misc/160491: [patch] reaper of the dead: remove ancient FAQ entries
Eitan Adler
eadler at FreeBSD.org
Mon Sep 5 19:40:01 UTC 2011
>Number: 160491
>Category: misc
>Synopsis: [patch] reaper of the dead: remove ancient FAQ entries
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Responsible: freebsd-bugs
>State: open
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class: sw-bug
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Arrival-Date: Mon Sep 05 19:40:01 UTC 2011
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: Eitan Adler
>Release:
>Organization:
graveyard
>Environment:
>Description:
The attached patch is an incomplete mass removal of outdated FAQ questions. I removed whichever questions I knew to be no longer relevant, but left ones I was not 100% certain about about. We need to strip the FAQ to the bare bones and build it back up.
>How-To-Repeat:
>Fix:
Index: book.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/ncvs/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.1140
diff -u -r1.1140 book.sgml
--- book.sgml 29 Aug 2011 05:16:37 -0000 1.1140
+++ book.sgml 5 Sep 2011 19:37:12 -0000
@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@
&tm-attrib.ibm;
&tm-attrib.ieee;
&tm-attrib.intel;
- &tm-attrib.iomega;
&tm-attrib.linux;
&tm-attrib.microsoft;
&tm-attrib.mips;
@@ -65,7 +64,7 @@
<para>This is the FAQ for &os; versions
6.<replaceable>X</replaceable>, 7.<replaceable>X</replaceable>
and 8.<replaceable>X</replaceable>. All entries are assumed to be
- relevant to &os; 6.<replaceable>X</replaceable> and later,
+ relevant to &os; 7.<replaceable>X</replaceable> and later,
unless otherwise noted. If you are interested in helping with
this project, send email to the &a.doc;. The latest version of
this document is always available from the <ulink
@@ -84,8 +83,8 @@
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>Welcome to the &os;
- 6.<replaceable>X</replaceable>-, 7.<replaceable>X</replaceable>- and
- 8.<replaceable>X</replaceable> FAQ!</para>
+ 7.<replaceable>X</replaceable>-, 8.<replaceable>X</replaceable>- and
+ 9.<replaceable>X</replaceable> FAQ!</para>
<para>As is usual with Usenet FAQs, this document aims to cover the
most frequently asked questions concerning the &os; operating
@@ -1141,107 +1140,6 @@
<title>Installation</title>
<qandaset>
- <qandaentry>
- <question id="floppy-download">
- <para>Which file do I download to get &os;?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>You need three floppy images:
- <filename>floppies/boot.flp</filename>,
- <filename>floppies/kern1.flp</filename>, and
- <filename>floppies/kern2.flp</filename>. These images need
- to be copied onto floppies by tools like
- <command>fdimage</command> or &man.dd.1;.</para>
-
- <para>If you need to download the distributions yourself (for
- a DOS file system install, for instance), below are some
- recommendations for distributions to grab:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>base/</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>manpages/</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>compat*/</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>doc/</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>src/ssys.*</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>Full instructions on this procedure and a little bit
- more about installation issues in general can be found in
- the <ulink
- url="&url.books.handbook;/install.html">Handbook entry on installing &os;</ulink>.
- </para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
- <question id="floppy-image-too-large">
- <para>What do I do if the floppy images does not fit on a
- single floppy?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>A 3.5 inch (1.44 MB) floppy can accommodate
- 1,474,560 bytes of data. The boot image is exactly
- 1,474,560 bytes in size.</para>
-
- <para>Common mistakes when preparing the boot floppy
- are:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Not downloading the floppy image in
- <emphasis>binary</emphasis> mode when using
- <acronym>FTP</acronym>.</para>
-
- <para>Some FTP clients default their transfer mode to
- <emphasis>ascii</emphasis> and attempt to change any
- end-of-line characters received to match the conventions
- used by the client's system. This will almost
- invariably corrupt the boot image. Check the size of
- the downloaded boot image: if it is not
- <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> that on the server, then
- the download process is suspect.</para>
-
- <para>To workaround: type <emphasis>binary</emphasis> at
- the FTP command prompt after getting connected to the
- server and before starting the download of the
- image.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Using the DOS <command>copy</command> command (or
- equivalent GUI tool) to transfer the boot image to
- floppy.</para>
-
- <para>Programs like <command>copy</command> will not work
- as the boot image has been created to be booted into
- directly. The image has the complete content of the
- floppy, track for track, and is not meant to be placed
- on the floppy as a regular file. You have to transfer
- it to the floppy <quote>raw</quote>, using the low-level
- tools (e.g. <command>fdimage</command> or
- <command>rawrite</command>) described in the <ulink
- url="&url.books.handbook;/install.html">installation guide to &os;</ulink>.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="install-instructions-location">
@@ -1585,15 +1483,6 @@
at least once!)</para>
</listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>If you are using &windows; 95 or
- &windows; 98 did you run <command>fdimage</command>
- or <command>rawrite</command> in pure DOS mode? These
- operating systems can interfere with programs that write
- directly to hardware, which the disk creation program
- does; even running it inside a DOS shell in the GUI can
- cause this problem.</para>
- </listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>There have also been reports of &netscape; causing
@@ -1829,27 +1718,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="need-kernel">
- <para>Do I need to build a kernel?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>Building a new kernel was originally pretty much a
- required step in a &os; installation, but more recent releases
- have benefited from the introduction of much friendlier
- kernel configuration methods. It is very easy to configure
- the kernel's configuration by much more flexible
- <quote>hints</quote> which can be set at the loader
- prompt.</para>
-
- <para>It may still be worthwhile building a new kernel
- containing just the drivers that you need, just to save a
- bit of RAM, but it is no longer necessary for most
- systems.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="password-encryption">
<para>Should I use DES, Blowfish, or MD5 passwords and how do
I specify which form my users receive?</para>
@@ -1876,21 +1744,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="boot-floppy-hangs">
- <para>Why does the boot floppy start, but hang at the
- <literal>Probing Devices...</literal> screen?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>If you have a IDE &iomegazip; or &jaz; drive installed,
- remove it and try again. The boot floppy can get confused by
- the drives. After the system is installed you can reconnect
- the drive. Hopefully this will be fixed in a later
- release.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="panic-on-install-reboot">
<para>Why do I get a <errorname>panic: can't mount
root</errorname> error when rebooting the system after
@@ -3228,82 +3081,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="reallybigram">
- <para>Why does &os; only use 64 MB of RAM when my system
- has 128 MB of RAM installed?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>Due to the manner in which &os; gets the memory size
- from the BIOS, it can only detect 16 bits worth of
- Kbytes in size (65535 Kbytes = 64 MB) (or less...
- some BIOSes peg the memory size to 16 MB). If you have
- more than 64 MB, &os; will attempt to detect it;
- however, the attempt may fail.</para>
-
- <para>To work around this problem, you need to use the kernel
- option specified below. There is a way to get complete
- memory information from the BIOS, but we do not have room in
- the bootblocks to do it. Someday when lack of room in the
- bootblocks is fixed, we will use the extended BIOS functions
- to get the full memory information... but for now we are
- stuck with the kernel option.</para>
-
- <programlisting>options MAXMEM=<replaceable>n</replaceable></programlisting>
-
- <para>Where <replaceable>n</replaceable> is your memory in
- Kilobytes. For a 128 MB machine, you would want to use
- <literal>131072</literal>.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
- <question id="kmem-map-too-small">
- <para>My system has more than 1 GB of RAM, and I'm
- getting panics with <errorname>kmem_map too small</errorname>
- messages. What is wrong?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>Normally, &os; determines a number of kernel parameters,
- such as as the maximum number of files that can be open
- concurrently, from the amount of memory installed in the
- system. On systems with one gigabyte of RAM or more, this
- <quote>auto sizing</quote> mechanism may choose values that
- are too high: while starting up, the kernel allocates
- various tables and other structures that fill up most of the
- available kernel memory. Later on, while the system is
- running, the kernel has no more space left for dynamic
- memory allocations, and panics.</para>
-
- <para>Compile your own kernel, and add the
- <option>VM_KMEM_SIZE_MAX</option> to your kernel
- configuration file, increasing the maximum size to
- 400 MB (<option>options
- VM_KMEM_SIZE_MAX=419430400</option>). 400 MB appears
- to be sufficient for machines with up to 6 GB of
- memory.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
- <question id="panic-kmemmap-too-small">
- <para>My system does not have 1 GB of RAM, and &os; still
- panics with <errorname>kmem_map too
- small</errorname>!</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>The panic indicates that the system ran out of virtual
- memory for network buffers (specifically, mbuf clusters).
- You can increase the amount of VM available for mbuf
- clusters by following the instructions in the <ulink
- url="&url.books.handbook;/configtuning-kernel-limits.html#NMBCLUSTERS">Network Limits</ulink>
- section of the Handbook.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="proc-table-full">
<para>Why do I get the error <errorname>kernel: proc: table is
full</errorname>?</para>
@@ -3314,12 +3091,11 @@
processes to exist at one time. The number is based on the
<varname>kern.maxusers</varname> &man.sysctl.8; variable.
<varname>kern.maxusers</varname> also affects various other
- in-kernel limits, such as network buffers (see <link
- linkend="panic-kmemmap-too-small">this</link> earlier
- question). If your machine is heavily loaded, you probably
- want to increase <varname>kern.maxusers</varname>. This
- will increase these other system limits in addition to the
- maximum number of processes.</para>
+ in-kernel limits, such as network buffers. If your machine
+ is heavily loaded, you probably want to increase
+ <varname>kern.maxusers</varname>. This will increase these
+ other system limits in addition to the maximum number
+ of processes.</para>
<para>To adjust your <varname>kern.maxusers</varname> value,
see the <ulink
@@ -4279,15 +4055,6 @@
locations:</para>
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry>
- <term>for 6.<replaceable>X</replaceable>-RELEASE/6-STABLE</term>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable</ulink>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>for 7.<replaceable>X</replaceable>-RELEASE/7-STABLE</term>
@@ -5477,78 +5244,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="removable-drives">
- <para>I have a new removable drive, how do I use it?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>Whether it is a removable drive like a &iomegazip; or an
- EZ drive (or even a floppy, if you want to use it that way),
- or a new hard disk, once it is installed and recognized by
- the system, and you have your cartridge/floppy/whatever
- slotted in, things are pretty much the same for all
- devices.</para>
-
- <para>(this section is based on <ulink
- url="http://www.vmunix.com/mark/FreeBSD/ZIP-FAQ.html">Mark Mayo's ZIP FAQ</ulink>)
- </para>
-
- <para>If it is a ZIP drive or a floppy, you have already got a
- DOS file system on it, you can use a command like this:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mount -t msdosfs /dev/fd0c /floppy</userinput></screen>
-
- <para>if it is a floppy, or this:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mount -t msdosfs /dev/da2s4 /zip</userinput></screen>
-
- <para>for a ZIP disk with the factory configuration.</para>
-
- <para>For other disks, see how they are laid out using
- &man.fdisk.8; or &man.sysinstall.8;.</para>
-
- <para>The rest of the examples will be for a ZIP drive on
- <devicename>da2</devicename>, the third SCSI disk.</para>
-
- <para>Unless it is a floppy, or a removable you plan on
- sharing with other people, it is probably a better idea to
- stick a BSD file system on it. You will get long filename
- support, at least a 2X improvement in performance, and a lot
- more stability. First, you need to redo the DOS-level
- partitions/file systems. You can either use &man.fdisk.8;
- or &man.sysinstall.8;, or for a small drive that you do not
- want to bother with multiple operating system support on,
- just blow away the whole FAT partition table (slices) and
- just use the BSD partitioning:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rda2 count=2</userinput>
-&prompt.root; <userinput>disklabel -Brw da2 auto</userinput></screen>
-
- <para>You can use &man.disklabel.8; or &man.sysinstall.8; to
- create multiple BSD partitions. You will certainly want to
- do this if you are adding swap space on a fixed disk, but it
- is probably irrelevant on a removable drive like a
- ZIP.</para>
-
- <para>Finally, create a new file system, this one is on our
- ZIP drive using the whole disk:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>newfs /dev/rda2c</userinput></screen>
-
- <para>and mount it:</para>
-
- <screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mount /dev/da2c /zip</userinput></screen>
-
- <para>and it is probably a good idea to add a line like this
- to <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> (see &man.fstab.5;) so
- you can just type <command>mount /zip</command> in the
- future:</para>
-
- <programlisting>/dev/da2c /zip ffs rw,noauto 0 0</programlisting>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="mount-cd-superblock">
<para>Why do I get <errorname>Incorrect super
block</errorname> when mounting a CD-ROM?</para>
@@ -6841,22 +6536,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="why-choose-xorg">
- <para>Why did &os; choose to go with the &xorg; ports by
- default?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>The &xorg; developers claimed that their goal is to
- release more often and incorporate new features more
- quickly. If they are able to do so, this will be very
- attractive. Also, their software still uses the traditional
- X license, while &xfree86; is using their modified
- one.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="running-X">
<para>I want to run X, how do I go about it?</para>
</question>
@@ -9533,78 +9212,6 @@
</answer>
</qandaentry>
- <qandaentry id=PPPoEwithNAT>
- <question id="macos-win98-pppoe-freeze">
- <para>Why do &macos; and &windows; 98 connections freeze
- when running PPPoE on the gateway?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>Thanks to Michael Wozniak
- <email>mwozniak at netcom.ca</email> for figuring this out and
- Dan Flemming <email>danflemming at mac.com</email> for the Mac
- solution:</para>
-
- <para>This is due to what is called a <quote>Black
- Hole</quote> router. &macos; and &windows; 98 (and maybe
- other µsoft; OSs) send TCP packets with a requested
- segment size too big to fit into a PPPoE frame (MTU is
- <literal>1500</literal> by default for Ethernet)
- <emphasis>and</emphasis> have the <quote>do not
- fragment</quote> bit set (default of TCP) and the Telco
- router is not sending ICMP <quote>must fragment</quote> back
- to the WWW site you are trying to load. (Alternatively, the
- router is sending the ICMP packet correctly, but the
- firewall at the WWW site is dropping it.) When the www
- server is sending you frames that do not fit into the PPPoE
- pipe the Telco router drops them on the floor and your page
- does not load (some pages/graphics do as they are smaller
- than a MSS). This seems to be the default of most Telco
- PPPoE configurations.</para>
-
- <para>One fix is to use <application>regedit</application> on
- your 95/98 system to add the following registry entry:</para>
-
- <programlisting>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans\0000\MaxMTU</programlisting>
-
- <para>It should be a string with a value
- <literal>1436</literal>, as some ADSL routers are reported
- to be unable to deal with packets larger than this. This
- registry key has been changed to
- <literal>Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\<replaceable>ID for
- adapter</replaceable>\MTU</literal> in &windows; 2000
- and becomes a <literal>DWORD</literal>.</para>
-
- <para>Refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base documents <ulink
- url="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q158/4/74.asp">Q158474 - Windows TCPIP Registry Entries</ulink>
- and <ulink
- url="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q120/6/42.asp">Q120642 - TCPIP & NBT Configuration Parameters for &windowsnt;</ulink>
- for more information on changing &windows; MTU to work with
- a NAT router.</para>
-
- <para>Another regedit possibility under &windows; 2000 to
- set the <literal>Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\<replaceable>ID
- for adapter</replaceable>\EnablePMTUBHDetect</literal>
- <literal>DWORD</literal> to <literal>1</literal> as
- mentioned in the Microsoft document 120642 mentioned
- above.</para>
-
- <para>Unfortunately, &macos; does not provide an interface for
- changing TCP/IP settings. However, there are several commercial
- programs available that will allow users to customize TCP/IP
- settings. &macos; NAT users should search for their MTU
- settings and enter <literal>1450</literal> instead of
- <literal>1500</literal>.</para>
-
- <para>The &man.ppp.8; has an <command>enable
- tcpmssfixup</command> command that will automatically adjust
- the MSS to an appropriate value. This facility is enabled
- by default. If you are stuck with an older version of
- &man.ppp.8;, you may want to look at the <filename
- role="package">net/tcpmssd</filename> port.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
<qandaentry>
<question id="desperation">
<para>None of this helps — I am desperate! What can I
@@ -10570,7 +10177,10 @@
somewhere?</quote></emphasis></para>
<para><emphasis>And then I was enlightened
- :-)</emphasis></para>
+ :-)</emphasis></para>
+
+ <para>1 to remove the documentation that has been outdated
+ five minutes later</para>
<para><emphasis>&a.tabthorpe;</emphasis> says: <quote>None,
<emphasis>real</emphasis> &os; hackers are not afraid of the
@@ -10803,24 +10413,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="split-1392k">
- <para>How did you split the distribution into 1392 KB
- files?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>Newer BSD based systems have a <option>-b</option>
- option to &man.split.1; that allows them to split files on
- arbitrary byte boundaries.</para>
-
- <para>Here is an example from
- <filename>/usr/src/release/Makefile</filename>.</para>
-
- <programlisting>ZIPNSPLIT= gzip --no-name -9 -c | split -b 1392k -</programlisting>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="submitting-kernel-extensions">
<para>I have written a kernel extension, who do I send it
to?</para>
@@ -10924,20 +10516,6 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
- <question id="major-numbers">
- <para>Can you assign a major number for a device driver I have
- written?</para>
- </question>
-
- <answer>
- <para>&os; releases after February 2003 has a facility for
- dynamically and automatically allocating major numbers for
- device drivers at runtime (see &man.devfs.5;), so there is
- no need for this.</para>
- </answer>
- </qandaentry>
-
- <qandaentry>
<question id="alternate-directory-layout">
<para>What about alternative layout policies for
directories?</para>
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:
More information about the freebsd-bugs
mailing list