Installation
Jud
judmarc at fastmail.fm
Thu Aug 21 03:16:26 PDT 2003
On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 19:05:19 -0700, Harry Veltman <veltman at intergate.com>
wrote:
> After installing FreeBSD 4.8 into an unpartitioned free-space, it states
> that the installation was successful, but when I start the computer and
> press F3 to load FreeBSD instead of NT 4, it finally wants me to enter my
> user name and password. After doing so, it displays a "$" sign and a
> blinking space which waits for me to enter a command, but I have no clue
> what it wants me to enter. If I enter / is states "permission is
> denied."
> Installation instructions state "always restore the BIOS to natural drive
> numbering before installing FreeFSD..." Will you please tell me how to
> do
> that? I can't find a clue in BIOS Setup or in Windows. Could that have
> anything to do with my problem getting FreeBSD to load? I installed it
> from
> a CD-ROM I bought. I've spent two days re-installing it several times
> and
> trying different things. I have read part of the FreeBSD Handbook about
> installation. On a previous installation, it stated "WARNING: / was not
> properly dismounted," but my recent installation gave no such warning or
> error messages. Installing FreeBSD is very frustrating. I'm trying to
> find
> a good, cheap OS as an alternative to buying a new Apple with OS X
> Jaguar,
> or
> upgrading my NT 4 to Windows 2000. I thought FreeBSD might be the
> solution
> after reading about it, but it doesn't work.
You've installed it successfully and it *is* working. That blinking
cursor is waiting for you to give it a valid command. You see, FreeBSD
itself doesn't include a GUI (graphical user interface). Think of it as
being like MS-DOS. What you want, I think, is a GUI or "desktop." To do
that, during the installation choose to install GNOME or KDE (or
Windowmaker, if it's still offered). Then have a look at the following:
<URL: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html>
<URL: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2000/06/21/FreeBSD_Basics.html>
If this strikes you as too much work just to be able to have a desktop to
work with, hey, that's fine - different strokes for different folks, and
all that. On the other hand, if you're interested and want to learn more,
try to read as much of the Web documentation as you can (start with the
Handbook, <URL:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html>) and
come back to this list if you have questions.
Jud
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