that USB support doesn't mean that every USB device is supported. If they're not a generic device like mice or keyboards, they'll still need their own driver. Not everything on the market will work. > 2. Wacom Tablet support. I'm gathering that there is no native Wacom > Tablet driver, mostly for X. I've found that there is an OpenBSD driver > and this it should work for X and FBSD. Is anyone out there using that > driver?? Comments? I don't have a Wacom tablet, but XFree86-4 does build a wacom driver by default. I don't know what else is needed under FreeBSD for it to work. If there is an OpenBSD driver, then there should also be a FreeBSD driver. > 3. CVSup. I want to install the 4.5 release version on my desktop and > then update to all the latest release patches and updates. I also then > want to update all the ports and packages that come on the CD's. Is the > a key or tag that just updates ALL the code I've installed on my disk?? There are several example cvsup files under /usr/share/examples/cvsup. Copy and edit the ports-supfile for updating ports, and copy and edit the stable-supfile for updating stable. The tags are already set in these files. > 4. Soundblaster Live support. In section 14.2.1 of the Handbook, it > says that the SB Live is not supported under FBSD 4.0 without a patch. Don't know. That's another piece of hardware I don't have. But note that there is a patch. That's good news. It could be that it's in current- but that they haven't backported it to stable- yet. > 5. Release 4.5 vs. 4.6 and X3 vs. X4. I guess 4.6 is going to be out > soon. Will it actually install X4? If so, would it be recommended to > wait the couple of weeks to get that vs. installing 4.5?? The preliminary release notes for 4.6 say that XFree86-4 will be the default. Yay! But don't wait. Install 4.5 and play around, discover, and learn. Then when 4.6 comes out, you'll be that much further along. David p.s. You used the phrase "out of the box" quite a lot. Don't be afraid to rebuild the OS and use the ports. It's not really that hard if you read the Handbook first. And the benefits are enormous. Of course, you don't want to do this your first time. But eventually you will want to. On my 1.4Ghz machine, I can sup down the latest release and rebuild the base from scratch quicker than I can install WinME and my required drivers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message