Unix all over again; FreeBSD

[Praetorian]

Hello. I just setup a box running FreeBSD 5.0, and I'm having a bit of trouble getting this thing fully up and running as a desktop box.

Problem 1: Applications are extremely difficult to install throug the Ports. It appears most mirrors do not contain half of the files listed in the ports. I'm trying to install VIM, and out of gosh knows how many mirrors, I can't get the packges. None of them seem to contain the package. This isn't only with VIM, but with a number of other applications. Is there way to rebuild or create a list of known working mirrors? I did switch mirrors once, but it didn't seem to fix my problem.

Problem 2: I've installed the X server, as well as the other packages required to startx an X session (I think I've got everything), but when I type startx at the command line, it just sits there. X doesn not boot. If I type X the X server loads, but not a GUI (of course. I'm not giving it a WM/DE to load). I know the X server is not broken. I guessing I'm missing a simple package, and if I was to install that, then all of this would work.

Question...1: All of my hardware works at the moment, but say I was to add something. Do I modprobe or insmod the drivers as you would in Linux, or is there a different process?

Thanks in advance.

-Praetorian

[gothic]

I really dislike FreeBSD, and attempt to stay as far away from it as possible. But, for an answer to #1, I'd suggest you check out 'cvs-up' for updating the ports list. That way you can make sure you have the latest and greatest of what the mirrors have.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...ook/cvsup.html

[SpookyEddy]

Do I modprobe or insmod the drivers as you would in Linux, or is there a different process?

Traditionally most BSD systems used monolithic kernels afaik, however FreeBSD does now have support for loadable kernel modules. Have a look at the following link for some basic info......

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...asics-kld.html

The kld interface is used through the following privileged commands:

* kldload - loads a new kernel module
* kldunload - unloads a kernel module
* kldstat - lists the currently loaded modules

No idea how well it works as I don't use FreeBSD much.

Later

ed

[strangerstill]

How did the X server setup procedure go? Did you run xf86config from sysinstall? If not what happens when you try it now? I didn't install anything over the base config for X.

Re Vim: I installed it from binary, not from the ports collection but didn't have any trouble finding it. My primary mirror is ftp.uk.freebsd.org but the one that's guaranteed to have hat you need is of course ftp.freebsd.org.

[Praetorian]

Originally posted by gothic
I really dislike FreeBSD, and attempt to stay as far away from it as possible. But, for an answer to #1, I'd suggest you check out 'cvs-up' for updating the ports list. That way you can make sure you have the latest and greatest of what the mirrors have.

What's wrong with FreeBSD?
Thanks, I'll check out CVS-UP.

Thanks for the info Eddy.

I ran the graphical config for XFree86 at installation. It appeared to work fine. No problems. When I type startx, it just seems to sit there.

I gave up on VIM and just downloaded BSD 4.4's implementation of VI, called NVI.

[Praetorian]

Okay, I ran CVS-UP and most of my mirrors work now. I've installed VIM and XFree86 does start, but it takes forever to do so. Also, the colors are messed up.