# Heavy Metal BSD and to HAL with USB



## Clyde Denton (Mar 19, 2017)

I've just installed FreeBSD on metal. I've followed the FreeBSD instructions here on HAL and did nano edits on a handful of files. These instructions focused on Gnome, although they seemed general enough. (Should have gone with Gnome, anyway. KDE4 nukes dual monitor settings on reboots.) But Dolphin still merely lists USB partitions while refusing to mount them. This all seems like overkill just to connect to a USB drive. 

Are there installation instructions I've missed?? I don't find anybody else with this problem. So I assume I screwed up the installation. FreeBSD writes bootable sticks just fine with dd. No prob. But I don't have hours and days to trouble shoot something as routine as data drive USB connections. It grieves me, about 3 days worth, but I need to punt. I have to wipe this installation tonight and go back to a distro. ufs format does not shrink for a second partition (another surprise). And I gotta have that data for work. Yet, I remain curious. Maybe someday when I've the time, I'll try FreeBSD again if I can figure out where I went wrong. Suggestions?


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## Clyde Denton (Mar 19, 2017)

After some more tries, my data drive opened, albeit, only the non-NTSF partition, and only on the second click in Dolphin. The NTSF, no. In rc.conf, i had commented out autofs_enable="YES". PolicyKit.conf was necessary, set according to the instructions in my 'FreeBSD instructions here' link, above.


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## nekoexmachina (Mar 19, 2017)

Clyde Denton said:


> After some more tries, my data drive opened, albeit, only the non-NTSF partition, and only on the second click in Dolphin. The NTSF, no. In rc.conf, i had
> commented out autofs_enable="YES". PolicyKit.conf was necessary, set according to the instructions in my 'FreeBSD instructions here' link, above.



did you install ntfs-3g to mount ntfs?


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## Clyde Denton (Mar 21, 2017)

Yes. I reinstalled. Same problem. And no sound. Went through several tutorials. ntfs-3g works fine. It mounts immediately. The problem is not mounting. It's auto-mounting. I've read the instructions with ntfs-3g. Worthless. Only explicit console commands work. I'm wondering if xfce behaves better with FreeBSD than does kde.


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## Clyde Denton (Jun 11, 2017)

Clyde Denton said:


> Yes. I reinstalled. Same problem. And no sound. Went through several tutorials. ntfs-3g works fine. It mounts immediately. The problem is not mounting. It's auto-mounting. I've read the instructions with ntfs-3g. Worthless. Only explicit console commands work. I'm wondering if xfce behaves better with FreeBSD than does kde.


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