# Archlinux user want to give FreeBSD a try and has some questions



## Army (Dec 25, 2008)

Hi there

As mentioned in the title, I'm currently running Archlinux on my machine and I'm thinking about giving FreeBSD a try. But before I start it, I would love to have some feedback to be sure, if it's even possible to run FreeBSD.

I do have a laptop with the following hardware (only important components listed as part of the output of the command lspci)


```
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
02:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
02:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
02:04.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
02:04.4 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCI6411/6421/6611/6621/7411/7421/7611/7621 Secure Digital Controller
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T (rev 01)
02:06.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
```
I already ran a DesktopBSD live session and the graphic card seemed to be well supported with the free driver, which I always use with linux, I'm not much of a gamer, so that's quite okay. Sound was okay as well as far as I remember (for sound issues with Linux (I hate alsa!!) are my main reason for looking for an alternative => BSD  ) Having the card reader supported would be really nice, but if not, it wouldn't be a real argument, same with firewire, I actually only used it once in 6 years..
What really has to work is internet, of course  I have to be able to connect via wireless lan to a network with wpa encryption and to one without encryption, both with dhcp and with cable to a network with static ip.
Very important is the support of my M-Audio Transit sound card, which is a USB soundcard and it's quite difficult to find informations about how well this device works under FreeBSD. I want to do some recording with it with Jack + Ardour. Is this possible?

Does it make sense to give FreeBSD a try or should I stay with Archlinux and crappy alsa?

I know I'm asking a lot of stuff here, but I really want to take a closer look to FreeBSD, so please, if you only know one answer to one of the questions, tell me! 

Thanx!!

Greetings
Army


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## mk (Dec 25, 2008)

check supported laptop list
http://laptop.bsdgroup.de/freebsd/

iirc for ac97 there is  generic driver


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## tingo (Dec 25, 2008)

Why don't you try it yourself?
The FreeBSD install CD (or DVD when 7.1 comes) is a LiveCD. Just boot it and find out which devices are working out of the box and which are not.
Then you can ask questions about the things that don't work.


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## Army (Dec 25, 2008)

Oh, I didn't know that it's a LiveCD! As mentioned, I already tried a live session with DesktopBSD, but it's very limited, my wireless lan didn't work at all, so I thought, this might be a really big issue. Okay, I'll run that LiveCD and then we'll see, thanx!
And I'll check that list, thanx to you - mk - as well!


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## mk (Dec 25, 2008)

@tingo - slow down  
banging your head in the wall without knowing why isn't very wise.
better to ask now, to know at least where to start


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## Army (Dec 25, 2008)

@mk, tingo's post was no problem  I think I'll wait v7.1 to become stable and run the live session. Then I'll come back here or a separate thread, if there are unsolvable problems


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## mk (Dec 25, 2008)

@Army what model laptop do you have ?


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## Army (Dec 26, 2008)

I have a Medion MD95400. To be more specific, I'll now post some complete outputs:
lcpci

```
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev 21)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 21)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
02:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
02:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
02:04.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
02:04.4 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCI6411/6421/6611/6621/7411/7421/7611/7621 Secure Digital Controller
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T (rev 01)
02:06.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
```
lsusb

```
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002  
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0bc7:0006 X10 Wireless Technology, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0a5c:200a Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth dongle
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001  
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:c03e Logitech, Inc. Premium Optical Wheel Mouse
```
cat /proc/cpuinfo

```
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 13
model name	: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.70GHz
stepping	: 6
cpu MHz		: 600.000
cache size	: 2048 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 2
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up bts est tm2
bogomips	: 1196.94
clflush size	: 64
power management:
```
hmm, what else could I post?


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## edogawaconan (Dec 28, 2008)

your wireless should work


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## Army (Dec 28, 2008)

Thank you!  I think I'll get the most important components to work, hope it's not too difficult and it's not too far away from the "Linux way" of getting hardware to work, but the wiki will help!
The only thing that keeps me from changing immediately is the fact, that ... well, Archlinux runs perfectly, but ... Linux has many things I don't like too much, but with which I can live well, in front of all alsa ... Question: Would you recommend me to try to switch, although Linux fulfills all my needs? I mean, of course it's always good to see and try something new, but .. is it worth the effort?

I know this is way too much whining  But it's really a tough decision!


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## none (Dec 28, 2008)

no chance yo can get a separate disk for testing ? (USB perhaps)

acan try on a separate partition ?

the wifi I can say to work, as I had a notebook with it and was ok (6.0 time =] )

that's what I'd try to do.

you can also try freesbie 

none


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## oliverh (Dec 28, 2008)

>Would you recommend me to try to switch, although Linux fulfills all my needs? I mean, of course it's always good to see and try something new, but .. is it worth the effort?

Depends on your goals. You will miss certain drivers or gadgetry like framebuffer console, but you'll gain mature development, an excellent documentation etc. pp. Try it, get accustomed to the tools and the make your decision.


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## Army (Dec 29, 2008)

Damn right 

I'll await 7.1 to be released and get some free space on my hard drive and do a dual boot.

Actually, Linux fulfills al my needs, there is nothing I can't do what I want, but it has become sort of boring, distro hopping is stupid and Archlinux is way too perfect


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## tingo (Dec 31, 2008)

none said:
			
		

> no chance yo can get a separate disk for testing ? (USB perhaps



This is very good advice; I always keep a usb disk handy, it has several slices on it, with various versions of FreeBSD.
This way I can just plug it into any machine with a usb port, and as long as the bios supports booting from usb, I can easily test several versions of FreeBSD on the machine without bothering with installs on the internal hard drive etc.


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## none (Dec 31, 2008)

tingo said:
			
		

> This is very good advice; I always keep a usb disk handy, it has several slices on it, with various versions of FreeBSD.
> This way I can just plug it into any machine with a usb port, and as long as the bios supports booting from usb, I can easily test several versions of FreeBSD on the machine without bothering with installs on the internal hard drive etc.



ok, some off now ...

I really want to use this for the very same thing. but I lost my bios pass from my asus notebook ... hehehe I can't get to it to set anything  if anyone can help 

I'd use the old disk to freebsd testing (among other things 

thanks,

none


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## tingo (Jan 1, 2009)

@none: Is the problem that you can't get into your bios to change settings?
Some bios'es supports the F12 key, when you press that during bootup, it will present a list of bootable devices and allow you to choose which one to boot from.


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## none (Jan 1, 2009)

tingo said:
			
		

> @none: Is the problem that you can't get into your bios to change settings?
> Some bios'es supports the F12 key, when you press that during bootup, it will present a list of bootable devices and allow you to choose which one to boot from.



yes, I have a read-only user. but not a admin one 

I'll try it though, thanks.

I found sometime a button that recover bios to an old (safe) one. but even though it didn't erased the password 

none


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## Army (Jan 6, 2009)

Now that 7.1 is out, I might try an installation in the next few ... days (depends on freetime etc). I'm sure, that this info can be found in the documentation or maybe in the forum, but could you please give me some more information, please?
- I have a 32bit cpu, which is compatible with i686, so I would prefer having apps compiled as i686. The installation dvd is only i386, so I was wondering, if and how I can "upgrade" this to i686
- What would you say, is ZFS already stable enough to try it out? I know I don't really need that on a simple laptop, but would be very cool to have the best filesystem out there on my machine :e

I think I'll first try it in a virtual machine, there I can get to know it while doing my work, so that the real installation process is faster and simply better.


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## Djn (Jan 6, 2009)

Actually, the i386 releases aren't compiled for 386 anymore - it's just a generic name for the architecture. Not that the reality is _much_ better, I believe the lowest common denominator is still 486.

If you want to, it's not really hard to recompile for i686. Fetch a copy of the sources (e.g. with csup. You can get either RELENG_7_1, which is 7.1 plus any security fixes added later, or RELENG_7, which is at all times the newest version of 7.x ). Then set your cpu type in /etc/make.conf , e.g. CPUTYPE?=pentium4 if that's what you're using.

With that done, cd /usr/src , make buildworld, make installworld.
(I'm skipping a reboot and a config file update here, on the assumption that the installed vs. compiled versions will be very close to each other.)

You might also want to compile a kernel without i486 and i586 support. I'm not sure how much this will gain you, but it's probably a) nonzero and b) not much.

This is also reasonably straightforward. Basically, make a new kernel configuration file, and then make + install that kernel. You'll have to come up with a name for it, traditionally all-caps; I'll use NEWKERNEL.
cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
cp GENERIC NEWKERNEL
ee NEWKERNEL (or whatever editor you prefer),
comment out the cpu I486_CPU and I586_CPU, and change "ident GENERIC" to "ident NEWKERNEL".
cd /usr/src
setenv KERNCONF NEWKERNEL
make buildkernel installkernel ; reboot

And that's basically it. Any ports you compile will also respect CPUTYPE.


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## Army (Jan 6, 2009)

Thanx!!! That's pretty cool, seems to be really easy, good describtion! On Archlinux I always used -march=native, because newer gcc versions seem to be able to detect the cpu that's in the machine and automatically selects the best optimizations. I'll test this thing in a vm as well


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## Djn (Jan 6, 2009)

I did skip a few details - when upgrading over versions it's generally a good idea to do the kernel first, since a new kernel can handle an old userland, while the opposite can be problematic. And for those cases, you generally want to use mergemaster to install updates to the settings and scripts, as well. 

Mergemaster is an interactive script that compares your installed scripts/settings with the ones in the source tree, and asks you what to do. The correct thing to do is to run it as "mergemaster -p" before you make buildworld, and "mergemaster -i" after you've run make installworld. I'd suggest overwriting anything that's different, except for config files you know you've edited.

But as mentioned, none of that should be an issue when sticking to closely related versions. 

As for ZFS, it's very usable on amd64, but requires you to tweak some settings on i386. You should also have at least 1GB RAM, ideally 2.
Oh, and the right CPUTYPE for you is pentium-m. That autodetection would have been neat, but I can live with setting it by hand for now.


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## none (Jan 6, 2009)

is said that ZFS is way better in HEAD, with some issues solved (as for RAM needed). is in testing though, but I haven't seen anyone complain.

none


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## danger@ (Jan 7, 2009)

I wouldn't recommend you to use ZFS on machine with less than 2gb of RAM and on an i386 machine.

BTW, there's a new version of ZFS in the 8.0, which should be merged to stable/7 branch in the near future.

Nevertheless, you can give it a try and see how it works for you...


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jan 7, 2009)

Way back in 2005 about, while upgrading I "diaried" the
upgrading to roughly 30 steps.  Now upto about 40, but
due to lack of time to rewrite the notes, I get by
just doing the important ones.  But it seems to always
involve more steps than that in UPGRADING. (#env -i ) etc.


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## Army (Jan 7, 2009)

Ok, I only have 512MB of RAM, so I guess it would be better not to use ZFS, especially in the virtual machine


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## Djn (Jan 7, 2009)

jb_fvwm2 said:
			
		

> Way back in 2005 about, while upgrading I "diaried" the
> upgrading to roughly 30 steps.  Now upto about 40, but
> due to lack of time to rewrite the notes, I get by
> just doing the important ones.  But it seems to always
> involve more steps than that in UPGRADING. (#env -i ) etc.



Odd, I've never had to do anything more than that. Build and install new world and kernel, mergemaster, reboot, done. 
What, specifically, do you find you have to do on top of it? And whatever do you have to use env -i for?


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jan 8, 2009)

buildworld (iirc) failed without it.  (5.x) ...


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## Djn (Jan 9, 2009)

Ah. I'm not sure what was the idea then (but I can't remember ever having to use it) - but it's definitely a bug if it's required now.


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