Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 23:06:55 -0400 (EDT) From: wb2oyc@cyberenet.net To: sue@welearn.com.au Cc: freebsd-questions@FREEBSD.ORG Subject: RE: It's the little things... Message-ID: <XFMail.961008230800.wb2oyc@cyberenet.net> In-Reply-To: <199610082159.HAA24542@mail.zip.com.au>
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Hi Sue! >My first post so of course it's full of questions, sorry :-) >Pick a question: >Sometimes I can't access all the commands, and sometimes I can, and >I can't find a pattern to it. When the _first_ login after booting >is _root_ on console _one_ there seems to be no problem. Or is this >just coincidence? I know it's a FAQ. I searched the WWW site for >half an hour and found many prior questions on this, but no answers. What shell are you using? I do see some strange behavior with the default shell, so I use bash. >To be able to su root, do I just add my name to wheel in the group >file? I did this and rebooted, but it didn't seem to work properly. >The installation material implies that right after install you can >and should use su, but that's far from the case. Yes, you should just need to add your username to the wheel. No need to reboot either. Worked fine for me. >How can I set the prompt (to username and/or working directory... any >damn thing other than the machine name)? I'm using tcsh for myself >(set up with sysinstall's facility) and the default as root. I've >systematically edited and retried every dot file in my dir and can't make it >change. The files in /etc that look relevant are blank except for >comments. Don't know. >I believe I shouldn't change root's shell, but I'd like a command >history. Is there any problem with simply logging in as root then typing >tcsh? If that's ok, would it also be available (or advisable) in >single user mode? And if not, how does root erase the "[" or "]" that >remains after accidentally pressing the up-arrow and erasing most of >the resultant junk from the command line? Press Del. >How do you install the ports or packages which auto-request the files >by ftp? It doesn't seem to initiate ppp so I ran user ppp first, >connected with my ISP, then ran sysinstall. Whoo! Screen went blank >and keyboard locked until I switched the modem off. Is this the wrong >procedure or a misconfig? Hmmm. Yes, its wrong I think. Don't use sysinstall. Read the Handbook file on the ports (html or text). >Minicom is very badly behaved. I think it's terminal emulation >problems. I've set it to vt100. Funny characters appear on screen, >and Minicom keeps responding with its signature (Minicom v.xxx...) and >strings that look something like "Muummuunnnuy!nnnnumy". Even when I >first told my console to use vt100 instead of cons25 (through tcsh >for me, and also during the root login question) it didn't help minicom. >Not having a viable zmodem further insulates me from the non-Internet >world, but that's another issue. Is minicom being silly or am I? Yes, I have problems with minicom also. It does work fine as a vt100 but only from the command prompt. Doesn't work at all for me when using 'xminicom' (ALT anything does absolutely nothing). Trying to run 'minicom' in an rxvt session (which works flawlessly under Linux) also does not work on FreeBSD. Doesn't matter which shell I'm using in the rxvt either (I've tried all of them that I have installed). >What's _the_most_proper_ way to stop everything before turning the >machine off? I could not find anything written about this!! Surely >turning the power off is not kosher :-) Should I use shutdown or >halt? (Indeed, how was I to know that these commands existed?) They >don't seem to do a great deal, or leave me in single user mode ready >for login, not knowing if at that point it's safe to turn off power >or not. This is a most serious omission in the reading matter, or I >need new glasses. I think the answer here is: shutdown -h now Actually, I normally use shutdown -r now, and wait for the boot manager prompt before shutting off the power. Works so far. >What's the deal with MFS? I reckon I don't need half of my 64 megs of >ram so it'd be useful as /tmp. Am I reading this right? If so, what's >the syntax to tell the kernel how much ram MFS can have? I think it's >taking the lot (because I didn't say how much) and that might be a >bad thing, so I've unmounted MFS though there were no ill effects >while I was feeling bolder. Haven't tried it yet myself. >I was naughty and set my swap to only 70 megs. If I donate 32 megs >to MFS (if that's how it works) then I guess 70 is fine. Otherwise I >know it's no good. Which device will explode in my face if swap is >only half its suggested size, and will I still be alive to ask you >more questions? I only use a 32MB swap. >My preferred text editor is joe. I found a copy and extracted the >contents. Having no idea what I was doing I typed 'make' and found an >executable which I put in bin and a .joerc which I put in my own dir. >So far it works but am I playing with fire? Nah. I like joe too. But haven't tried it on FreeBSD since its not on the CD. Have you tried xcoral? Good luck! Paul ---------------------------------- E-Mail: wb2oyc@cyberenet.net Date: 10/08/96 Time: 23:06:57 This message was sent by XF-Mail ----------------------------------
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