Newbie Questions

Kevin Kinsey kdk at daleco.biz
Fri Oct 7 18:00:15 PDT 2005


makisupa wrote:

>Been using Linux awhile...recently migrated a laptop to FreeBSD.  Its a
>bit old and BSD runs nicely on the deprecated hardware.  I am using
>6.0-BETA 5 despite warning to the contrary because my atheros based wifi
>card works well -- i had all kinds of trouble in 5.4.  Running gnome
>2.12.
>My newbie questions:
>
>1.  I am pretty sure that FAM is not running.  The newest version of the
>package is installed. I followed the directions from the gnome FAQ and
>the pkg_message. 'killall -HUP inetd' gives me 'no matching processes
>were found.'  
>
>  
>

What does `ps -aux | grep inetd` tell you?  Inetd doesn't run
unless enabled in /etc/rc.conf... and IIRC (I've switched to
xfce4 from Gnome2), fam runs from inetd, so that could be
a root (no pun intended) cause of these issues, perhaps?
IANAE....


>When i launch something like gnome-menu-editor i get a
>'failed to connect to the FAM server' message in the terminal.
>Similiarly, whenever i gedit a file su'd as root i get a
>'gnomeUI-WARNING **: While connecting to the session manage:
>authentication rejected, reason:  None of the authentication protocols
>specified are supported and host based authentication failed.'  Please
>help...its very annoying as the gnome does not update worth a damn as
>you move, add, and delete files.  I realize the instructions were for
>gnome 2.10 and i probably missed something obvious.
>
>2.  Is there a way to turn DMA on for a certain device or devices and
>not every ATAPI drive?  I got permissions and whatnot straight to allow
>a users to mount CD/DVD drives -- my CD drive does not work correctly in
>DMA mode. BUT, i will need DMA in order to play DVDs correctly (see
>below). I passed the hw.ata.atapi_dma="1" option in my /boot/loader.conf
>file. is there a option i can pass that only enables DMA on my acd1
>(dvd) and ad0 (hd) but NOT acd0 (CD)?
>
>  
>

Hrm, I'm not much good from here out.  I note that there are two
sysctl's "hw.ata.ata.dma" and "hw.ata.atapi.dma", dunno if that'd
help.  Maybe see ata(4) for a little more detail.  Being as the DVD
and CD are on the same bus, I'd say it's not too likely, but, again,
IANAE....

>3.  DVD playback.  Just trying to use the totem default in my gnome
>install.  I get a 'failed to retrieve capabilities of device /dev/acd1:
>inappropriate ioctl for device'.  I've googled the hell out of this and
>came up with little helpful info.  Any ideas?
>
>Thanks for your help.  I think i'm doing fairly well for only running
>BSD for a couple of days...but if i could get these minor things
>straightened out i'd be set (and have a rockin' little laptop).  FreeBSD
>definately seems more intuitive than most of the linux distros i've
>used...
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mak.
>  
>


Best o' luck,

Kevin Kinsey


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