newby needing help
neal
kneel.pardoe at virgin.net
Fri Sep 28 13:40:12 PDT 2007
Roland Smith wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 09:11:01PM +0000, neal wrote:
>> I've checked out all the main functions I want from FreeBSD and had them
>> all working (hehe, but since broke some) so I'm happy it will do the things
>> I want so far.
>>
>> First question, what is recommended regarding doing updates. Is it best to
>> just do all of them?
>
> It depends. If the update of the base system concerns something that you
> use, I would definitely install it.
That's the problem though, same with linux, there are
obvious things that I would update but there are likely
items that I would never have a clue if I needed them or
not. As I'm going to do a completely fresh install on a
clean system I might just try doing all upgrades right from
the start and see how it goes from there.
>
> The best way to keep the base system up-to-date is using csup (which is
> still referenced in the Handbook in §20.3 as cvsup).
>
> For updating the ports tree I can recommend portsnap. For updating the
> ports themselves I use portmaster.
>
>> I have always had problems doing this e.g. with
>> Mandrake and other Linuxs and so am reluctant, but if it is usual I'll give
>> it a try.
>
> The upgrade tools on FreeBSD work quite well. But if you're rebuilding
> your own ports it can take quite some time depending on your machine.
I've been using the Package Manager so far but will look
into using a command prompt at some later time.
>
>> (I'm also reluctant as I assume a full update will update xorg to
>> 7.3 and I have 7.2 installed with the latest nvidia 9# driver and it works
>> beautifully so would rather stay with that.
>
> There is a new beta driver available.
Yes, I've read about it here.
>
>> I have read the Handbook, but still have a problem understanding how to map
>> my ext2 and ext3 partitions to the UFS notation. e.g.
>
> The notation is a BSD thing, it has nothing to do with UFS.
ok.
>> I have a drive hda,
>> it has a swap an unused space and four partitions one of which is my home
>> partition hda7. How do I refer to this home partition using ad0???
>> notation
>
> If you do 'ls ad0*' you'll see what is available. Remember that what DOS
> and Linux calls partitions are called slices in FreeBSD. Partitions in
> FreeBSD are subdivisions of a slice. E.g. ad0s1a is partition a of slice
> 1 of ad0. Customarily, slice b is used for swap, and slice c is
> unused. You can see this with the 'bsdlabel' command.
OK, I've done that.
this is the result for the drive currently being used by linux.
-------------------------
[pineal at localhost /usr/home/pineal]$ ls /dev/ad0*
/dev/ad0 /dev/ad0s2 /dev/ad0s6 /dev/ad0s8
/dev/ad0s1 /dev/ad0s5 /dev/ad0s7 /dev/ad0s9
-------------------------
The number of apparent slices (those with a ad0s[n]
designation) seen by BSD is one more than the number of
linux partitions I actually have. No I haven't miss-counted.
I have 1 swapfile partition and five partitions hda5-9 used
by linux.
btw I tried to run the bsdlabel command but it returns "no
valid label found" for both ad0 and ad1.
>> (as this is what I understand I need to do, if not please enlighten). I
>> have installed the ext2fs utilities/drivers and can mount an ext2 fs
>> written on dvd without problems.
>
> I would recommend converting the disk to native UFS2 filesystems. I'm
> not sure if mounting an ext2 slice read/write is such a good idea. Make
> (in Linux, e.g. Knoppix) a tarball of your data and seve it to another disk or
> CD,DVD. Reslice and format the disk with sysinstall, and restore your
> backup.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear here. I have an existing
in-use Linux system. I want to be able to access the /home
partition as it contains all my personal data that I will
need to move over to FreeBSD when I do the new install.
> You might find §16.3 of the Handbook enlightening.
did you mean from Ch 16 "3. Why will chmod not change the
permissions on symlinks?"
>
>> I intend to do a completely fresh install and would like to compile for my
>> specific pc kit. Would I be best doing this following installation and
>> initial setting up?
>
> Yes. Read Chapter 4 of the Handbook about ports. My FreeBSD page has
> some tips about setting port variables in make.conf;
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/freebsd/index.html
>
> Roland
Had a quick look at your 'page', looks useful.
thank you for your help Roland
neal.
More information about the freebsd-questions
mailing list