Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
* Garrett Cooper ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Btw (Off-topic, but true): Nothing in Gentoo (or FreeBSD or any other variant of Unix for that matter) says you have to install KDE ;). You can install the same metapackage in any Unix OS, if you love the bloat--uh, I mean functionality--or use another DE/WM to navigate around your desktop. Oh, absolutely. I don't actually use KDE or anything. Can't stand it personally. However, I inevitably want to use something which requires something which requires on of these giant bloated monsters like KDE or Gnome. And then I am faced with the question of compiling it. I can still remember the seventeen hour build of kdelibs on Gentoo, and I don't want to do it again. Though, I admit you very quickly start to make better decisions about what software you really need in that situation. I find it interesting that a former Slackware user would be complaining about compiling stuff, but you probably used slapt-get to update your packages. Well, I am probably coming off whiny. However, I am pretty typical of the Slackware crowd in that much of what I am running I compiled from source. But the base system is still binaries and that does speed things up. Pat doesn't patch everything endlessly and so it works well and as intended, so there is really no trade off. I am all for compiling, but why do it when nothing is any different? Firefox works great from binaries, and so I have never bothered to try compiling it. Same for openoffice and java. Even in Gentoo I installed the binaries of those. What I guess is troubling me here though is just figuring stuff out. I have been having some trouble seeing the forest through the trees. The handbook is quite honestly awesome, but only in the details. For the big picture it is fairly indistinct. So, getting my trifling brain around what exactly is going on in the thing has been nagging at me. How do I set it up? Where do I go next? Those kinds of things. I installed from binaries, and there are packages on the servers, and the tools have options for installing packages. I naturally thought there would be package updates and I was messing things up, or misunderstanding what tools to use, in order to get to those packages. However, after reading you post, I am thinking that the packages are only available for the snapshots labelled RELEASE. Am I right? All updates and changes made in between one release and the next are via sources. Would that be accurate? If so, I can say that is also fairly simple, simply non-intuitive. In some ways like having a separate ports system from the base. Simple, even sensible, but in some ways non-intuitive. Certainly for those not used to that approach. It is too bad that the documentation doesn't have a clearer introduction which approaches these simple though not necessarily natural approaches and make them clearer to newbies like myself. It would save a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to open the front door with a can opener. ;-) Let me know how ridiculously off-base I am in my current understanding. That is really what I am trying to do, find out what I should do to maintain things as move along the learning curve. Thanks for the help. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
cothrige wrote: [snip] However, after reading you post, I am thinking that the packages are only available for the snapshots labelled RELEASE. Am I right? All updates and changes made in between one release and the next are via sources. Would that be accurate? I wondered about the same thing some time ago. I was told by one of the gurus to try packages-6-stable, which would most likely work with 6.1-RELEASE. So I tried to fetch the latest Firefox in this way: pkg_add [no line break] ftp://ftp.mirror.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/www/firefox-1.5.0.7,1.tbz Seems to work fine. However, I tried to do the same thing with Thunderbird (mail/thunderbird-1.5.0.7.tbz), and then I got many warnings about libraries not being up to date. Could I have done it differently to get dependencies updated as well? Just a few extra words in section 4.4.1 the handbook could probably have cleared this up. -- Tore ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
* Tore Lund ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I wondered about the same thing some time ago. I was told by one of the gurus to try packages-6-stable, which would most likely work with 6.1-RELEASE. So I tried to fetch the latest Firefox in this way: pkg_add [no line break] ftp://ftp.mirror.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/www/firefox-1.5.0.7,1.tbz Doesn't this seem a tad clunky and unfinished? I am still having a bit of trouble figuring out what I am overlooking. Why would a fully binary installed OS offer no binary support for updates at all? Why have a nice secure RELEASE edition when once installed it will naturally develop security holes that are very hard to find and fix? Things are just so foggy at this point and I must assume that I am just not seeing the answer to this. Seems to work fine. However, I tried to do the same thing with Thunderbird (mail/thunderbird-1.5.0.7.tbz), and then I got many warnings about libraries not being up to date. Could I have done it differently to get dependencies updated as well? Just a few extra words in section 4.4.1 the handbook could probably have cleared this up. One of the things I don't get is the stable vs. release concept. There is basically nothing said to address this. I can imagine that the packages in packages-6.1-release are fixed and static, though it surprises me that no security fixes are placed there, but what about packages-6-stable? These seem quite new, comparitively, and so I would assume that they are not static as release are. And if they are in fact tracked and improved, how can they be accessed via the tools? Your experience seems to show that using them in a release system is not ideal, and so must be unintended. It really is about as clear as mud to me. And as fine as the handbook is I cannot really use the info given there without a better understanding of the basic system concepts such as this first. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
cothrige wrote: * Tore Lund ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I wondered about the same thing some time ago. I was told by one of the gurus to try packages-6-stable, which would most likely work with 6.1-RELEASE. So I tried to fetch the latest Firefox in this way: pkg_add [no line break] ftp://ftp.mirror.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/www/firefox-1.5.0.7,1.tbz Doesn't this seem a tad clunky and unfinished? [snip] Agree completely, but as far as I can tell, them's the terms... Let's hope that someone else will step in here and elucidate the matter. -- Tore ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 11:53:04AM +0800, ke han wrote: Patrick, Since you are already knowledgeable of X-11 apps on slackware, this opinion may not concern you. My opinion of FreeBSD is do not try to configure X-11 desktops and apps with it. Its just too much effort. I have the same opinion of any *nix system that require the user to install/configure their own desktop experience. If you want a good desktop that does provide updates to some apps (firefox included), start with PC-BSD, http://www.pcbsd.org. This is built on FreeBSD 6.x and keeps the base enough as in the FreeBSD.org release so as to enable you a true freebsd system so you can still use ports or packages in addition to PC-BSD's PBI installerbut without the trouble of integrating and maintaining your own desktop experience. enjoy, ke han This is not very good advice to give to someone who is trying to learn FreeBSD. It is like telling a short person the solution to their problems is to get taller. Anyway, configuring X is not much related to the questions the person is asking. They are asking more about the relationship of versions and using CVSUP, etc. jerry On Oct 11, 2006, at 11:10 AM, cothrige wrote: I am a complete newb to BSD trying to get started learning a bit about how to make my way in it. I have been using Slackware over the last four years or so, and this has made me a bit used to one way of doing things and now the FreeBSD way is kind of rattling me. For some background, I installed from the FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE discs, and this is also what I get from uname -r. What I don't understand is the relationship between ports, packages and security. For instance, I am currently using firefox 1.5.0.1, which I keep seeing online is not terribly secure. However, I am confused about what FreeBSD makes available to update this and other similar packages. I installed this, and most of the rest of the system, from the discs via packages, and hope to keep packages as my main method. I have had some experience in the past with twenty hour compiles of kdelibs on Gentoo and really don't want that again but I cannot find any info anywhere on how to approach updating for security via packages. I installed once previously as a test, and in that system followed the only online information I could find which seemed relevant, and that was regarding cvsup. I backed up the ports directory and setup a supfile according the handbook and a couple of examples, and went ahead and ran it. From there I started checking how things would go if I ran portupgrade on a couple of apps. I chose the infamous kdelibs as my sample. When I ran portupgrade -P, just to check things out and see what I would get, it failed to find a package and started grabbing the source. No, couldn't do that, so I killed it. I then tried again with portsnap and got the same result. When I looked at the complaint I found that it was looking for what appeared to be a nonexistent file. I am not sure now, but it was something like kdelibs-3.5.4 and the server it was searching on, something which ended in ...packages-6.1-release I think, had only kdelibs-3.5.1. As a matter of fact, I went through all the directories I could find online (including 6 and 7 stable, release and current) and was unable to find the package my system was looking for in any of them. This failure, and the confusion which ensued, are what cause me to wonder just how to keep things like the aforementioned firefox up to date. I am now in a situation where I am unsure of what to do as regards updates, and can really find nothing which clarifies things much online. Everything I find says to run cvsup and use a supfile entirely like that which I used before, and that did not work out. How do I use new, more secure ports and yet still be able to use binary packages? Is updating ports with cvsup the only way? And if so, what did I do wrong before? The inability to use binary packages for giant, though in my case needed, bloatware like kde made me leave Gentoo behind and I want to know whether that is the only future for FreeBSD too. I am assuming that since there are binary packages online for these files they must be usable, I just don't know how to get to them from tools like portupgrade. Or if that is how you even try to upgrade a system from packages. I just can't find any really relevant guides for this type of thing, so I am supposing that everyone just compiles everything. Any help in this is very much appreciated, and sorry if I am overlooking super obvious information somewhere about this. I probably am, but I just can't find it. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 08:45:56AM -0500, cothrige wrote: * Tore Lund ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I wondered about the same thing some time ago. I was told by one of the gurus to try packages-6-stable, which would most likely work with 6.1-RELEASE. So I tried to fetch the latest Firefox in this way: pkg_add [no line break] ftp://ftp.mirror.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/www/firefox-1.5.0.7,1.tbz Doesn't this seem a tad clunky and unfinished? I am still having a bit of trouble figuring out what I am overlooking. Why would a fully binary installed OS offer no binary support for updates at all? Why have a nice secure RELEASE edition when once installed it will naturally develop security holes that are very hard to find and fix? Things are just so foggy at this point and I must assume that I am just not seeing the answer to this. Seems to work fine. However, I tried to do the same thing with Thunderbird (mail/thunderbird-1.5.0.7.tbz), and then I got many warnings about libraries not being up to date. Could I have done it differently to get dependencies updated as well? You might do a complete upgrade each time. backup any stuff you don't want to lose, including maybe the current ports tree For cvsup; (all the general stuff) *default tag=RELENG_6_1 (RELENG_whatever-version-you are-using) src-all ports-all tag=. doc-all tag=. Then do the cd /usr/src make buildworld make buildkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC (or whatever kernel config you use) make installkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC ( '' ) reboot to single user and clean up and mount filesystems cd /usr/src make installworld mergemaster -cv Then go and install your ports upgrades They should all be pretty much at the same place at this point. Just a few extra words in section 4.4.1 the handbook could probably have cleared this up. One of the things I don't get is the stable vs. release concept. There is basically nothing said to address this. I can imagine that the packages in packages-6.1-release are fixed and static, though it surprises me that no security fixes are placed there, but what about packages-6-stable? These seem quite new, comparitively, and so I would assume that they are not static as release are. And if they are in fact tracked and improved, how can they be accessed via the tools? Your experience seems to show that using them in a release system is not ideal, and so must be unintended. It really is about as clear as mud to me. And as fine as the handbook is I cannot really use the info given there without a better understanding of the basic system concepts such as this first. basically a 'release' is a fixed version, essentially created by making a snapshot of the system at a particular point, freezing it and then running it through all the verification procedures and trying to get all ports maintainers to bring their stuff up to build and work at that level.Once that has happened and everything seems peachy-keen, then it becomes a release. But, stable is more of a snapshot on the fly - being the most complete combination of everything that can be made and that seems reliable. But, it is not fixed (frozen) and may be modified as things are seen as ready. Ports may not be at that level. Packages are prebuilt units of system and ports made of a particular version. They are for convenience, and not necessarily the latest word in version. The general assumption is that if you want/need the latest, you build from source and do not rely on packages. Ports do not get frozen at a release level. Their development is by third parties not necessarily part of or answerable to the FreeBSD core group. They continue their work independently and hopefully build against the most recent versions of the OS. But, I tihnk most are tested at the point of freezing the OS and if they work are left in and if not, are marked broken. I am a little foggy on the exact process here. So, this is probably oversimplified, but maybe it can help complete the picture. jerry Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
On 2006-10-11 01:20, cothrige [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * Garrett Cooper ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I find it interesting that a former Slackware user would be complaining about compiling stuff, but you probably used slapt-get to update your packages. Well, I am probably coming off whiny. However, I am pretty typical of the Slackware crowd in that much of what I am running I compiled from source. The same thing can be accomplished with FreeBSD. You still have the option to compile things your way, install them in /opt instead of /usr/local, trim things down to the bare minimum that fits your preferences, etc. Slackware, with its free for all, build it however you want it to look like attitude, is the one Linux distribution that approaches the BSD spirit more than any other distribution, if you ask me. But the base system is still binaries and that does speed things up. That's ok. The `base system' of FreeBSD is also a bunch of binaries. You can get it going by installing the `bin' collection of packages from the official release CD-ROMs. Pat doesn't patch everything endlessly and so it works well and as intended, so there is really no trade off. I am all for compiling, but why do it when nothing is any different? Firefox works great from binaries, and so I have never bothered to try compiling it. Same for openoffice and java. Even in Gentoo I installed the binaries of those. You can always install portsnap and portupgrade. The first of these tools will fetch you an up to date /usr/ports tree in blazingly fast speed. The second tool can upgrade your installed `ports and packages', either by fetching pre-built packages from the network or by compiling locally. Once a port is compiled and installed from source, it is NOT DIFFERENT from a binary package, which you fetched from the network a week ago. At least, it is not different as far as the package management tools of FreeBSD (the pkg_xxx tools) are concerned. A common trick I use is to build ports on a fast machine, or fetch them from the network, and then run a small local script to save them all as binary packages in `/usr/pkg/i386/freebsd-7.0'. Then, I periodically burn this directory to a CD-ROM or DVD disk, and I can quickly reinstall it all with: # mount /cdrom # cd /cdrom # cd pkg/i386/freebsd-7.0 # pkg_add * What I guess is troubling me here though is just figuring stuff out. Don't worry. It takes a bit of time. Keep testing stuff and learning how it all fits together, and you may have lots of fun :) However, after reading you post, I am thinking that the packages are only available for the snapshots labelled RELEASE. Am I right? Bingo... More up-to-date versions of the Ports are compiled in the FreeBSD.org systems by our package people, but they are not always in sync with /usr/ports and it takes a lot of time to build them all. All updates and changes made in between one release and the next are via sources. Would that be accurate? This is, indeed, *one* of the options. If so, I can say that is also fairly simple, simply non-intuitive. In some ways like having a separate ports system from the base. It is not `in some ways'. It is *EXACTLY* this way. Note how the ports/ tree is separate from the src/ source tree at: http://cvsweb.FreeBSD.org/ There is a fundamental difference between something in the `base system' (i.e. something which lives under the `src/' tree) and something that installs thirdparty software, as part of the Ports collection. Simple, even sensible, but in some ways non-intuitive. It certainly takes some time getting used to. That's fine. Let me know how ridiculously off-base I am in my current understanding. That is really what I am trying to do, find out what I should do to maintain things as move along the learning curve. Thanks for the help. Try things out. Test more things. Break a few. I know I've trashed many installations of FreeBSD before I managed to build this one. But it was *SO* much fun doing that ... I'd do it again. Welcome to FreeBSD, BTW :) -- Giorgos pgpwj8kFcABKq.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
On 2006-10-11 08:45, cothrige [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * Tore Lund ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I wondered about the same thing some time ago. I was told by one of the gurus to try packages-6-stable, which would most likely work with 6.1-RELEASE. So I tried to fetch the latest Firefox in this way: pkg_add [no line break] ftp://ftp.mirror.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/www/firefox-1.5.0.7,1.tbz Doesn't this seem a tad clunky and unfinished? I am still having a bit of trouble figuring out what I am overlooking. Why would a fully binary installed OS offer no binary support for updates at all? Oh but we do. Just have a look at freebsd-update, portsnap and portupgrade: http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-update/ http://www.daemonology.net/portsnap/ http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/sysutils/portupgrade/ Why have a nice secure RELEASE edition when once installed it will naturally develop security holes that are very hard to find and fix? Because in FreeBSD we don't install a system that fires up the kitchen sink, the hairdresser and a few local classical orchestras, when it starts. You know the feeling... I mean, after all, you are a _Slackware_ user, right? :) Security updates can be fetched pretty fast with `freebsd-update' and they don't always affect you. So, if there's no need to upgrade to the latest and greatest release of all the other things, why do it for your base system? One of the things I don't get is the stable vs. release concept. There is basically nothing said to address this. Heh! You areally _are_ a new FreeBSD user, after all. This is, typically, the first question one asks after the first Oh! Ah! Wow! You mean it does... Awesome! parts: ``What is STABLE, CURRENT and what do I do with them?'' The answer is in the Handbook ( here: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html ) I can imagine that the packages in packages-6.1-release are fixed and static, though it surprises me that no security fixes are placed there, but what about packages-6-stable? These seem quite new, comparitively, and so I would assume that they are not static as release are. And if they are in fact tracked and improved, how can they be accessed via the tools? Try reading the manpages of the pkg_xxx tools: % man pkg_add % pkg_check % pkg_create % pkg_delete % pkg_info % pkg_sign % pkg_version In FreeBSD, the manpages are _really_ informative and we try to keep them up to date. Learn to search through them, with apropos(1), to read them carefully and you'll find a huge wealth of information. No Linux distrubition has *EVER* convinced me that they value their manpage documentation as much as the FreeBSD people do. - Giorgos ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Getting started with FreeBSD
I am a complete newb to BSD trying to get started learning a bit about how to make my way in it. I have been using Slackware over the last four years or so, and this has made me a bit used to one way of doing things and now the FreeBSD way is kind of rattling me. For some background, I installed from the FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE discs, and this is also what I get from uname -r. What I don't understand is the relationship between ports, packages and security. For instance, I am currently using firefox 1.5.0.1, which I keep seeing online is not terribly secure. However, I am confused about what FreeBSD makes available to update this and other similar packages. I installed this, and most of the rest of the system, from the discs via packages, and hope to keep packages as my main method. I have had some experience in the past with twenty hour compiles of kdelibs on Gentoo and really don't want that again but I cannot find any info anywhere on how to approach updating for security via packages. I installed once previously as a test, and in that system followed the only online information I could find which seemed relevant, and that was regarding cvsup. I backed up the ports directory and setup a supfile according the handbook and a couple of examples, and went ahead and ran it. From there I started checking how things would go if I ran portupgrade on a couple of apps. I chose the infamous kdelibs as my sample. When I ran portupgrade -P, just to check things out and see what I would get, it failed to find a package and started grabbing the source. No, couldn't do that, so I killed it. I then tried again with portsnap and got the same result. When I looked at the complaint I found that it was looking for what appeared to be a nonexistent file. I am not sure now, but it was something like kdelibs-3.5.4 and the server it was searching on, something which ended in ...packages-6.1-release I think, had only kdelibs-3.5.1. As a matter of fact, I went through all the directories I could find online (including 6 and 7 stable, release and current) and was unable to find the package my system was looking for in any of them. This failure, and the confusion which ensued, are what cause me to wonder just how to keep things like the aforementioned firefox up to date. I am now in a situation where I am unsure of what to do as regards updates, and can really find nothing which clarifies things much online. Everything I find says to run cvsup and use a supfile entirely like that which I used before, and that did not work out. How do I use new, more secure ports and yet still be able to use binary packages? Is updating ports with cvsup the only way? And if so, what did I do wrong before? The inability to use binary packages for giant, though in my case needed, bloatware like kde made me leave Gentoo behind and I want to know whether that is the only future for FreeBSD too. I am assuming that since there are binary packages online for these files they must be usable, I just don't know how to get to them from tools like portupgrade. Or if that is how you even try to upgrade a system from packages. I just can't find any really relevant guides for this type of thing, so I am supposing that everyone just compiles everything. Any help in this is very much appreciated, and sorry if I am overlooking super obvious information somewhere about this. I probably am, but I just can't find it. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
Patrick, Since you are already knowledgeable of X-11 apps on slackware, this opinion may not concern you. My opinion of FreeBSD is do not try to configure X-11 desktops and apps with it. Its just too much effort. I have the same opinion of any *nix system that require the user to install/configure their own desktop experience. If you want a good desktop that does provide updates to some apps (firefox included), start with PC-BSD, http://www.pcbsd.org. This is built on FreeBSD 6.x and keeps the base enough as in the FreeBSD.org release so as to enable you a true freebsd system so you can still use ports or packages in addition to PC-BSD's PBI installerbut without the trouble of integrating and maintaining your own desktop experience. enjoy, ke han On Oct 11, 2006, at 11:10 AM, cothrige wrote: I am a complete newb to BSD trying to get started learning a bit about how to make my way in it. I have been using Slackware over the last four years or so, and this has made me a bit used to one way of doing things and now the FreeBSD way is kind of rattling me. For some background, I installed from the FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE discs, and this is also what I get from uname -r. What I don't understand is the relationship between ports, packages and security. For instance, I am currently using firefox 1.5.0.1, which I keep seeing online is not terribly secure. However, I am confused about what FreeBSD makes available to update this and other similar packages. I installed this, and most of the rest of the system, from the discs via packages, and hope to keep packages as my main method. I have had some experience in the past with twenty hour compiles of kdelibs on Gentoo and really don't want that again but I cannot find any info anywhere on how to approach updating for security via packages. I installed once previously as a test, and in that system followed the only online information I could find which seemed relevant, and that was regarding cvsup. I backed up the ports directory and setup a supfile according the handbook and a couple of examples, and went ahead and ran it. From there I started checking how things would go if I ran portupgrade on a couple of apps. I chose the infamous kdelibs as my sample. When I ran portupgrade -P, just to check things out and see what I would get, it failed to find a package and started grabbing the source. No, couldn't do that, so I killed it. I then tried again with portsnap and got the same result. When I looked at the complaint I found that it was looking for what appeared to be a nonexistent file. I am not sure now, but it was something like kdelibs-3.5.4 and the server it was searching on, something which ended in ...packages-6.1-release I think, had only kdelibs-3.5.1. As a matter of fact, I went through all the directories I could find online (including 6 and 7 stable, release and current) and was unable to find the package my system was looking for in any of them. This failure, and the confusion which ensued, are what cause me to wonder just how to keep things like the aforementioned firefox up to date. I am now in a situation where I am unsure of what to do as regards updates, and can really find nothing which clarifies things much online. Everything I find says to run cvsup and use a supfile entirely like that which I used before, and that did not work out. How do I use new, more secure ports and yet still be able to use binary packages? Is updating ports with cvsup the only way? And if so, what did I do wrong before? The inability to use binary packages for giant, though in my case needed, bloatware like kde made me leave Gentoo behind and I want to know whether that is the only future for FreeBSD too. I am assuming that since there are binary packages online for these files they must be usable, I just don't know how to get to them from tools like portupgrade. Or if that is how you even try to upgrade a system from packages. I just can't find any really relevant guides for this type of thing, so I am supposing that everyone just compiles everything. Any help in this is very much appreciated, and sorry if I am overlooking super obvious information somewhere about this. I probably am, but I just can't find it. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Getting started with FreeBSD
ke han wrote: Patrick, Since you are already knowledgeable of X-11 apps on slackware, this opinion may not concern you. My opinion of FreeBSD is do not try to configure X-11 desktops and apps with it. Its just too much effort. I have the same opinion of any *nix system that require the user to install/configure their own desktop experience. If you want a good desktop that does provide updates to some apps (firefox included), start with PC-BSD, http://www.pcbsd.org. This is built on FreeBSD 6.x and keeps the base enough as in the FreeBSD.org release so as to enable you a true freebsd system so you can still use ports or packages in addition to PC-BSD's PBI installerbut without the trouble of integrating and maintaining your own desktop experience. enjoy, ke han On Oct 11, 2006, at 11:10 AM, cothrige wrote: I am a complete newb to BSD trying to get started learning a bit about how to make my way in it. I have been using Slackware over the last four years or so, and this has made me a bit used to one way of doing things and now the FreeBSD way is kind of rattling me. For some background, I installed from the FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE discs, and this is also what I get from uname -r. What I don't understand is the relationship between ports, packages and security. For instance, I am currently using firefox 1.5.0.1, which I keep seeing online is not terribly secure. However, I am confused about what FreeBSD makes available to update this and other similar packages. I installed this, and most of the rest of the system, from the discs via packages, and hope to keep packages as my main method. I have had some experience in the past with twenty hour compiles of kdelibs on Gentoo and really don't want that again but I cannot find any info anywhere on how to approach updating for security via packages. I installed once previously as a test, and in that system followed the only online information I could find which seemed relevant, and that was regarding cvsup. I backed up the ports directory and setup a supfile according the handbook and a couple of examples, and went ahead and ran it. From there I started checking how things would go if I ran portupgrade on a couple of apps. I chose the infamous kdelibs as my sample. When I ran portupgrade -P, just to check things out and see what I would get, it failed to find a package and started grabbing the source. No, couldn't do that, so I killed it. I then tried again with portsnap and got the same result. When I looked at the complaint I found that it was looking for what appeared to be a nonexistent file. I am not sure now, but it was something like kdelibs-3.5.4 and the server it was searching on, something which ended in ...packages-6.1-release I think, had only kdelibs-3.5.1. As a matter of fact, I went through all the directories I could find online (including 6 and 7 stable, release and current) and was unable to find the package my system was looking for in any of them. This failure, and the confusion which ensued, are what cause me to wonder just how to keep things like the aforementioned firefox up to date. I am now in a situation where I am unsure of what to do as regards updates, and can really find nothing which clarifies things much online. Everything I find says to run cvsup and use a supfile entirely like that which I used before, and that did not work out. How do I use new, more secure ports and yet still be able to use binary packages? Is updating ports with cvsup the only way? And if so, what did I do wrong before? The inability to use binary packages for giant, though in my case needed, bloatware like kde made me leave Gentoo behind and I want to know whether that is the only future for FreeBSD too. I am assuming that since there are binary packages online for these files they must be usable, I just don't know how to get to them from tools like portupgrade. Or if that is how you even try to upgrade a system from packages. I just can't find any really relevant guides for this type of thing, so I am supposing that everyone just compiles everything. Any help in this is very much appreciated, and sorry if I am overlooking super obvious information somewhere about this. I probably am, but I just can't find it. Patrick A few misconceptions I wanted to help clear up for you: FreeBSD, like Gentoo Linux, (and most other Unix variants) compiles ports from source and installs them for the most up to date versions possible provided by the ports maintainer. It seems that PCBSD actually has an extra layer for package maintenance called PBI files, which are essentially precompiled binary packages from the looks of it. Not sure if you want that sort of simplistic pre-packaged scheme though, but (at first glance) it seems like a good package maintenance system.. The best means to update FreeBSD's ports (bandwidth wise if you update frequently) is using portsnap. I don't have the conf file right in front of me,
Getting started with FreeBSd on a notebook
Hi, I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to BSD but I thought I'd install it on my notebook so that I can do my Zope + PostgreSQL development on it: BeOS doesn't yet have have select() and windows 2k + cygwin isn't so much fun either. I've got FreeBSD 4.6, 4.7 and 5.0 nad have problems with all three. I've checked the FAQs and searched the web but haven't really round anything useful. I was hoping 5.0 would have the best support for my notebook (Sony VAIO GR1114 EK) but I can't even boot properly as the boot hangs on the the cardbus driver. I've been told I can't comment out or bypass the driver as it's hard-coded in the kernel so I'd like to know what I can do. In BeOS we have somethign called failsafe mode which disables pretty much everything except VGA, keyboard and mouse and is quite useful when tracking hardware problems. Is there something similar for FreeBSD? Will I need to recompile the kernal and if yo how do I do this before I can install the OS? I also received 4.6 and 4.7 and tried them. Both boot and install but 4.7 seems to struggle with my Toshiba DVD meaning that it takes about one minute longer to boot each time than 4.6. So I decided just to install 4.6. I'm not after bells and whistles after all. The install runs fine apart from the fact I cannot find drivers for my graphics card (Radeon mobility) for XFree86. I've read somewhere that the ATI drivers didn't make it into the distribution so I tried just a VESA setup. But I get an error when trying to start X-Windows that no monitor can be found. I realise that this is an XFree86 error but having tried all the various approaches and crashing the system with the autoconfigure option I thought it was time to ask the experts. By the way: this is a high traffic list. Is it possible to get it as digest? Thanx very much Charlie Clark -- Charlie Clark Helmholtzstr. 20 Düsseldorf D- 40215 Tel: +49-211-938-5360 GSM: +49-178-782-6226 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-questions in the body of the message
