FreeBSD 10: Installation and Configuration

When it comes to UNIX-systems, you can not forget about the free project of FreeBSD. Powerful and reliable system, which, unfortunately, is very difficult to configure and creates a lot of problems for those who still risk installing it. In this material, a brief information about the system is collected. Here you will find caveats, a description of the installation process for FreeBSD 10, as well as the popular components required for basic setup 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 proved to be an ideal solution for hosting servers based on it.

FreeBSD pursues the idea of minimalism, so the system will not be able to find a GUI and an automatic installer. Installation and configuration of FreeBSD 10 will take a lot of time, and will require some skill. However, we'll talk about this later.

Warnings

No automation. The entire process of installation and management of the system occurs in manual mode. Even installing packages in FreeBSD 10 is a real meal. The standard PKG utility does not know how to track dependencies, so even if you install the necessary package, but the system does not detect its dependent package, it simply will not start. Information about the dependencies in the system itself is not stored, which means that it will have to crawl on the Internet and systematically recheck several different sources, since even in the official manual the information is far from complete.

You also need to keep in mind that the installation process can be delayed. This is especially true when there is only a basic operating system on a disk or a flash drive, and the remaining components are unloaded from the FreeBSD repositories, the speed at which is very unpleasantly impressive.

Preparing for installation

So, in this section, we'll look at a number of points that must be taken into account before taking on the installation of FreeBSD 10.

• There will not be a graphical interface, so be prepared to learn how to use the terminal, learn commands to manage the system (and there are quite a few of them) and print a lot (yes, there will not be any "copy-paste").
• Remember that installing the system will require a lot of time and nerves. Everything can go for more than 4 hours and a dozen cigarettes / cups of coffee. Be ready and allocate a free day for the experiment.
• If we are talking about the original system, then to install FreeBSD you need to acquire a DVD-image system (it can be found on the official website).
• To install FreeBSD 10 from the "flash drive" you will need the uniboot utility and the working computer from which to write.
• 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 that lives somewhere on the balcony.
• It is also worthwhile in advance to prepare yourself an alternative access to the Internet (on a smartphone or another computer). Without guidance and help, knowledgeable people can not do.

Installation and configuration of the system

Having prepared a "flash drive" or a disk with the system image, it is necessary to enter the BIOS and request the download from an external media. After that, the installation process begins.

• The first thing that the user sees is the welcome window and three options for downloading. You must select Install.
• In the next window, you will be prompted to select the keyboard layout. There is nothing to change, because the default language is English, which is exactly what we need.
• Next, you must specify a name for the server (you can choose any one for your taste).
• In the next window, the installer will prompt you to select the system components that must be installed with the kernel and the base system. You can select the minimum installation and load the necessary elements later, but it's better to install the ports and src components in advance, as they will definitely be needed during the operation.
• The next step is to configure the Network. You must enter the information provided by the provider. In the case of DHCP, it will be enough to only agree to accept the settings for this protocol.
• The most difficult procedure is splitting the disk into parts. If the plans do not have an installation in parallel with another system, it is better to choose automatic partitioning for the entire disk. The installer will demonstrate the created partitions of the memory and prompt you to start the installation.
• At the end of the installation process of FreeBSD 10, the system will prompt you to create a ROOT user and set a password for it.
• The final step is to set the time zone. There are no problems, just need to check with any clock at hand.

Installing KDE on FreeBSD 10

After installing the base operating system, many users who use FreeBSD as their home operating system download and install the graphical shell. Most often, the choice falls on KDE. Despite the fact that there is an opinion that installing KDE in FreeBSD 10 is difficult, you can cope with this task.

First you need to prepare the database and load a number of packages:

• The graphical server is installed with the pkg install xorg command.
• Drivers for the graphics adapter are installed using the pkg install nvidia-driver command.
• The shell itself can be installed with the command pkg install kde.
• The Oxygen graphics engine required to run the shell is installed with the pkg install gtk-oxygen-engine command.
• The configuration file is installed with the command kde-gtk-config.

As for the installation of the shell itself, it can be produced in two different ways: from the web with the command pkg_add -r kde or from the ports, by going to the directory cd / usr / ports / x11 / kde3 and running the command make install clean.

After that, you must select a new desktop as the default desktop. To do this, edit the .xinitrc file. This is done with the command echo "exec startkde"> ~ / .xinitrc.

Now you can start the worker with the startx command.

Installing MC in FreeBSD 10

MC is an abbreviation for Midnight Commander. This is a specialized utility for managing files.

So, to install the MC you need:

• Go to the directory with the ports command cd / usr / ports / misc / mc.
• config. Run the selected make config configuration.
• Install the client with the command make install clean.
• If the installation is completed correctly, then the client can be started with the mc command.

All dependencies (necessary files and utilities) will be downloaded from the Network automatically (if you have a broadband connection to the Internet).