some steps further
Hi again !
I'm sorry I couldn't post more information since I had to reinstall linux to get to the internet again and couldn't get the FreeBSD error messages neither.
Anyway :
- I managed to install Linux & FreeBSD in dual boot so it's more practical now to get to FreeBSD, try something, come back here etc.
If that could be of interest to anyone reading this post later, I first installed Linux (ubuntu studio 8.04). grub was installed as well during the installation. Then I installed FreeBSD, asking to leave the MBR untouched. Then in Linux, edited /boot/grub/menu.lst and added the lines (with tabs instead of spaces) :
title FreeBSD
root (hd0, 3, a)
kernel /boot/loader
the (hd0, 3, a) means :
3 = the 4th partition (4th slice on FreeBSD ?)
hd0 = on the 1st hard disk,
a = partition a (where / is mounted in FreeBSD)
- DHCP works properly (the messages disappear quickly but once logged in I can ping 192.168.1.1 and google.fr and some other websites + I can browse the internet with Firefox in KDE)
- I also had to add usbd_enabled="YES" to /etc/rc.conf to get the mouse working. Now it works and that's great !!
- I also managed to start kde (that was not so simple, I didn't understand first that to start KDE I had to start x using KDE as windows manager and that startkde didn't "embed" startx ; I also thought first that .xinitrc was only to get KDE started automatically at login ; well now the next step is to find how to get KDE started automatically at login but I don't ask any question about it now, I remember I've read something yesterday about kdm in the handbook so I'll read that again and if I don't manage to bring it to work, I'll come back here)
Now there are some other problems :
1°) I don't know how to deal with the acpi error messages during the boot. I tried to find information on the internet but I haven't found anything relevant for my problem. I don't know if booting FreeBSD with acpi disabled is enough (then I don't get the error messages of course but maybe there are undesirable consequences ?)
2°) There is an error message before login and I must ctrl-c it twice to get to the login. It comes obviously from sendmail and it's something about "My unqualified hostname". On the internet, I've found a zillion pages telling that I should check if the name of my machine (which is tezcatlipoca) is defined in the /etc/hosts file. So I checked and found that it wasn't ! OK, so I added the line but still, it didn't work. Actually, I don't know which IP address should match the name, maybe that's the problem. All websites tell that the line should be like "IP_address name name.domain.com" but I just have no idea what name.domain.com can be and I'm not so sure that tezcatlipoca is right as "name". I also found that the second mention (name.domain.com) can be omitted. Anyway I looked in the /etc/hosts of linux and found a line "127.0.1.1 tezcatlipoca" just under the classical "127.0.0.1 localhost". So I tried it in FreeBSD, it didn't work. I tried with the IP address of the computer (given by DHCP : 192.168.1.2) but it didn't work neither. (This second solution doesn't look good to me because I'm travelling sometimes and different boxes offer different default addresses, at home it's 192.168.1.2 but at other places it's 192.168.1.11 or more so if I use this solution, I must change the /etc/hosts file content everytime I get another IP address, isn't it ??). Another hint : someone wrote that it would be wise to ensure that /etc/hosts is used in name resolution. But I don't know how to do that. Finally I also wonder why sendmail is there because I don't need any mail server. But well, maybe it's needed by some other programm.
3°) Very minor problem : in twm, the keyboard is in qwerty again ! But I guess it's related to any config file and I intend to use KDE or if i can install it right, enlightenment. The keyboard seems OK in KDE.
Alright, that's enough for today, I spent some hours trying things, booting and rebooting...
And I tell quite a lot of things !! Sorry about that ! I'm quite happy to manage bringing my FreeBSD to work step by step...
Next steps I have to explore : [I do not ask any question about these steps for now]
- getting kdm to start automatically
- the sound card
- reading (mounting ?) my external USB hard drive which is formatted in ext3 (nothing happened when I plugged it in)
Have a nice day !
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