From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 10 05:54:14 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 760EB16A575 for ; Wed, 10 Aug 2005 05:53:48 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: from opusnet.com (mail.opusnet.com [209.210.200.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D525345AD3 for ; Wed, 10 Aug 2005 03:18:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: from localhost.localhost [70.98.246.232] by opusnet.com with ESMTP (SMTPD32-8.05) id A1F97EFA0128; Tue, 09 Aug 2005 20:18:17 -0700 Received: from localhost.localhost (localhost.localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localhost (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id j7A3Kbte070688; Tue, 9 Aug 2005 20:20:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localhost (8.13.3/8.13.3/Submit) id j7A3KSOL070685; Tue, 9 Aug 2005 20:20:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) To: William Manley References: <42F95459.5080208@intergate.com> From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 20:20:28 -0700 In-Reply-To: <42F95459.5080208@intergate.com> (William Manley's message of "Tue, 09 Aug 2005 21:11:53 -0400") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) XEmacs/21.4 (Jumbo Shrimp, berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: freeBSD questions mailinglist Subject: Re: FreeBSD 5.4 install problem. Newbee needs help. X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 05:54:15 -0000 William Manley writes: > I am a new FreeBSD user and I have an installation that has gone bad. My problems started when I enabled XDM for a > graphical logon into Gnome. When I logged in as root the system just looped back to the logon screen. I then assumed I > had configured my .xinitrc file wrong so I booted the install cdrom into Fixit mode and tried to mount the root > filesystem on the hardisk which the operating system would not let me do. The following are the commands I typed with > the output. I don't use gnome or kde, but I'd think you'd want to use gdm for a gnome desktop or kdm for a kde desktop and if you want to use xdm, be prepared to do some reading and configuration to make it give you a Manley desktop. BTW, one usually tries to run as little software as possible as "root" mostly to limit damage caused by buggy (or I suppose infected) software or operator error. After you get your desktop running as a non-root user, some graphical programs will do needed things as root and/or you'll start up a terminal emulator like xterm with the shell run by "root". KDE, at least, offers a "root terminal", but you can switch from normal to root with the "su" command. > mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt > operation not permitted Not sure, but I wonder if /mnt is already in use. Try mkdir /ad0s1a; mount /dev/ad0s1a /ad0s1a > disklabel -r ad0 > no valid label found That "-r" is obsolete, but someone else explained the real problem. > Does the warning tell me that my bios is not set up properly for FreeBSD to work with the hardisk setup. The handbook > says to set up your bios to select hardisk's naturally. Before starting the install I looked at the bios and was not > sure what to configure. Should I go to the basic page and set the hardisk as uninstalled? Any help in getting back into > my system will be appreciated. If I have to reinstall I'll do it. If your install seemed to go OK and you've got a graphical login screen, you're probably in fair shape. You might want to try the install again and not use "xdm". Or: You might need to tell us more about what you see at login. Try logging in as a normal user. Probably won't work any better. If the screen offers some other stuff, like a "safe mode" or "single user mode", try that. Or try to interrupt the boot before you get to the graphical screen by tapping the space bar as soon as you see major changes in the kind of boot messages (eg, from BIOS to FreeBSD). If you can get the thing to give you a prompt, try "help" or "?" and check that out and then try "boot -s" to get into single-user mode as root. If you manage to do that, or get things mounted from the CD or floppy "fixit" mode, you want to disable XDM, but I'm sorry I forget how that's done. Look it up on the net or ask. I think your goal is to get a normal non-graphical "login" prompt; log in as root and then read manual pages (or use web from another OS) until you figure out how to configure your Gnome setup using gdm. BTW, I know many insist on having a graphical login, but some of us have been using graphical desktops for 10 years and more and still log into a normal text terminal first and start the graphics with a command, maybe because we don't log in often and when we're logging in a lot it's usually because we're having problems and we don't want X then anyway.