# New to FreeBSD, Just a few general questions.



## Dissident85 (Aug 28, 2009)

Hi all, I am a native Linux user but I thought I would give FreeBSD ago. I have successfully installed it onto a VM without any problems and so far I am happy with it. But I am about to install 8.0-Beta3 onto my laptop and before I end up with a useless system I had a few questions.

I have heard that FreeBSD does not have support for some of the latest hardware. My laptop is about a year old (dell xps m1330), so I would think that the hardware would be supported is there a place where I can check what hardware is supported by the kernel? While reading through the Wireless networking page in the Handbook It told me to check wlan man page to check if the drivers for my card are available, but I can't find my card. It's a Intel 4965AGN. From what I have read it only has support for the 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG cards.

Secondly, the ports system. I have played around with it briefly and from what I understand it works a bit like the gentoo emerge package manager? by downloading the source and compiling it for you and resolving all the dependences? I am installing gnome2 now on my VM and it has been going for ages. I'm assuming that's because it is compiling everything. Is that correct? Also is there a way to check the download size required before stating the install? 

I think that is about it, well they are the 2 big things that I need to know to get a system up and running, the rest I'll work out as I go along. 

If anyone knows of any good docs other than the handbook that could help me, it would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks in advance.
dissident85


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## Dissident85 (Aug 28, 2009)

Sorry so post again, but I couldn't find a edit button. 
I was just reading through another thread and I came across this


			
				Voltar said:
			
		

> However you may be better off with i386 if you want nVidia driver support, or if you don't have a lot of RAM.


I was about to use the AMD64 version. Is that correct? If i want to use my nVidia card I have to use the i368 iso?


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## Voltar (Aug 28, 2009)

Dissident85 said:
			
		

> Sorry so post again, but I couldn't find a edit button.
> I was just reading through another thread and I came across this
> 
> I was about to use the AMD64 version. Is that correct? If i want to use my nVidia card I have to use the i368 iso?



There are no nVidia drivers for AMD64 yet, only i386. Most of the work that needed to be done for the 64 bit drivers has been completed in 8-CURRENT, I believe. 

But for now, if you want full use of your gfx card, and you're running a desktop I would suggest i386.


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## fronclynne (Aug 28, 2009)

iwn(4) should take care of your first question.  Wireless setup on FreeBSD (unless you're running gnome or something (I don't, so I can't be too sure)) tends to be a bit more "hands on".

As for the second: no, there is no good way to tell before-hand how much will need to be downloaded without good guesswork.  You can use such targets as fetch-recursive-list (all possible targets are listed in /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk).  Unfortunately, it lists all of the possible mirrors for every file, so it is hard to read.


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## Dissident85 (Aug 28, 2009)

Voltar said:
			
		

> There are no nVidia drivers for AMD64 yet, only i386. Most of the work that needed to be done for the 64 bit drivers has been completed in 8-CURRENT, I believe.
> 
> But for now, if you want full use of your gfx card, and you're running a desktop I would suggest i386.



ok, thanks luckily I came across this thread. I would of been ripping out my hair out for ages on this one.

Do you know of a release date on the stable version of 8?


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## Voltar (Aug 28, 2009)

As far as compiling everything goes, you can choose to use packages also. Sometimes packages are a bit behind ports, so if you want the latest and greatest (ha!), or want to custom compile everything, ports is the way to go.

Check out the handbook section on ports: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/ports.html


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## Voltar (Aug 28, 2009)

Dissident85 said:
			
		

> Do you know of a release date on the stable version of 8?



It is unknown at this time I believe, you may want to keep an eye on http://wiki.freebsd.org/8.0TODO to see if the schedule changes.


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## fronclynne (Aug 28, 2009)

*nvidia information given could be out of date at any time*



			
				Dissident85 said:
			
		

> I was about to use the AMD64 version. Is that correct? If i want to use my nVidia card I have to use the i368 iso?


If you want to use the nvidia binary driver, you have to run i386.  I'm not sure about the state of the open-source driver, but if you need 3D accel, you'll probably have to run i386 right now.

amd64 (as thousands of threads will attest) is really only useful if you are:
going to have more than 3.2G of memory
(or)
running zfs()
or
(perhaps)
using some nifty numper-crunchin' software that finds pigs in space

HTH


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## Dissident85 (Aug 28, 2009)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> iwn(4) should take care of your first question.  Wireless setup on FreeBSD (unless you're running gnome or something (I don't, so I can't be too sure)) tends to be a bit more "hands on".
> 
> As for the second: no, there is no good way to tell before-hand how much will need to be downloaded without good guesswork.  You can use such targets as fetch-recursive-list (all possible targets are listed in /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk).  Unfortunately, it lists all of the possible mirrors for every file, so it is hard to read.



Thanks for that, I was thinking of using OpenBox, I have just come over from Gentoo I like putting my systems together bit by bit, so it's not blooded and just the way I like it. 



			
				Voltar said:
			
		

> As far as compiling everything goes, you can choose to use packages also. Sometimes packages are a bit behind ports, so if you want the latest and greatest (ha!), or want to custom compile everything, ports is the way to go.
> 
> Check out the handbook section on ports: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/ports.html



Using packages is that using the pkg_add command? for example 

```
pkg_add -r packageName
```
But as i said above i think ill stick to the ports system and compile everything so that it "the latest and greatest" and configured the way I like it. I don't mind compiling everything. it was just that i was doing it in a VM and from previous experiences with the emerge package system it can take days to get a working system.


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## Dissident85 (Aug 28, 2009)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> If you want to use the nvidia binary driver, you have to run i386.  I'm not sure about the state of the open-source driver, but if you need 3D accel, you'll probably have to run i386 right now.
> 
> amd64 (as thousands of threads will attest) is really only useful if you are:
> going to have more than 3.2G of memory
> ...



hahaha, Well I do have 4gb of ram. But I hardly ever use it all, only when I am running 2 or 3 vms. And I do need 3D acceleration as I play games on my laptop. I'll just stick to the i386 version for now and wait for nVidia drivers to become available.

Also while I am here, is there any framebuffer options in v8-beta3?


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## Dissident85 (Aug 28, 2009)

Voltar said:
			
		

> It is unknown at this time I believe, you may want to keep an eye on http://wiki.freebsd.org/8.0TODO to see if the schedule changes.





> FreeBSD 8.0 is in beta-testing, with an estimated release date of mid-September.



That's not to bad, givs me time to get to know the system, screw it up. Then start fresh when it comes out


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## SirDice (Aug 28, 2009)

Dissident85 said:
			
		

> Also while I am here, is there any framebuffer options in v8-beta3?



You can change the resolution of the console but that's about it.


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## tangram (Aug 28, 2009)

Dissident85 said:
			
		

> Hi all, I am a native Linux user but I thought I would give FreeBSD ago. I have successfully installed it onto a VM without any problems and so far I am happy with it. But I am about to install 8.0-Beta3 onto my laptop and before I end up with a useless system I had a few questions.
> 
> I have heard that FreeBSD does not have support for some of the latest hardware. My laptop is about a year old (dell xps m1330), so I would think that the hardware would be supported is there a place where I can check what hardware is supported by the kernel? While reading through the Wireless networking page in the Handbook It told me to check wlan man page to check if the drivers for my card are available, but I can't find my card. It's a Intel 4965AGN. From what I have read it only has support for the 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG cards.



http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=38355&postcount=3



> Secondly, the ports system. I have played around with it briefly and from what I understand it works a bit like the gentoo emerge package manager? by downloading the source and compiling it for you and resolving all the dependences? I am installing gnome2 now on my VM and it has been going for ages. I'm assuming that's because it is compiling everything. Is that correct? Also is there a way to check the download size required before stating the install?



http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html


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## aragon (Aug 28, 2009)

Ah, I see you have good tastes in hardware.  I am running an XPS M1330 with FreeBSD 8.0 and everything works wonderfully!  The only difference is mine has Intel graphics and I run AMD64.


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## Dissident85 (Aug 30, 2009)

aragon said:
			
		

> Ah, I see you have good tastes in hardware.  I am running an XPS M1330 with FreeBSD 8.0 and everything works wonderfully!  The only difference is mine has Intel graphics and I run AMD64.



That's what I thought as well when I brought it. But the design of the M1330 is shocking. In my M1330 I have had to replace the nVidia GeForce 8400M GS because it over headed and burned out the GPU, which also warped the underside of it. I have had to replace the battery because I started to get about half an hour battery time. and I also had to replace the power adaptor because it broke. Luckily this all happened within the first year of owning it. so Dell replaced it under warranty. well except for the battery. So now I am looking into replacing it with the Alienware M17x (for gaming) and getting a EEEPC for a portable system.


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## aragon (Aug 31, 2009)

Sorry to hear of your misfortune!  Mine's been flawless...


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## Dissident85 (Aug 31, 2009)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> iwn(4) should take care of your first question.


I thought  I would come back and post this, in case anyone else has the same problem, while reading through the handbook on the page Finding the System Hardware it suggests passing the -k flag to man(1) fallowed by the name of your hardware device and it provides a list of list of manual pages which contain that particular word.

```
# man -k 4965AGN
iwn(4)		- Intel Wireless Wifi Link 4965AGN IEEE 802.11n driver
#
```



			
				aragon said:
			
		

> Sorry to hear of your misfortune!  Mine's been flawless...


I think it might be a flaw in the nVidia card, or the cooling of it... I have a mate who has almost the exact setup as mine but without the nVidia GeForce 8400M GS. And except for the poor battery performance they haven't had any problems


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