When it comes to UNIX systems, one cannot help but recall the free FreeBSD project. A powerful and reliable system, which, unfortunately, is very difficult to configure and creates many problems for those who still risk installing it. This material contains brief information about the system. Here you will find warnings, a description of the installation process of FreeBSD 10, as well as the popular components required for basic configuration and working with the distribution.
What is FreeBSD?
FreeBSD 10 is a free operating system that was developed by students from Berkeley back in 1993. FreeBSD is a complete operating system with a kernel, a set of drivers, and supports all popular platforms, including ARM and PowerPC. The system is highly stable and has established itself as an ideal solution for hosting servers on its base.
FreeBSD pursues the idea of minimalism, so the system will not be able to find a graphical interface and an automatic installer. Installing and configuring FreeBSD 10 will take a lot of time and also require some skill. However, we’ll talk about this later.
Warnings
No automation. The whole process of installing and managing the system occurs in manual mode. Even installing packages on FreeBSD 10 is a real pain. The standard PKG utility does not know how to track dependencies, therefore, even if you install the necessary package, but its dependent package is not found in the system, it simply will not start. Information about dependencies is not stored in the system itself, which means that it will have to surf the Internet and systematically double-check several different sources, since even in the official guide the information is far from complete.
You also need to keep in mind that the installation process may be delayed. This is especially true in cases where there is only a basic operating system on the disk or “flash drive”, and the rest of the components are downloaded from the FreeBSD repositories, the speed of which is very unpleasantly impressive.
Preparation for installation
So, in this section, we’ll look at a number of points that you need to consider before attempting to install FreeBSD 10.
- There will be no graphical interface, so be prepared for the fact that you will have to learn how to use the terminal, learn the commands to control the system (and there are quite a lot of them) and print a lot (yes, there will be no “copy-paste”).
- Remember that installing the system will require a lot of time and nerves. Everything about everything can take more than 4 hours and a dozen cigarettes / cups of coffee. Be prepared and set aside a free day for the experiment.
- If we are talking about the original system, then to install FreeBSD you need to get a DVD-image of the system (it can be found on the official website).
- To install FreeBSD 10 from a flash drive, you will need the uniboot utility and a working computer from which recording will be performed.
- Before starting the installation, it is better to choose a suitable "machine" on which important information will not be stored and which it will not be a pity to "kill". As a rule, an old computer is used, which lives somewhere on the balcony.
- It is also worthwhile to prepare for yourself alternative access to the Internet (on a smartphone or other computer). You cannot do without instructions and help from knowledgeable people.
System installation and setup
Having prepared a "USB flash drive" or a disk with a system image, you must enter the BIOS and request a boot from an external medium. After that, the installation process begins.
- The first thing a user sees is a welcome window and three download options. You must select Install.
- In the next window, you will be prompted to select a keyboard layout. You don’t need to change anything, since the default language is English, and we need it.
- Next, you need to specify a name for the server (you can choose any one to your taste).
- In the next window, the installer will offer you to select the system components that should be installed together with the kernel and the base system. You can choose the minimum installation and download the necessary elements later, but it is better to install the ports and src components in advance, since they will definitely be needed during the work.
- The next step is to configure the network. You must enter the data provided by the provider. In the case of DHCP, it will only be enough to agree to accept the settings for this protocol.
- The most difficult procedure is to split the disk into parts. If the plans do not have installation in parallel with another system, then it is better to choose automatic partitioning into the entire disk. The installer will demonstrate the created memory partitions and offer to start the installation.
- At the end of the FreeBSD 10 installation process, the system will offer to create a ROOT user and set a password for it.
- The final step is to set the time zone. There will be no problems, just need to check with any watch at hand.
Install KDE on FreeBSD 10
After installing the base operating system, many users using FreeBSD as their home operating system download and install the graphical shell. Most often, the choice falls on KDE. Despite the fact that it is believed that installing KDE in FreeBSD 10 is difficult, you can handle this task.
First you need to prepare the database and download a number of packages:
- The graphics server is installed with the pkg install xorg command.
- Drivers for the graphics adapter are installed with the pkg install nvidia-driver command.
- The shell itself can be installed with the pkg install kde command.
- The Oxygen graphics engine needed for the shell to work is installed with the pkg install gtk-oxygen-engine command.
- The configuration file is installed with the kde-gtk-config command.
As for the installation of the shell itself, it can be done in two different ways: from the Network using the pkg_add -r kde command or from ports, going to the cd / usr / ports / x11 / kde3 directory and running make install clean.
After that, you need to select the new desktop as the default desktop. To do this, edit the .xinitrc file. This is done with the echo "exec startkde"> ~ / .xinitrc command.
Now the worker can be started using the startx command.
Install MC on FreeBSD 10
MC is short for Midnight Commander. This is a specialized file management utility.
So, to install MC you need:
- Go to the ports directory with the command cd / usr / ports / misc / mc.
- Run the selected make config.
- Install the client with the make install clean command.
- If the installation is completed correctly, the client can be started with the mc command.
All dependencies (necessary files and utilities) will be downloaded from the Web automatically (if you have a broadband Internet connection).