Using boot manager with FreeBSD and Windows

[Kevin Kinsey]

Benjamin Sher wrote:

> Dear Jud and friends:
>
> OK, I finally figured out how to make OSL2000 work.


Good, I guess. :-)

> In scanning all bootable partitions, it lists FreeBSD as two
> partitions: the 512 MB /boot partition (name unknown)
> and the FreeBSD 37 GB partition. It will not boot FreeBSD
> from the FreeBSD partition but, after changing the mode
> to swap, it booted at last directly into FreeBSD with the
> command "startx".


That partition layout sounds a little funny.  It could
just be the way that "OSL2000" names them, but in
FreeBSD /boot is part of the root partition; the "standard"
layout is / (root), /var, /usr, with swap space and maybe
a seperate partition for /tmp.  Other theories exist,
and it's not unheard of to have everything in
One Big Partition, but IME there are some really
good reasons to have seperate partitions for
/var and / ....

A standard layout is described in the handbook,
and may be reasonably appropriated with the
"auto defaults" options during the "fdisk" portion
of sysinstall, 'though I find that I generally like
to arrange the size of /, var, and my swap partition
manually.

What is interesting is "startx".  You didn't type
this?  What user are you logging in as?  What
shell is assigned to that user?  Depending on
which shell, what's in the .cshrc, .shrc, .profile,
and .login files in this user's $HOME directory?

"startx" doesn't generally run at login, unless you
have told it to, which is not always a Good Idea (tm).

So, to go on:

> I first saw during bootup that it said
> that I named "localhost" (for Mindspring) incorrectly.


Should be easy to fix.

> At any way, I was pretty disheartened when I finally
> arrived in FreeBSD. What I saw were two rectangular
> screens (with green edges): the one on the left said:
> "login", the one on the right said: "xterm". Plus a tiny
> clock in the upper corner. I feel completely lost.


A normal FreeBSD installation does _not_ start
a windowing system until you tell it to*.  What you
got (and was "disappointed in") was twm (brush
up on your ancient history) which loads when startx
is called and nothing else is configured/can be found
(e.g., you have a blank ~/.xinitrc  or .Xresources file,
etc.).

> Where is KDE? What command should I use to get
> into KDE or to access the Internet?


If you want KDE, you should install it (unless you
have already) and read its documentation to configure
it in the way you desire.

{It really seems like a visit to the online Handbook
would assist you in "getting your feet wet" with
FreeBSD. You're doing a good job asking questions
and interacting with the list; we're glad to have you
"aboard" but if you have to ask about every item
that comes on the screen in the next week or two,
your welcome could wear itself out, at least for some
people, you know.... ;-)   }

FBSD doesn't force much policy on you _at all_.
If you want a web server, you install it and tell
it to run the software.  If you want a fancy GUI,
you install it, and configure the system to run
it.  Assuming you even choose to run a GUI at
all, the only WM that comes preinstalled is twm,
for hysterical raisins.  The rest is up to you.

If you want to run KDE, I'd suggest bookmarking
http://freebsd.kde.org, too.  Also, it sounds like
you're expecting FBSD to act like some kind of
"user friendly" Linuxy system (it isn't, per se**);
you might want to check out DesktopBSD, which is
in a late alpha, IIRC.  They have created a GUI
front end to "sysinstall" and force KDE upon the
user by default, much like some other projects/
companies, but with FreeBSD 5 under the hood.

> Thank you all so much.
>
> Benjamin


You're welcome.


Kevin Kinsey

*there could be, of course, considerable discussion
about just what a "normal" FreeBSD installation is;
and, it's perfectly normal to have a X windowing
system run at startup, but running "startx" from
a shell resource script is only one way, and arguably/
probably not the best way, to do this.

** maxim:  "FreeBSD *is* user-friendly; it's just picky
about who its friends *are*...."

-- 
Q:	What is the difference between a duck?
A:	One leg is both the same.