mentor

[Matthew Seaman]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 12:27:15AM -0700, Khoi - San Zulu wrote:
> I need a mentor please. Are there any people out there
> willing to help. a few months back, I was given the
> freebsd disks as a gift from a gentleman i met through
> happenstance. I am becoming a bit frustrated now that
> I wish to install packages like ntop that has
> dependencies upon dependencies or packages in the
> /usr/ports/graphics directory, such as gd, when ntop
> is looking for gd1 directory ...argh....... I am using
> freebsd 5.0. 

You do realise that you're using an old version of the system that was
released as a developer preview and superceeded a few months after
that?  As 5.0 is no longer supported you'll find things like the
packages being removed from the FTP servers, possibly security patches
not being supplied for that release etc.

I recommend that you start with the ambition to upgrade your system to
5.3-RELEASE, due out in a few days.  In the mean time, you should
study the handbook:

    http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html

Pay particular attention to the sections on 'Installing FreeBSD',
'Installing Packages and Ports' and Appendix A: Obtaining FreeBSD
(particularly A.5 and A.6 about using CVSup).

If you have specific questions arising from what you see in the
Handbook, or from trying out some of the stuff in there, then by all
means, feel free to ask here.  That's what this list is for.

The problem you're seeing with ntop comes from using a mixture of old
packages but updated ports.  The secret to a happy life when using
ports/packages is to make sure that everything you're using is
basically the same age.  Ultimately that boils down to keeping all of
your installed ports/packages up to date -- and the general consensus
is that the best way to do that is to use cvsup(1) to maintain an up
to date copy of the ports tree, and then use the portupgrade(1)
package to keep all your installed software current.

> I do not have any programming or compiling experience,
> past what i have done, ps, i have actually installed
> packages using the pkg_add -r commands. for an M$ guy
> that knows nothing, it was a feat!!!! i pretty please
> need someone who can explain the concept of this OS.
> ie how things work, and has experience in helping
> complete dunces like myself.

Don't worry.  FreeBSD is generally recognised to provide very smooth
and problem free administration, once you've got over the initial hump
of learing how to do it.

The jewel in the crown is the ports system.  What the ports system
does is enable you, as a user who has no great experience of compiling
and installing unix software, a very simple means to do that.


-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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