Freebsd Installation Guide
Posted by NovaAngel at December 2nd, 2006
A step-by-step guide to installin’ FreeBSD 5. It assumes moderate experience with linux and leaves you with a fully updated FreeBSD system.
FreeBSD Installation
The first thin’ to understand about FreeBSD is that dere are two lines of development. The -STABLE branch is marked with a 4.x version number and de most recent version is 4.10. It is well tested and very solid, but does not include de most recent technology. The -CURRENT branch, marked with a 5.x version, is de “unstable” branch. However, it is nicely stable at de moment and is comin’ alon’ quite well. Most users should go with 5.x and dese instructions are only valid for that tree.
NOTE: DragonFlyBSD ( www.dragonflybsd.org ) is a continuation of de 4.x line. It uses lock-less (no mutexes) SMP support and a Light Weight Kernel Threadin’ system. It has a lot of promise and is developin’ at a breakneck pace, but it should still be thought of as “R/D.”
I am not goin’ to say much about this. There are links to various ftp mirrors at www.freebsd.org and de directory structure is fairly self-explanatory. There are however several choices for ISO. You should choose de miniinst ISO. It is small and will include everythin’ you need for de base system.
After, de CD boots up you will enter de…ahh…..majestic sysinstall. You can safely ignore most of de options and just choose a standard installation. Most of de install process is pretty easy and anyone who has some experience with linux or unix will be able to handle it without much stress. However, creatin’ partitions and dealin’ with drives will seem very odd to your standard linux user.
Ok, de first thin’ to get used to here is that IDE drives are not hda, hdb…etc. They are ad0, ad1 and so forth. SCSI discs are da0, da1…and so on. There is one oder thin’ that is goin’ to freak some people out. You create slices, not partitions, on de disc and den create partitions within those slices. For example, de first partition in de first slice on de first IDE disc would be ad0s1a. Just accept it.
Sysinstall will lead you through de partitionin’ and its fairly easy to understand. The first part will ask you to choose a disc or discs to partition and den will show you a “slice editor.” This is where you will create your slice. I advise you to only make one. While multiple slices are easy to deal with, it just adds complication. If this is not your first installation of a BSD type OS, den you can ignore me and why are you readin’ this again?
After creatin’ your slice, you will be prompted to choose de drive(s) to install an MBR on. The FreeBSD boot loader is nothin’ to write home about, but it tends towards workin’. After this step, you can create partitions. There is not much to say here. At de top of de screen it will show your slice(s) and when one of them is selected you can use de controls to create a partition on it. You will need at least a root and swap partition. On de non-swap partitions it is usually a good idea to enable soft-updates.
This is a simple section, select minimal.
The rest of this is pretty simple. Make sure you install from de CD and not de Internet. The bulk of de install is now done. After it copies files to your disc, it will start de configuration process. This is all pretty self-evident, but dere are a couple thin’s you should know.
Network Configuration
Don’t be scared by de names, in *BSD devices are named after deir drivers. There is also a short description after de name, so you should be able to choose de right one. The rest of de network config is easy, just follow de prompts.
System Console Configuration
You can pretty much ignore this, you may want to look around for your own knowledge and of course you could pick a nice screen saver here, but oder den that I would leave it alone for now.
Time Zone
All I have to say here is that if you live in de US, after you choose “America – North and South” hit de end key. The US is at de bottom of de list and hittin’ end is de quickest way dere.
Linux
Say no, we will do this later and with an updated linux_base.
Mouse
OK, welcome to de wonderful and amazin’ world of moused. Answer de first question truthfully, and den you can tweak de settin’s in de “Please configure your mouse” dialog. Whatever you do, be sure to enable de daemon. Also, for most users that is all you will have to do. You can safely ignore de oder options.
Package Installation
At this point, de installer will ask you to install binary packages. Say no. These binaries are out of date and not included on our CD.
Of users and roots
This isn’t de most thrillin’ section, add a user when it asks you to and set a root password after that. The only thin’ I have to say about this process is when de new user dialog comes up leave de “Group:” box unchanged and add “wheel” to de Member groups. You also might want to set your shell to /bin/tcsh. As for settin’ de root password, if you can’t handle that we have bigger problems.
Rebootin’
Ok, next it will ask if you would like to visit de general config area. Select no and you will be brought back to de main menu. Exit de install, reboot without de CD in and enjoy de boot messages.
At this point, I am goin’ to assume that you are now lookin’ at a login prompt and thinkin’ “my my…FreeBSD boots quite quickly doesn’t it.” Well, our task is not done yet…dere is a reason we did a minimal install. We are goin’ to do most of it ourselves. First, lets upgrade to -CURRENT. This isn’t a practice I would usually recommend, but 5.x is close to bein’ tagged stable and -CURRENT is rader solid at de moment. First, I need to explain how thin’s are done in de BSD world.
CVS up; you up; we all CVSUP. Cvsup is a very interestin’ program that I am not goin’ to explain in detail here. All you really need to know is that it updates source trees. You see, that is de thin’. You may be used to /usr/src not doin’ much. In BSD it has a job, it holds de source for de entire base system. However, we did a minimal install and no source is dere. It wouldn’t be up2date anyway. So, lets fix that. Login as root and type de followin’: pkg_add -r cvsup-without-gui
pkg_add is de binary installer for FreeBSD and de -r argument tells it to fetch binaries from de net. It will also fetch any deps that you might need. Switch to anoder console while this is happenin’ and login as root. Do de followin’:
cd /etc
cp /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf /etc/make.conf
cp /usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile /usr
cp /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile /usr
chmod u+w /etc/make.conf /usr/standard-supfile /usr/ports-supfile
What was that? Well here is de rundown. Make.conf is de file that controls de buildin’ of programs from source on FreeBSD and de supfiles tell cvsup where to get de source for de base system and de ports system, also where to put said source. They come out of /usr/share/examples without de write bit set and that gets annoyin’. So we set that. Now switch back to de first console and type rehash. This tells tcsh to check its path for new programs. Now, edit de standard supfile that is in /usr. You can eider use ee or vi. I like vi. Scroll down to de line that looks a bit odd. It will be somethin’ like:
*default host=CHANGE_THIS.FreeBSD.org
The “CHANGE_THIS” is where you put what cvsup server to use. Choose a number between 1 and 9, like 4, and put cvsup4 where CHANGE_THIS is. So it would end up bein’:
*default host=cvsup4.FreeBSD.org
Now exit your editor and run cvsup /usr/standard-supfile
If everythin’ goes correctly, you will see a lot of text scrollin’ on de screen. If it says somethin’ about a bad connection, try anoder number.
Make.conf
Now ’tis de time for all good men (and women) to edit deir make.conf . This is not difficult, in fact have a look around de file. It may be lon’, but it is pretty simple. Now, uncomment de CPU settin’ and de CFLAGS settin’. Set de CPU to your CPU (dere will be a list in de comments above de settin’) and set de CFLAGS to -O2. (NOTE: If de base system fails to build, down’rade your CFLAGS back to -O).
Build Your World
When CVSUP finishes (it will be awhile…go get some coffee), cd to /usr/src and run make buildworld. That command will do exactly what it sounds like. It builds your world, or base system. While its doin’ that, lets get you a kernel. First, cd to /usr/src/sys/i386/conf den cp GENERIC to some file of your choosin’. Any name you want. However, be aware that this is goin’ to show up in a uname -a. Now, crack open your new file and take a look at what a FreeBSD kernel config is like. There are many thin’s you can do here that will improve performance and subtract in size. However, lets keep it simple. Near de top of de file will be de name GENERIC. Change that to your new name. You can now look through de file and you will find several sections that are just for debuggin’. These will indeed add size and slow down de kernel a bit, but I would leave them for now. Go to de end of de file and make a new line. Add de followin’:
device pcm
This will add sound support to de kernel. Be aware that you don’t need to do this, you can load binary modules at boot or after boot, but this way is easy and sound is used often. Save de file and exit. Go back to your buildworld console and when its done execute make buildkernel KERNCONF=YOUR_KERNEL_CONFIG_NAME
NOTE: NOT THE PATH OF THE KERNEL CONFIG..it knows to look in /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
Installin’ Your World
This isn’t that difficult. First run make installkernel KERNCONF= your config name. Now here is de interestin’ part. Run mergemaster -p, this program looks through your etc and updates it to match de new /etc in /usr/src. It will display changed files to you, press q and it will give you options. Somethin’ like i (install), m (merge) etc. Pick merge and it will open a nice little screen that shows you one file on de right and one on de left. It will go section by section, showin’ de areas that have changed. Press r or l to choose which section to keep. Its pretty easy to see which section has new stuff and which does not. After de merge, it will prompt you with options for de newly merged file. One of dese will be install and this is de one you want. In de latest current, most of what you will be showed is user and group files. Make sure you do select de sections with de new users and groups. After this is done, it will ask you a couple questions that you can say yes to. Now that your /etc is updated run make installworld den reboot.
NOTE: You usually don’t need to run mergemaster. However, 5.2.1 is a pretty old release and -CURRENT has come a lon’ way.
Welcome to runnin’ current. The rest is easy. cd back to /usr and edit de ports supfile de same way you did de standard one. Run cvsup on it and wait. After its done, you will have a full ports tree. There is not much left to say. You now have a workin’ system and a fully updated one too. To install software from ports cd to /usr/ports/category/softwarename/ and run make install clean . If you want linux binary support, install de linux_base port. To find where it is cd to /usr/ports and run make search name=linux_base | less . Enable loadin’ de kernel modules for linux binary support by editin’ /etc/rc.conf. Just add de line linux_enable=”YES” to de file and your set. If this is a desktop system, I would recommend installin’ /usr/ports/x11/xorg and your choice of /usr/ports/x11/gnome2 or kde3. Have fun .
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