# i install, i login, then nothing



## sseipel133 (Oct 8, 2009)

I installed freebsd 7.2 today. After rebooting I got a black screen that said login. I logged in and I still had a black screen with a $, like a terminal. But the only things I could do from it was login and reboot. I had some welcome notice telling me about freebsd.org. No desktop or anything. Any ideas about what went wrong? When installing(which I tried twice) I was not able to get some packages including xorg. This was a dvd I got from linuxcd.org.


----------



## noobster (Oct 8, 2009)

That's how it's supposed to be. Read the handbook and especially this.


----------



## vivek (Oct 8, 2009)

You need to type commands. For example, display date and time:

```
date
```
To see files

```
ls
```
To move around

```
cd /etc
ls
```

You need to read handbook and may be get UNIX command books that explains commands and shell scripting for starters.

Good luck!


----------



## graudeejs (Oct 8, 2009)

list of some programs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_commands

Note: Now all are installed by default


----------



## dennylin93 (Oct 9, 2009)

For People New to Both FreeBSD and UNIX is a nice place to start.


----------



## sseipel133 (Oct 9, 2009)

I tried to get xorg. Here is the result:
error: FTP unable to get ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/freebsd/ports/amd64-package7.2-release/latest/xorg.tbz:no address record
pkg_add:unable to fetch"ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/freebsd/ports/amd64/package-7.2-release/latest/xorg.tbz" by url
What is wrong?


----------



## sseipel133 (Oct 10, 2009)

*setting up the nameserver*

Is there just supposed to be one? My isp gave me two and I've always used them both when setting up a connection. When installing freebsd I was not allowed to use both. Dhcp does not work on the computer we now have so I always have to set it up.


----------



## dennylin93 (Oct 10, 2009)

Edit /etc/resolv.conf.

This is what mine looks like:

```
search domain.tld
nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 168.95.1.1
nameserver 140.131.149.9
```


----------



## dennylin93 (Oct 10, 2009)

It should be ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.2-release/Latest/xorg.tbz.


----------



## DutchDaemon (Oct 10, 2009)

But 'no address record', of course, denotes the absence of resolving. I pulled the separate question of OP (different thread) in here.


----------



## aragon (Oct 10, 2009)

sseipel133 said:
			
		

> I installed freebsd 7.2 today. After rebooting I got a black screen that said login. I logged in and I still had a black screen with a $, like a terminal. But the only things I could do from it was login and reboot. I had some welcome notice telling me about freebsd.org. No desktop or anything. Any ideas about what went wrong?



FreeBSD forum admins - we need a sticky of the funniest posts ever made here.

:e


----------



## lme@ (Oct 10, 2009)

We shouldn't make fun of new users. While it may seem funny to old BSD veterans, this is a very usual problem that new FreeBSD users face.
So, welcome to FreeBSD, sseipel133! You should read the handbook so you can have a lot of fun with our favourite OS.


----------



## SeanC (Oct 10, 2009)

aragon said:
			
		

> FreeBSD forum admins - we need a sticky of the funniest posts ever made here.
> 
> :e



I always find this type of post funny because it is exactly the same response *I* had when I first came to FreeBSD! 

Welcome sseipel133! Read up and ask questions!


----------



## MrJake (Oct 12, 2009)

ye sseipel133 welcome to freebsd. i made the move about 3 days ago and im loving it. but im not using it as a workstation but server enviroment. I never tried freebsd as workstation. i once did ubuntu but ended always going back in windows because im to much of a game addict and trans gaming or wine was not giving me very good results with half the games i play.
but if you intend to you freebsd as a work station then I really strongly suggest you crack open that handbook. Its really a bible of goodies. In just 3 days of reading it i able with aragon's help to install freebsd over linux using my swap partition on a server with no optical drives or usb boot capabilities then once freebsd was install I recompiled the kernel to make it slim and pretty and all that because of people kind enough to endure me like aragon and this beautiful handbook.

I also discovered the freebsdwiki which has nice goodies there also. But crack open the handbook and let us know about your experience. Mine up to now is facinating


----------



## sseipel133 (Oct 14, 2009)

Any more bright ideas before I give up?

If unable to get address means there's a problem with the freebsd site, someone else would have noticed besides me. If it means my connection is not right, I can't do anything about that. I just did what I could during installation. Edit /etc/resolv.conf did nothing. Command not found or whatever the BSD term is.
I was trying freebsd because I heard a lot of good reports about it. It can do about anything, there are so many thousands of ports, most linux applications can run on bsd, etc. What good is an operating system if all I can get is a command line and nothing else?


----------



## richardpl (Oct 14, 2009)

It is obvious that you dont care to learn anything about FreeBSD and UNIX in particular. So please stick with PC-BSD.


----------



## SirDice (Oct 14, 2009)

sseipel133 said:
			
		

> Edit /etc/resolv.conf did nothing. Command not found or whatever the BSD term is.


Edit /etc/rc.conf means use whatever editor you have or know how to use. Editors like ee or vi are in the base, there's also vim, joe, nano and a few others in the ports.


----------



## sverreh (Oct 14, 2009)

> Edit /etc/resolv.conf did nothing. Command not found or whatever the BSD term is.



When dennylin93 wrote "Edit /etc/resolv.conf" he meant that you should edit the file /etc/resolv.conf, not that this is a FreeBSD-command. So you should edit the file in an editor like vi, or, if you don't know vi, try ee.

```
vi /etc/resolv.conf
```
or

```
ee /etc/resolv.conf
```


----------



## GPF (Oct 14, 2009)

Or just simply type


```
edit /etc/resolv.conf
```

After you make your changes, ctrl+c and type "exit"

There's another way to setup your networking through "sysinstall"

As root, type 
	
	



```
sysinstall
```

Then go to, configure, then networking, then interfaces.
This should get you with a list of hardware devices. If you have already made a list of your hardware, you should be able to spot which one you should try out. For example on my desktop i have this -> "nvidia ncforce mcp ethernet" Pick the right one or just brute force them until something works 

Now we have a different screen (choose no for ipv6 support & dchp) Put w/e you want as Host and for starters try your router's(?) ip addr as IPv4 Gateway and Name Server. Assuming you have a router, your ISP should have given you its ip addr which should be something like "192.168.1.1". You can then choose your own internal ip addr when talking to the router.

If what I'm saying so far makes sense to you, try this layout:
Host: my_pc
domain: (none)
IPv4 Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Name Server: 192.168.1.1
IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.10
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
options: (none)

Reboot. You can tell if it's working if you can ping http://www.google.com and get a response.

The reason freebsd isn't like ubuntu which sets up a window manager and x server during installation, is that FreeBSD is used heavily as a server platform by sys/admins who don't really need it.

Hope this helps.


----------



## sseipel133 (Oct 20, 2009)

Those of you who have given advice to try to help, thank you. I was not able to "Edit /etc/resolv.conf" as it was "read only". I ended up installing freebsd all over again. This time the results were different, even though I set up the internet connection the same as before. I don't know why that would be, but I was able to fetch xorg. 
I typed startx and it did indeed start, with two terminals. I had no mouse or keyboard response and had to restart to get out of it. I gather that that is a common problem since I saw the "sticky" topic about it. I could not get to /etc/rc.conf to enable hal; permission was denied. I'm not sure if I was able to get gnome since about every other message about "fetching" says "failed!" and I haven't yet gotten beyond "startx."


----------



## sseipel133 (Oct 20, 2009)

richarpl: Your judgment of me is wrong. If I didn't want to learn BSD, why would I have come to this forum? I would have just abandoned freebsd and used linux or desktopbsd. I have found that pcbsd doesn't have much hardware support, desktopbsd is better in that regard.


----------



## Beastie (Oct 21, 2009)

You need to be root to edit all of these files. Type `% su`, then root's password, then ee/vi followed by the conf file path.

Be sure to check the appropriate section of the handbook. You may need to create a /etc/xorg.conf file and modify its contents.


----------



## richardpl (Oct 21, 2009)

sseipel133 said:
			
		

> richarpl: Your judgment of me is wrong. If I didn't want to learn BSD, why would I have come to this forum? I would have just abandoned freebsd and used linux or desktopbsd. I have found that pcbsd doesn't have much hardware support, desktopbsd is better in that regard.


If you want to learn BSD, and you dont know absolutely nothing about UNIX, then read Handbook and documentation several times, including any other books for FreeBSD.
PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are based on same OS so hardware support is same as OS they are based on.


----------



## kpedersen (Oct 21, 2009)

sseipel133 said:
			
		

> ... I had some welcome notice telling me about freebsd.org. No desktop or anything...



Who says FreeBSD is not user-friendly? OpenBSD doesn't give you a welcome notice by default


----------



## LateNiteTV (Oct 21, 2009)

you need to add yourself to the wheel group to be able to su.


----------



## lme@ (Oct 22, 2009)

sseipel133 said:
			
		

> richarpl: Your judgment of me is wrong. If I didn't want to learn BSD, why would I have come to this forum? I would have just abandoned freebsd and used linux or desktopbsd. I have found that pcbsd doesn't have much hardware support, desktopbsd is better in that regard.



Actually DesktopBSD and PCBSD are based on FreeBSD 7.2, so the hardware support should be the same.
However, DesktopBSD is a dead project, the latest release is also the very last release, so you're more or less on a dead end street. OTOH you can upgrade the underlying FreeBSD as if it was a just a plain vanilla FreeBSD.
At the moment there's an alpha version of PCBSD 8 which you could try. There should be a PCBSD 8 release version just after FreeBSD 8.0 is released.
But PCBSD hides a lot of internal stuff from you, so if you really want to learn FreeBSD, how its components work together and how to configure them, take your time to read the handbook, or "Absolute FreeBSD" (ISBN 1593271514).


----------



## LateNiteTV (Oct 22, 2009)

i thought desktopbsd development was starting back up...?


----------



## lme@ (Oct 24, 2009)

Do you have any more information on that?
On desktopbsd.net it states:


> This is the last and final release of the DesktopBSD project. I find myself having less and less time to spare lately and no longer desire to keep developing and maintaining this project. However, because DesktopBSD is based entirely on FreeBSD, further support for the operating system and availability of up-to-date software for DesktopBSD 1.7 is ensured.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who helped prepare this release!


----------



## inurneck (Jan 11, 2010)

Makes me sad. I guess he gave up eh. I remember how intimidating UNIX was when I first started. I wanted it so bad but didnt have the knowledge yet. redhat and mandrake. Getting x going was my main problem too. That big black X for the mouse cursor on a 640x480 non flat screen CRT. Hard drive making grinding noises. Ugly. Course; my computer was a cross between a commodore 64 and a grapefruit. I didnt give up. started with linux and I was so excited. Then I tried FreeBSD when I got tired of linux and mostly realized what it really was. I didnt want a clone I wanted as close as I could get to the real thing. I got the excitement all over again times 10 with FreeBSD. Truth is though most people should not try FreeBSD as their first *NIX experience. Hopefully this guy didn't give up and he will be back here in a year or so. If you are still around let us know how your doing id be glad to help. Not gonna lie though when I seen: "I install, I login, Then nothing!" I clicked cause i was like wait he doesnt mean. Oh damn.. lol.


----------

