# Moving to FreeBSD



## lokiseto (Jun 24, 2011)

What is a good procedure to move from a Windows XP to a FreeBSD desktop system? Looking for drivers, hardware specifications and so on. Tried several live versions. Had no luck with the last FreeSBIE 2.0.1-RELEASE. Frenzy worked like a charm. Will post specifications and reports if anyone is willing to tutor me through installation


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## gkontos (Jun 24, 2011)

I would suggest that you have a look at PCBSD. It is good place to start if you are looking for a Windows desktop replacement.


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## UNIXgod (Jun 25, 2011)

I'll tutor you through the install. Do you know the processor is on your machine? Have you had the opportunity to look at the documentation http://freebsd.org/handbook


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## ondra_knezour (Jun 25, 2011)

There is supported hardware list for each release available.

Also some list of software or activities you was used to do on Windows can help in driving you in appropriate direction in FreeBSD land.


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## lokiseto (Jun 28, 2011)

Thanks guys, will post asap

So i cannot install or don't know how to under 8.2
and with the installer under 9.0 Beta 2 the basic system seems to work


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## graudeejs (Jun 28, 2011)

FreeSBIE is ancient. Btw, FreeBSD always worked fine on my hardware, but FreeSBIE rarely worked good.
Last version doesn't work on any of my PC's.


PC-BSD is good place to start, especially if you don't have any UNIX knowledge


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## ericbsd (Jun 28, 2011)

The last derived version of FreeSBIE is GhostBSD 2.0. We have developed toolkit from FreeSBIE toolkit. We maintain that tool alive. Several change have append but it still FreeSBIE idea. GhostBSD


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## lokiseto (Jun 29, 2011)

Platform Technology	Intel Centrino 2
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 / 2.66 GHz (Dual-Core)
     Cache Memory	6 MB - L2 Cache


RAM DDR3 SDRAM - 1066 MHz
Graphics Controller	NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 
 	Video Memory	256 MB GDDR2 SDRAM
 	Input Device	Keyboard, touchpad

Networking	Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR
Wireless NIC	Intel WiFi Link 5100


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## UNIXgod (Jun 29, 2011)

lokiseto said:
			
		

> Platform Technology	Intel Centrino 2
> Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 / 2.66 GHz (Dual-Core)
> Cache Memory	6 MB - L2 Cache



You will want to install the AMD64 iso. 



			
				lokiseto said:
			
		

> RAM DDR3 SDRAM - 1066 MHz
> Graphics Controller	NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS
> Video Memory	256 MB GDDR2 SDRAM
> Input Device	Keyboard, touchpad



Here are the installation instructions for xwindows:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html
You will need the nvidia driver located @ /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver



			
				lokiseto said:
			
		

> Networking	Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR
> Wireless NIC	Intel WiFi Link 5100



We should start with the nic. When you in the installation your driver will be detected. At that time it will want to autoconfigure it with dhcp. It will write out to a file called /etc/rc.conf We will go over that later.

Here is the handbook on wireless and bluetooth:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-wireless.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-bluetooth.html

My suggestion is to get the AMD64 iso from here: http://www.freebsd.org/where.html

You will want to read up about tuning()(7) slices. Though its not required.

Ask any questions you have when in the install on this thread and I'll help where I can.

~


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## lokiseto (Jul 3, 2011)

*@UNIXgod*

This time I got a good feeling about moving to FreeBSD. Thanks for your support. I am still in the preparing phase 

One more question: with moving to FreeBSD I also want to change my harddisk since there seems to be no conflict with SATA support in FreeBSD. I'd like to know how one can derive if the mainboard supports a SATAII interface (I am not sure about backwards compatibility; I do not know the controller and I am stuck finding it out).

At the moment I use a noisy Toshiba Hornet A160 320GB, SATA (MHZ2320BJ) which would be replaced with an OCZ or Intel (recommendations are welcome, if any).


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## wblock@ (Aug 2, 2011)

dmesg(8) will show the current interface rate:

```
ada0: 300.000MB/s transfers (SATA 2.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
```


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## lokiseto (Sep 2, 2011)

*Commenced installation*

I am a bit puzzled, i tried to install on esata interface
and seemed to work, now exchanged with old hd
and install procedure stops after partitioning



I get the following error message

Installer on 'Commit' step shows
Unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev!
The creation of filesystems will be aborted.

the data of disk model
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2798/solidata_k5_64_slc_indilinx_solid_state_drive/index2.html

bios recognizes the ssd as indilinx

maybe related :\
also i experienced difficulties with several partitioning after slicing
one slice commited       worked
two FreebBsd             worked
three 2x FreeBsd 1x Dos  afterwards partitioning didn't work reported
some kind of size error

thanks in advance


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## wblock@ (Sep 3, 2011)

AFAIR, that can be caused by trying to install on a GPT disk.  If you have a GPT partitioning scheme, FreeBSD 9's installer will handle that.  FreeBSD-8's sysinstall only does MBR.

That error can also be caused by choosing "Write" in sysinstall instead of Quit.


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## lokiseto (Sep 4, 2011)

*So i will post verbatim what i did and didn't understand*

I read the first chapters about slicing partitioning using fdisk editor, seems fine to me

So i fumbled a bit with the slices and the install seems to work but only if i use
this configuration:

Disk name: ad4
Disk Geometry: 124053 cyls/16 heads/63 sectors = 125045424 sectors (61057MB)

Offset      Size(ST)   End   Name     PType       Desc   Subtype   Flags

0            34         33        -      12    unused         0                            
34                            ad4p1       5    unused         0          
162           tolazytotype    ad4p2       5    unused         0            
117440546                     ad4p3       5    unused         0            
123691042                         -       5    unused         0               

this configuration works
but if A is selected to use the entire disk the above posted error message
gets returned.
The p stands for parallel / partition ?
and ad4s1 for seriell or slice ?

and why does the install not work if not named ad4p1



BTW may there be an edit function in near future :r


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## lokiseto (Sep 4, 2011)

further notice
i did set the ad4p1 slice to bootable and changed the PType to 165


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## wblock@ (Sep 4, 2011)

Sorry, I'm lost.  Is this a single drive that will be for FreeBSD only?

s is for slice (what MS-DOS calls a partition)
p is a FreeBSD partition, a subdivision of a slice.

For that notebook and that SSD, I'd recommend FreeBSD 9, even though it's beta.


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## lokiseto (Sep 5, 2011)

*@wblock it's a single drive Solidata K5-64*

I use the FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201008-amd64-dvd.iso at the moment.

Procedure so far (don't know how to access the vty1 debug output):


choose default installation, language and the like

assuming the geometry is 124053/16/63 Solidata K5-64 64GB SLC
   The FDISK Partition Editor suggests the
   the previously posted table, whereby ad4p1 - 3 are not of correct 
   type PType is 5 and Description is unknown
   the last sectors 123691042 to 125045423 are unnamed "-" and unused
   when I convert it to a DOS partition (automatically named to ad4ps1 ?: )
   the install works fine, but i don't want it to be sliced that way

Whenever I press A and make the largest slice bootable FreeBSD installer returns 

```
Unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev!
The creation of filesystems will be aborted.
```

I would like to name the partitions myself but don't know how and what FreeBSD does during install, feedback for me is too sparse.


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## wblock@ (Sep 5, 2011)

If there isn't anything else on the disk, it makes it easier.  Actual screen output would help, I can't tell if you're using sysinstall or the new bsdinstaller.  It sounds like the old sysinstall, but FreeBSD-9 should use the new one.


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## lokiseto (Sep 5, 2011)

*i wanted to move completely to unix world with bsd*

therefore no windows on that disk
i will try to figure out a way to make screen output available

as mentioned i use the FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201008-amd64-dvd.iso
will read up on the installer

thanks wblock


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## wblock@ (Sep 5, 2011)

Aha.  It finally dawned on me that you're using a very old snapshot.  Get FreeBSD-9.0-BETA1-amd64-disc1.iso instead.  Yes, get the CD version instead of the DVD.


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## lokiseto (Sep 13, 2011)

*used the  FreeBSD-9.0-BETA2-amd64-dvd1.iso*

Currently I try to install some packages and get an overview

my NICs were found, so i tried to add packages over ftp
but somehow i cannot connect (tried some servers mostly primary ones and local)

unable to transfer the base distribution from
ftp1..
do you want to try to retrieve it again ?

Edit starts here
----------------------------------------------------------------------
So I will post whatever information about install procedure I can give


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## DutchDaemon (Sep 13, 2011)

Your post makes no sense. You're mixing base system and port/package terminology. Make sure you understand the crucial difference between the base system (FreeBSD) and third-party applications (ports/packages).


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## lokiseto (Sep 17, 2011)

*ports installation*

The system is running now and I want to install ports

I used a FreeBSD-9.0-BETA2-amd64-bootonly.iso that could connect
to some ftps during install process
After reboot and suggestion to change the Release Name to "any" 
(changing the ftp does not seem to work) i still cannot access data
The problem seems to occur during the attempt to fetch the 
packages/INDEX file from any ftp

------------------------------------
pkg_add -r xorg works though :r


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 17, 2011)

guessing.. 
	
	



```
cd /usr/ports && make fetchindex
```
  may help.


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## lokiseto (Sep 19, 2011)

How can one install ports from usb stick or cd
What configurations can be made without internet access ?
("driver installation" ?)


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## DutchDaemon (Sep 20, 2011)

Can you please ask questions dealing with specific topics in the sub-forum for that specific topic? This is slowly but surely becoming the longest, least focused, and most personal helpdesk thread in existence, it seems, and that's not how these forums work. Please ask ports questions in the Installation and Maintenance of FreeBSD Ports or Packages sub-forum, etcetera. Same for each future topic. I'm closing this thread now.

P.S, I have copied your ports question to the relevant subforum. Look for answers there.


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