Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 23:50:46 -0400 From: Bob Johnson <bobj@ufl.edu> To: stuart@bh90210.net Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: I8K + FreeBSD (4.3): newbie questions Message-ID: <3B5B9F16.F4B3DF34@ufl.edu> References: <9jfqm2%2B4gl8@eGroups.com>
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stuart@bh90210.net wrote: > > Listmembers: > > okay, I am sure some of these questions are in the manual, and I am > trying to find a pdf version of the handbook. > As explained in the first paragraph of the Handbook, you can find it on the FreeBSD FTP server: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ > However, I am also looking for personal experience and caveats, so > please, dont just say read the manual. > Why not? That's where the answers to almost all of your questions are. > Hardware: > > Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop > 1600x1200 LCD, ATI M4 Card, 512MB of RAM, 32GB HD, LS120, CD-RW/DVD > 1394, Actiontec 56K modem (built in), Intel Ethernet (builtin) > > a) How do I mount a floppy disk in FreeBSD? mount_msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt would be one way to do it, although you'll want to set up an entry in /etc/fstab to simplify things. Or set up the amd daemon to make it happen automatically. The man pages will help in either case. > b) Where do kernel configuration files go? > c) How do I build a new kernel? Both of these are explained in extreme detail in the Handbook. > d) What filesystems does FreeBSD honor? Ext2? ReiserFS? Ext3? UFS is the "normal" filesystem for BSD systems. I also use it with FAT32 and NTFS (although I use NTFS read-only as a precaution). I believe it supports Ext2, but not ReiserFS and probably not Ext3. > e) I cant get "X11" to come up at all, what should /usr/X11R6/bin/X > be symbolically linked to for an ATI M4 card? > f) once I do that, any other things to check (other than using a good > XF86config file)? > g) I tried xf86setup and such, got nowhere being clueless what > choices to accept! I've had the best luck by first trying to get 640x480 working, and then using the working XF86Config as a starting point to get higher resolutions working. In general, you want to get X working correctly BEFORE you add additional accounts to your system. Any accounts you add before X is working won't have correct X configurations, and you'll have to manually fix them. XFree86 is the same on Linux and FreeBSD, so depending on what problems you are encountering, some of the many on-line tutorials may help. The Complete FreeBSD (a hardcopy book) has a very good chapter on getting X working, although some of the details are dated. > > I am very excited about getting FreeBSD working on my I8K, as I just > copied all my files from my SunOS 4.1.4 machine to Linux (for > preservational purposes), and hope to get FreeBSD up as a replacement. > > Incidently, I am curious how well (or if at all) FreeBSD performs on > a SPARC machine? At the present time, it doesn't. If you want to run BSD on a SPARC, NetBSD is probably the system you want. http://www.netbsd.org OpenBSD may also support SPARC. > > Dont laugh....But, what if I had: > > An IPC - right now with 12MB, but I plan to get (if I can find them) > 12 4MB SIMMS (32 pin!), and pump it up to 48MB. I also have a SPARC > 2, which I might use instead of the IPC (thus needing more 4MB > SIMMS). I want to run a current and mainted OS on it, and I am not so > partial to SuSE Linux, and RH has basically dropped support for RH > Sparc. Besides, I think it ought to be a law that SPARC 2s ought not > run anything but a BSD based OS!?! > > Of course I do live in California, so hopefully the ram will be > locatable. > > Does anyone know of a controller board that will convert an IDE drive > to be used with SCSI? I heard someone had one. > > Any advice will be well appreciated. Thank you all in advance. Post questions that are not specific to laptop operation to freebsd-questions. They will get more exposure there, so you will have a better chance of hitting someone who knows the answer. > > Stuart > Beverly Hills, Ca > USA - Bob To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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