# FreeBSD exasperation



## spoom (Mar 26, 2012)

I am beginning to wonder if FreeBSD is not self-destructing. I used to be able to work with a number or previous releases, but as time wears on I am finding it more and more difficult to anything more than try to fix installations, ports, updates and weird unexplained or inexplicable messages while running or starting FreeBSD 9.0 release (generic) #0

When one follows the manual precisely, one would expect that things should work as stated. E.g.: Install firefox from manual - 


> Install the package by typing:
> 
> # pkg_add -r firefox
> 
> This will install Firefox 10.0



Really? Unfortunately, this will not install Firefox 10.0. Am I to be taken for an idiot? Clearly this installs Firefox 9 and all the necessary programs to make it work are older than the ones installed. And as for installing from ports, forget it. Not firefox 9, 10 or even seamonkey. I don't seem to have any problems with Apache 2 or too many with samba36 or Xorg but when I am devoting 90% of my time trying to make things work or to reconfigure and fix installations, it's time to move on, maybe even to Windows. With all that I may dislike about Windows, at least I am not spending all my time non-productively tinkering and getting frustrated.

Perhaps my system is too advanced for FreeBSD 9.0 - I always had modest systems and things went fairly well, but now I have a really fine system that's OC'd to 47ghz with 16gb of memory that runs fine with Win7 and partially with FreeBSD. Am I doing something wrong in trying to follow all the instructions of the manual, the UPDATING directives of the ports and the advice of the forums? Or is it my system?

Maybe it's time to move on to Linux.


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## gkontos (Mar 26, 2012)

This has been discussed many times and yes, there is a need for a new package management system for FreeBSD.

Fortunately, there is work done on this. For more info have a look at pkgng.

In the mean time, read the handbook about using packages and pay special attention to the notes on how you can make pkg_add(1)() pull recent packages by selecting to use STABLE repositories.

Best Regards,
George


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## anomie (Mar 26, 2012)

spoom said:
			
		

> And as for installing from ports... forget it. Not firefox 9, 10 or even seamonkey...



Just curious - why is that? (Too long build times?)


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## UNIXgod (Mar 26, 2012)

spoom said:
			
		

> Perhaps my system is too advanced for FreeBSD 9.0 - I always had modest systems and things went fairly well... but now I have a really fine system that's OC'd to 47ghz with 16gb of memory that runs fine with Win7 and partially with FreeBSD.
> Am I doing something wrong in trying to follow all the instructions of the manual, the UPDATING directives of the ports and the advice of the forums? Or is it my system...
> Maybe it's time to move on to Linux...



I have seen where FreeBSD doesn't like an overclock. Though I trust your overclock is stable there is always a possibility that it isn't. I imagine at running nth core almost 5ghz with fast ram (are you using your ram as a ram disk too?) would compile ff in no time so whats the deal with not using the make and ports system.

You could move to linux. No one here will mind nor no one is going to dispute that some of the linux distros are meant to compete in the mainstream desktop market. FreeBSD is a stable and secure server that just so happens to run graphical software. It competes in the server market( and has had a very good track record with that). Linux has always been slated for the desktop. These are two distinct philosophies every open source user should know. Depending on how you plan to use it both PC-BSD and ubuntu class derivatives of their core upstream OSes may be what you are looking for as they remove the administrative overhead for desktop users.


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## spoom (Mar 26, 2012)

anomie, these programs all wipe out during installation with errors that I have tried to follow up without success. The build times are ridiculously fast on all programs including php55, samba36 etc. Really, something like 3-4 minutes; I just watch the screen and get hypnotized.


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## spoom (Mar 26, 2012)

Thanks gkontos, I'll check that out. But I thought the ports were from STABLE repositories. I thought that all ports for version 9.0 release came from there.


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## spoom (Mar 26, 2012)

Unixgod, thanks for the observations. The OC seems to be quite stable... I was running at 4.6gh before the board was replaced and it was not stable above that. After the board was replaced, I was surprised to see it go up to 4.7ghz. I do not do any fancy or complicated OC'ing... just the automatic stuff from Asus: I do a lot of graphics and video stuff and need the speed but don't want downtime. 
Win7 doesn't give me any headaches; FreeBSD is giving me some strange READ error 5 messages and some others that appear to be related to USB2 and USB3. But I only have the mouse on USB2, so I'm wondering why those messages. Can't find anythinng about them on the net or in the forums.
I've tried fsck in single user mode, but that did nothing.
And I'm not about to go an reinstall FreeBSD all over again. I only need it for apache 2, so I'll just let it die a natural death and find something else when the time comes. Thanks, anyway.


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## wblock@ (Mar 27, 2012)

spoom said:
			
		

> Thanks gkontos, I'll check that out. But I thought the ports were from STABLE repositories. I thought that all ports for version 9.0 release came from there.



Adding a package goes through a different mechanism than building a port.  It looks up the packages that were current at the time of your release.

Like so many bugs, this is a bug in expectations rather than code.  Maybe it could be documented better.  See pkg_add(1) about the PACKAGESITE variable.

Or just use ports, but update the ports tree first.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 27, 2012)

As one who just put Firefox, xorg, i3, opera, chromium, vim and 9.0 on an old P4 box over the weekend, I had no problems installing any packages whatsoever.


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## anomie (Mar 27, 2012)

spoom said:
			
		

> anomie, these programs all wipe out during installation with errors that I have tried to follow up without success.



I looked through some of your other posts on the forum. You might give ports-mgmt/portmaster a fair try before you abandon a FreeBSD desktop. With that utility and some sane Ports handling, you should be OK. 

I also agree with what UNIXgod was saying. There may be other FOSS unix-like desktops more suited to your needs. PC-BSD has a packaging system that I hear works well. If all else fails, there's always the hot mess that is Ubuntu. (I run it on a netbook.)


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## spoom (Mar 27, 2012)

Dear friends,

I have tried all I could to fix the problem; I know about packages and ports; I usually compile them unless they were huge and took an enormous time to compile on slower Pentium IV systems (like OpenOffice). I would then install the compiled version from their site. Always worked fine.

I have been using portmaster and it works ok. For some reason I had some problems with the ports tree and had to reinstall the whole shebang; I hadn't used FreeBSD 9.0 for a number of weeks since I had to have a defective motherboard replaced and once replaced I tried to run Dutch Daemon's portupdater which stopped on the port verifier initial step: it would not update. So, I traced down the problem, updated the program and ran portupdater (which uses portmaster). Portmaster was unable to update several programs: png, phpMyAdmin, firefox, php5-gd and more. I tried all I could think of like checking for a defective hd, searching UPDATING from ports, and googling and searching the forums and the manual... zip, nada, nothing, nichts etc.

So now to give it all a final chance, I'm installing FreeBSD 9 on another disk and let's see what happens. I'll try to document any glitches and report back here probably late tonight or tomorrow.


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## gkontos (Mar 27, 2012)

@spoom,

Maintaining ports on a FreeBSD desktop can be a pain. Especially if you use KDE or GNOME for window managers. 

This is mainly the reason why I have switched to a hackintosh desktop :OO

Other than that, I can tell you with confidence that I can't compare it to *ANY* Linux distro for a server solution.

George


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## spoom (Mar 27, 2012)

I gave up on KDE and Gnome years ago. Too bloated. I like the "KISS" principle. Doesn't always work, though.

Well, I started out just great on my new installation. Looks like I can't get off home plate and first base looks light years away. I downloaded the FreeBSD 9.0 RELEASE boot disk. Burned it. Installed one 1TB HDD and unplugged all others. Booted from disk. No problem yet. Started the installation. Gave name to system as requested. Set up the partitioning by "guided" method. I thought it would be the simplest way, use entire disk. OK, set up network with fixed address and usual DNSs addresses.

I "committed" the installation and chose the Primary server #10. Great, should be set up in a jif, eeeh, what's this? 

```
Error while fetching... [snip]... (file).tbz No address record.
```
Oh yeah, what address record? Ok, maybe I missed something. Let's start over. Same screens, same data input, different ftp address - I tried the main ftp and, guess what! Same garbage, different server. This is new. I've never seen this before either on v.4.6, 7.2, 8.0, 8.2, or 9.0. Do I need this aggravation? I thought I followed instructions correctly. Maybe somebody forgot to tell (us poor nitwits) to do something.

Somebody tell me I should go back to my real home planet!


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## wblock@ (Mar 27, 2012)

Probably DNS.  Use DHCP and compare the DNS server values with what you were using manually.


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## spoom (Mar 27, 2012)

I have never, ever had a DNS problem before. I have always used manual addresses and never had a problem. Weird. I'll try another address as it may be related to using DHCP on some other computers on the local network; I'm using 192.168.0.77 and, if I recall correctly, the router may be configured to use addresses below for DHCP. But this wasn't a problem on the previous 9.0 RELEASE on a different HDD.

I tried 192.168.0.107; no good. OK, *I* tried DHCP; no good. Well, I happen to have 2 network connections - em0 and em1. I usually use em0 but as a last effort I tried em1. Yeah, DHCP accepted this one and on we went to chase the installation fairy, but lo and behold: Same result.

Now, somebody explain to me how is FreeBSD so reliable and easy to use etc. etc. etc.? I hate to be blaming FreeBSD, so I'm going to call Asus, something doesn't make sense here!


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## wblock@ (Mar 27, 2012)

Two connections... you don't have them both hooked up to the same network, do you?


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## spoom (Mar 27, 2012)

Sorry, wblock, I am not that stupid. I actually tried changing cables and connections to the LANs without any improvement or change.

Oh, yes, I believe that em0 and/or em1 should show up in the /dev directory as do the HDDs; I can't find them in /dev. I only connect one at a time, generally the em0 but it has been giving me some problems - oddly I have to enable both LANs to get one to work; dmesg indicated that em0 is on but I was not getting connections until I enbled both LANs in the BIOS. Then *dmesg* showed both em0 and em1 and I was getting messages that em1 was set active the off, then on, then off, and finally on at the end of the dmesg something like 10 consecutive alternations.

I'm trying to sort things out with ASUS, but I keep getting cut off, and no, I am not being difficult in talking with them even though their French language guy speaks with an incomprehensible oriental pidgin.

I'm getting more and more convinced the problem is with the motherboard.


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## wblock@ (Mar 27, 2012)

Ethernet devices don't show up in /dev, just in ifconfig(8) output.  Until this is debugged, I'd connect only the em0 interface, comment out any ifconfig lines in/etc/rc.conf, and manually run dhclient(8) after startup:
`# dhclient em0`

Then some basic tests would be useful.  Can you ping 8.8.8.8?  What about pinging google.com by name?


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## Zare (Mar 28, 2012)

There is something fishy with that board. Have you tried running any Linux on it? Eg. "it works under Windows" doesn't mean that it isn't broken.

...and if you'll be using FreeBSD only for Apache/PHP, why not a virtual installation in VirtualBox?


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## spoom (Mar 28, 2012)

First, I want to express my gratitude for your (plural) patience in helping me.
I seem to have opened a Pandora's box here; things are beginning to get interesting. I am no longer certain about the motherboard being the problem.
I finally managed to install FreeBSD 9.0 RELEASE (GENERIC) #0.
Oddly, I can't find a disk with FreeBSD 9.0 that I might have used to install my first FreeBSD 9. I had installed the RC 3 (if I remember correctly) and maybe I just upgraded. At any rate, I find some strange discrepancies between my two installations of the same FreeBSD 9.0 release.
1. What finally worked on the new installation wast to use DHCP and to not enter known DNS addresses that I use on all installations. On my final attempt, I was surprised to see the local router address already entered for the DNS and decided to accept that. A surprise it was indeed since the installation now worked.
2. I rebooted and started to fine tune rc.conf and this is where things start to get weird: what worked on the previous installation, is not accepted on the new one.

```
allscreens_flags="VGA_80x60 cyan"
font8x16="iso15-8x16"
font8x14="iso15-8x14"
font8x8="iso15-8x8"
```
This code gives me nice 80character by 60 line cyan text on the previous installation.
The new installation does not accept any of the above and gives error messages - that vidcontrol is not the right syntax and that there is no such font.
I can not print out the messages at this time as I am installing and debugging one little step at a time, like installing basic stuff like screen configuration and the bash shell. So, bash is ok, screen is not.
Now, why would two supposedly identical installations give different results (the kernel is the GENERIC one and I have not made any modifications to anything - all is, or should be "out of the box"). Question is, which of these installations is "kosher", which is f***ed up?
3. My next step is to fix the screen, then to start installing some much needed programs like samba so I can access and post errors and configurations as necessary. Xorg will be the last after apache and php5. Firefox is last.


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## Rasmussener (Mar 29, 2012)

I never, ever had a DNS problem. I always manually addressed and never had a problem. Bizarre. I'll try another address, because it use DHCP can be connected to several other computers on the LAN, I use 192.168.0.77 and if I remember correctly, the router can be configured for DHCP addresses below. But it was not a problem on the previous version 9.0 on another hard drive.

I tried 192.168.0.107, not good. OK, I have DHCP, not good to try. Well, I happened to have two network connections - em0 and em1. I usually use em0 but as a last attempt I tried em1. Yes, DHCP accepted this proposal and we went hunting on the set-up costs, but the look, same result.


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## spoom (Mar 29, 2012)

I don't know what to say. I managed to install FreeBSD 9.0 without too much trouble. Still some minor glitches, but not insurmountable. Installed apache22, php5, Xorg, fluxbox, and finally firefox 10.

I have not found the source of the problem on the first installation, but I have the impression that that was an update from v. 9 RC3 to 9.0 but, even so, the two installations should be working equally. No? Why would the rc.conf on one work differently on the other? I'm going to boot the first installation and try changing things to what I have on the new one.


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## spoom (Mar 29, 2012)

I am reinstalling all the ports on the earlier FreeBSD 9 machine. I followed the instructions in man portmaster and removed all and started to install what I really needed. All went well with samba36, apache22, phpMyAdmin, Xorg-drivers, Xorg minimal and nvidia-driver; then I try to install nvidia-settings and bam! png screws it all up. Same stuff on the other installation. What can possibly mess this up? Can't find any reference to png problems affecting other installations.


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## Chris_H (Mar 29, 2012)

Greetings,
 In response to the OP, please see make.conf(5). There are "tweaks" you can implement, which allow you to choose versions, and make(1)/build(7) options. See also
[cmd=""]/usr/ports/KNOBS[/cmd] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/makefile-options.html
Example make.conf entry:

```
WITH_MOZILLA=Firefox
MOZILLA_VER=10
```
*Please note:*
These variables are most probably incorrect. I'm not in front of any of my FrreBSD boxes. So it's all off the top of my head. But gives some idea/direction. Also not that variables/ifdef's are also supported.  Also note that the port Makefile may override, or not provide for your choice

```
USE_GEKO=chimmera
```
â€” you have been warned! 

Best wishes.

--Chris_H


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## cuq (Apr 2, 2012)

I wanted to say that although not always is easy to solve a difficulty in FreeBSD I always end learning something useful that I didn't know... That is a plus plus plus for me. I love the consistency of  FreeBSD, I used Linux and Windows, and many others OSes along the way and frankly many times is like trick over trick... Sure you don't have to know nothing to connect to a wifi and do your stuff, but you don't learn about the routing tables or how the wireless interfaces works or how is that the system actually boot or why ufs is so stable, et cetera. So I prefer FreeBSD, by far, not because is easy but because it gives me the opportunity to learn.
Thank you to all the people that makes that possible.
cheers
cuq


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## throAU (Apr 3, 2012)

spoom said:
			
		

> Perhaps my system is too advanced for FreeBSD 9.0 - I always had modest systems and things went fairly well, but now I have a really fine system that's OC'd to 47ghz with 16gb of ...



Before doing anything else, set your clock speed back to normal (really, there's no need to overclock a freebsd FreeBSD box in that manner as there's no real freebsd FreeBSD software that pushes a machine that hard) and see if your various problems go away.

If you are attempting to compile stuff (heaven forbid, world) you may introduce all sorts of weird and wonderful breakage (due to mis-compilation) if your overclock isn't 100% stable and reliable.

If you have compiled/installed stuff on an OC'd box that isn't 100%, you'll want to reinstall fresh from known-good source media at stock clockspeed.

If you've overclocked your machine, all bets are off.  At least I would suggest:  set clockspeed to standard, install base, install/compile apps THEN overclock once you have your box set up to a known good baseline.


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## spoom (Apr 5, 2012)

Believe me, the system is quite stable. I have been able to install and update just about everything. But I have now learned that there is nothing sacred about all the instructions in the handbook or in the advice on the forums.
From years of trying to figure out what is wrong with the installations, I have finally understood that the only way to get things working is through stubborn tweaking and manually trying different options, things can get fixed.
For example, I have never yet had a so-called "normal" installation of Xorg and the video configuration. Hal us useless as tits on a boar hog. The Nvidia nvidia-configure is useless and just messes up a good manual configuration. Other broken installations have to be meticulously investigated and corrected, if possible. And then, there are all sorts of gremlins that lurk in the cracks between ports and packages. Ooooh, wow... and then for some unknown reason a reinstall that has not worked for many attempts miraculously works.
Occasionally, someone on the forums catches one's glitch or typo or triggers a little lamp in the dark areas of the brain and you find a possible path to enlightenment...
But, in the end, you've wasted so much time you might as well go back to the typewriter.
And, more often than not, well meaning would-be gurus just don't read the problem and jump to conclusions about someone's problem.
I guess the bottom line on all this is that it would be so much better to listen to (read ?) the problem. In the early years, help was much easier and nicer; now the problems are much more complex and the fixing is getting more and more sloppy.
Ciao!


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 5, 2012)

Talk to Nvidia about their software. It's their software. Hal works fine for the 8 years I've been using FreeBSD. In those eight years, I've put FreeBSD on 10 boxes, from a PIII through a Core2 duo made by Gateway, Dell, and custom built using Asus boards and another I can't think of, all while mixing and matching components as they're given to me by Windows users "updating" their systems. Yet I've never failed to get a basic system up and running using either packages and ports within a few hours, and all my knowledge has come from this board and the handbook. 

My background is as an electronic engineer, not a sys admin or software guy. If you aren't able to get FreeBSD up and running consistently, then it's your hardware. While I've had frustrating moments with ports in the past, I've never had a problem getting a basic system up and running, including xorg, nvidia drivers and hal. And it's easier to get that done today than ever before.


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## throAU (Apr 5, 2012)

I second that.  I've been running FreeBSD in various environments since 1999.  My point wasn't merely to blame your hardware; my point was that running out of spec (overclocked) when trying to diagnose aberrant behavior is not a recipe for success.  It is an unknown, and when trying to troubleshoot, eliminating as many unknowns as possible is a good thing.


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## debguy (Apr 12, 2012)

*D*on't use a "new release" by a "new release team" called stable simply because they say so! *T*hat's what *I've* been seeing.

*S*tick with the stable release you liked, keep your ear on the rail, upgrade only if all sounds quiet


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## wblock@ (Apr 12, 2012)

That word does not mean what you think it means.


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 13, 2012)

debguy, maybe you should use FreeBSD for a while before you start handing out misguided or non-applicable advice on these forums?


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