*BSD News Article 70245


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From: brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk (Brian Somers)
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 16:56:28 +0100
Organization: Coverform Ltd.
Lines: 71
Message-ID: <4p1mbc$q3@anorak.coverform.lan>
References: <31adfe7c.14012906@news.panix.com>
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SeVeN (push@panix.com) 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. ;(
: 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.
: I've successfully installed FreeBSD. Could'nt get booteasy to see the FreeBSD
: root on sd2. Solve this problem by spending too much money on System Commander
: (kickass Boot Manager IMHO).

Try OS-BS.

: 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.

That's a sio3 problem isn't it ?  The Mach64 conflicts with your COM4.  The
generic kernel tries to probe com4 and shaggs it up.  Try typing -c at the
Boot: prompt, and disable sio3.

: After 10 recompiles of the kernel I finally solve the damn SB problem. Seems
: that sb0 is needed. If they only said so on the FreeBSD guide by Greg Lehey.
: Good thing the recompiles takes only 5 mins each.

Pah !  An hour and a half on my machine !  You're blessed !

: 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.

: Now the thing I want to do most is to config the colors and rows on the default
: bootup. Having 25 lines is kinda like running DOS. I mean it just feels like I'm
: running DOS and not FreeBSD. I know that with Linux you can config the rows and
: colors with lilo (at least that's what my friend tells me)
: I would like to be able to run FreeBSD console with 50 lines or more, and the
: characters be in bright white color instead of dark grey.

man vidcontrol

: Suggestions needed here.
: is vt0 better than sc0?? 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.

My sc0 comes up white on black for kernel messages, grey on black otherwise.

: well this sums up my initial experience with FreeBSD. Looks like another day of
: trying to figure out how to get stuff to work in dos/windoze, except that I get
: more answers when I crash instead of that stupid GPF that don't tell you
: anything. or the exception #13 error that again don't tell you what caused it.
: 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(

Is this consistent ?  If it has problems at different places, it may be
a memory speed/cache problem.

: regards.
: :)

Be more optimistic.  You've got a full-blown free-source-code unix OS on
your PC - superior to the extreme when compared to DOS etc.  There are
teething problems.  Some of them may be your fault.... don't bark so loud.

--
Brian <brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour....