# Newbie thoughts



## tubbs (Jan 12, 2022)

After trying to transfer from ubuntu to freebsd l would like to share my personal experience. 

I really wanted to start using freebsd after reading about it. I work as a programmer and l have been using ubuntu for several years. 

1. Installation
something went wrong and l ended up with a black screen. Reinstalled and finally got it right.

2. Could not get networking up.

3. I did not manage to install and set up i3 window manager which is a must for me. 

4. Gave up cause it took too much time to get it working.

Got great support here on the forum and l wish that the whole user experience will be simpler from installation to setting up networking and the rest of the system in the future so that l can get it working


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## 3301 (Jan 12, 2022)

Black screen just after booting or running Xorg? As for networking, there may be some problems with 802.11ac Wi-fi cards. Were you checking hardware compatibility?


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 12, 2022)

If you followed the Handbook, you can get it up and running easily in 10 to 20 minutes. I run i3-wm for years along with gimp, firefox, postgresql as a programmer and web developer, too, and 30 minutes and I'm done. And I only do that once every so many years when I make hardware changes. (three months ago I did after five years since the last one.)

I understand people can stumble when trying to install. I have never been able to get Arch Linux or Gentoo in a decent state to make it worthwhile but I don't use gui installers or whatever they have. And I spent days trying. However, FreeBSD should be an easy set up even with the network issue you had.


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## jbo (Jan 12, 2022)

Hello tubbs,

Can you provide some more information regarding the problems you had with installing and setting up i3? I use i3 on FreeBSD successfully. In fact, it's one of the easiest to setup as far as I can tell. Is it possible that you were not facing problems with setting up i3 but rather xorg itself?
We'd be most likely to help accurately if you can share more information, details, error logs and so on.


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## any_name_you_wish (Jan 12, 2022)

tubbs said:


> After trying to transfer from ubuntu to freebsd


Just install it on virtualbox und use it there.  Then delete it and install it again.  And again.  And again.


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## kpedersen (Jan 12, 2022)

tubbs said:


> 4. Gave up cause it took too much time to get it working.


Absolutely nothing wrong with retreating for now but giving it another shot every couple of years or so as you gain more experience with UNIX-like platforms.

With Ubuntu, Try to get into the nitty gritty command line stuff as much as you can and that learning will be valuable for most POSIX platforms and be very transferable to FreeBSD.

10 years ago I sat at a piano and couldn't even play the simpsons theme tune. But now... well, urm.. I still can't... but that's not the point


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jan 12, 2022)

tubbs said:


> ...l wish that the whole user experience will be simpler from installation to setting up networking and the rest of the system in the future so that l can get it working











						Beginners Guide - How To Set Up A FreeBSD Desktop From Scratch
					

I'm going to guide you though the process of getting a fully functional FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE desktop up and running, complete with system files and security settings, step-by-step as if you've never used UNIX or the command line. Now let's get started:  Insert your boot media and at the Welcome...




					forums.freebsd.org


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## hbsd (Jan 12, 2022)

tubbs said:


> After trying to transfer from ubuntu to freebsd l would like to share my personal experience.
> 
> I really wanted to start using freebsd after reading about it. I work as a programmer and l have been using ubuntu for several years.
> 
> ...


Hi tubbs
1. If you find it difficult to use the handbook, use YouTube videos instead and read the manual later.
2. Use a wired connection to get started, and you can learn how to use a wireless connection when you learn how to set up the system and the network is connected.
3. Before installing i3 you have to install The X Window System. I use xorg and didn't work with wayland. you can install dmenu to find softwares easier. and then just try:
`cp /usr/local/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc`

and open .xinitrc with a text editor:
`nano ~/.xinitrc`

and put this command on it:
`exec i3`

now you can run a minimal i3 by typing:
`startx`

4. don't give up. take the time to do this...

A friend suggested you install FreeBSD in VirtualBox. I don't recommend this. I wiped my main operating system and forced myself to do all my work with FreeBSD. In that case, you may return to Ubuntu whenever you feel frustrated.
Good luck.


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## bobmc (Jan 13, 2022)

tubbs said:


> 4. Gave up cause it took too much time to get it working.


I too had some trouble to get FreeBSD running, mostly because I misinterpreted a few steps.  But the base system install only takes a few minutes so practising the procedure is no big deal. And I am guessing that many FreeBSD installs don't need a GUI because I think it is primarily a server.  Don't be disappointed because it is not Linux.

According to the Forum rules, it is only to help people with FreeBSD as-is.  Curiosity alone does not provide sufficient motivation to enjoy FreeBSD. You must have a specific goal that aligns with it's features.


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## chrbr (Jan 13, 2022)

tubbs said:


> 3. I did not manage to install and set up i3 window manager which is a must for me.


There has been an issue generating a proper configuration file using the i3 command. I am not sure if that has changed. The fix is just to copy the example i3 configuration file which should be somewhere in /usr/local/etc/i3/... or so. I do not know the exact location because I do not have x11-wm/i3 installed.


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## tubbs (Jan 20, 2022)

Thanks for all the input! Due to lack of time l nowadays resort to things that work out of the box not saying the freebsd dont. It just did not work for me and l dont have time for hours of config so l gave up this time. I will for sure try again since l can see that it is a great system.


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