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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Questions Questions Questions! Damn I'm frustrated trying to get FreeBSD optimized for my needs
Date: 4 Jun 1996 20:13:22 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
Lines: 119
Message-ID: <4p25d2$n21@uriah.heep.sax.de>
References: <31adfe7c.14012906@news.panix.com>
Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
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push@panix.com (SeVeN) wrote:
> ok. Hope I got your attention. I've recently decided to explore
> FreeBSD. Went out and bought the Walnut Creek FreeBSD 2.1 CD and the
> BSD Docs CD as well. IMHO the BSD Docs CD is totally useless. There
> goes my $40 down the drain. ;(
Disclaimer: the ``BSD Docs'' CD is not sanctioned by the FreeBSD team.
Anyway, i think Walnut Creek offers a full money-back guarantee if you
are dissatisfied, so why don't you return it?
> Anyways, I've like what I've seen so far. Only bad thing is that I
> screwed up my MBR on sd0 which is a totally win95 drive. Now win95
> crashes 3 out of 5 times at boot or hang on me right after the GUI
> is finished loading.
Hmm, i don't claim there's something that cannot happen, but i'm
curious how an MBR could be trashed in a way so it partially works.
If the BSD installation trashed it -- it won't work at all, i think.
> Then I found out about the ATI Mach64 problem with X. It seems that
> even my Graphics Pro Turbo 4mb(really old rev) is causes problems
> cuz the damn X still blanks on me. Well I don't know if the Walnut
> Creek dist has the latest X beta, so if anyone can tell me I'll
> really appreciate it.
No, it's not useful to put the XFree86 betas on a CD. They have an
expiration date, and XFree86 3.1.2D has just recently expired (while
3.1.2E has only been available for a few weeks by now).
Well, all i can say: if you don't like it, don't use it. You've got
the choice, you can alternatively buy a commercial version
(Accellerated X). It is supposed to better support several graphics
hardware, but it costs you some money. (US$ 99 i think, nothing i
would consider undue if i need it.)
> The only bad thing that comes out of this is that the KB would
> freeze on me sometimes once I get the login prompt. This problem
> solves itself with the RESET button but it's killing the fs due to
> improper shutdown. I guess it could be due to the psm0 driver or
> something.
(The file systems should not be ``killed'', it's only that they are not
marked clean and thus need checking.)
Your guess might be right. A PS/2 mouse is technically ``yet another
keyboard''. It takes almost the same commands as a keyboard, plugs
into the keyboard controller, it's only sending mouse events instead
of scan codes. So the ideal driver architecture would be something
like:
+--------------------------------------+ +-------------------+
| | | |
| virtual console driver | | psm driver |
| | | |
+--------------------------------------+ +-------------------+
| | |
| +-----------------------------+
| | |
| | kbdc driver |
| | |
| +-----------------------------+
| |
V V
graphics hardware keyboard controller
Alas, as with all ideal solutions in a limited software world, nobody
ever got round to implement them. For a volunteer's project like
FreeBSD, people have to do paywork most of the day, and thus only
limited time to hack on the system. For commercial software projects,
the cut-off day is always dictated by the customer and thus always a
few weeks closer than the developers need to do it right...
> is vt0 better than sc0??
It's a VT100/220 style console emulator. You'll find this one
supported in almost all termcap/terminfo/whatever files of the world.
sc0 features the SCO console, and while it might offer some nifty
features regarding the PC hardware use, you'll need a supporting
termcap entry for it on any machine you log into. It's up to you to
decide which one would better fit your need.
> When I tried to run sc0 with hardfonts on, the kernel
> boot up screen or boot into config with -c is red(BG) and white (FG)
> with vt0 everything is the good old black-white or black-grey. Until someone
> teaches me how to config these colors, I'm sticking with the VT.
I think you've been confusing this. pcvt (vt0) comes with kernel
messages bright white on red. syscons (sc0) comes with kernel
messages bright white on black. These colors are hard-coded for both.
(That is, compile-time. Of course, you've got the source and are thus
free to modify it.)
I think you can adjust the colors in both emulators. For pcvt, you
can additionally adjust the VGA RAMDAC settings for each color on a
per-VT basis (so you can optically distinguish them). There are some
examples in /usr/src/usr.sbin/pcvt/Misc/Doc/NotesAndHints (sorry, i've
never got it to have these files actually installed outside the
/usr/src tree -- mea culpa). The downside of pcvt ability to display
512 different characters simultaneously is that you've only got 8
color slots available (bit 3 of the foreground attribute nibble is
used as an additional font selector there) as opposed to 16 color
slots and only 256 simultaenous character slots in syscons.
> Now just 1 last complain, WALNUT CREEK! BURN YER CDs PROPERLY! I got
> errors on some files on the cd which could not uncompress
> properly. sysinstall tells me the archive is corrupt. >8(
If it's really a CD-ROM error, return it for a replacement!
--
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)