Exploring FreeBSD

For the past few days, I’ve been running FreeBSD on VirtualBox to try and see if it can be a viable replacement for a desktop OS. So far, it’s been mostly smooth with a few bumps here and there.

Installation

I used FreeBSD-10.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso which can be downloaded from here. The installer was pretty straightforward except when I got to the last part, I kept getting an Abort error.

It turns out that in the Errata section, the first bullet point states:

FreeBSD/i386 10.0-RELEASE running as a guest operating system on VirtualBox can have a problem with disk I/O access.

I needed to follow the instructions provided to get FreeBSD installed.

To disable it, choose Escape to loader prompt in the boot menu and enter the following lines from loader(8) prompt, after an OK:

set vfs.unmapped_buf_allowed=0
boot

Note that the following line has to be added to /boot/loader.conf after a boot. It disables unmapped I/O at every boot:

vfs.unmapped_buf_allowed=0

For more info, check this question I posted on StackExchange.

After installation, I boot into a command line environment where I am able to log-in to FreeBSD.

Software Management

As a long time Linux user, I am used to package management. I am happy to find out that FreeBSD comes with not just one way to manage your software, but 2: via binary packages and via Ports.

Binary packages can be installed using the command line with the pkg command. I’m sure most Linux users will feel at home with installing binary packages. The Ports Collection consists of software that need to be compiled from source and then installed. But FreeBSD really makes it easy to do so; just go to the directory of the Port you want to install and type the command make install clean.

More info about installing applications can be found here.

Setting up the GUI

Since the base installation of FreeBSD doesn’t come with a graphical user interface (environment), I had to install one. It all starts with the installation of the display server Xorg or X11.

For the desktop GUI I decided to go with Gnome2, the very first desktop environment I used when I gave Ubuntu a go way back in 2006.

There’s also KDE and XFCE so choose which tickles your fancy. There are a whole lot more in the Ports Collection but I didn’t want to compile a desktop environment because I wanted to get up and running as quickly as possible with FreeBSD.

The FreeBSD Handbook has a great writeup for getting the X Window System set up.

VirtualBox Guest Additions

I don’t know if the VirtualBox Guest Additions ISO comes with a way to install the guest drivers for FreeBSD. I found this wiki entry for installing Guest Additions for FreeBSD guests which I followed (and it worked). I suggest you do the same if you have FreeBSD as a guest in VirtualBox.

Note that I needed to change the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manually for the vboxvideo_drv and vboxmouse_drv sections to get a decent resolution and have mouse integration on.

Conclusion

That’s how far I’ve come for now. I plan to spend more time using FreeBSD. So far I like what I’m experiencing. If you’ve installed and used vanilla Arch Linux before then the feeling is somewhat similar with installing and using FreeBSD. You take control on how to shape your system.

The pkg command in FreeBSD is similar to that of pacman for Arch; the Ports Collection in FreeBSD is similar to that of AUR for Arch. The FreeBSD Handbook has served me well so far, just like Arch’s Wiki has. Really, if you’re using Arch Linux, then FreeBSD will be comfortable for you.

Of course, there are some things I still haven’t wrapped my head around, most specifically the naming of devices.

The experience is mostly positive for now and I’m happy that I got FreeBSD working as I expect it to. But the thing is, this is running in a virtual environment and I don’t know if it will also work when installed on real hardware most especially the networking side of things. I’m still waiting for my old laptop to be back from repairs so till then, I will be testing in VirtualBox.

UPDATE (2014-09-28):

I couldn't get FreeBSD up and running with X11 on my repaired ThinkPad T60. So I guess it will stay in VirtualBox on my desktop PC until I find a machine to run it on.

END UPDATE

Thanks for reading and happy Unixing.

How I Got My Wifi Running Consistently on PC-BSD 8.0

Had a hard time looking for the way to setup Wifi on my PC-BSD 8.0 installation. After much navigation, I found it nestled within System Settings -> System Network Configuration.

So I did my configuration here and expected Wifi to connect instantly with no problems. And it connected, for at least 5 mins. then it cut-off and after a few seconds it connected again only to disconnect after 20 secs. (or less). In other words, it was giving me intermittent connection.

Dual-Boot Ubuntu and PC-BSD - Part 3: Post Installation and Final Thoughts

So it's early in the morning and finally everything is installed. I don't know exactly if they will work as expected, though.

First boot - Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
The first boot for Ubuntu was as I expected it to be having installed it 2 times prior to this feat. On a fresh install, after setting up the WiFi connection, the Update Manager instantly kicked in presenting me with a whooping 224MB worth of updates. It took close to an hour to get all these updates to install before I went about and did the routine checking if sound worked, setting the display resolution, installing packages, etc. Since I am fairly familiar with Ubuntu, I didn't have a hard time navigating around the system.

Dual-Boot Ubuntu and PC-BSD - Part 2: Installation

After creating the necessary partitions for the 2 *nix OSes, Ubuntu 10.04LTS and PC-BSD 8.0, I proceed with the installation.

Installing Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
As I am more experienced in installing Ubuntu, having done so many times in the past, it was not really hard to get it installed to the first primary partition on the disk. I ran the live USB I created and clicked the install to hard disk option in the desktop. I subdivided the 1st primary partition further to different mounts, namely: /, /home and swap as is my practice when I install Ubuntu (and I don't exactly know why). The installation took about 20 - 30 minutes for it to get installed in my laptop.

Dual-Boot Ubuntu and PC-BSD - Part 1: Pre Installation

As I installed Ubuntu  10.04 LTS prior to my decision to do a dual-boot with PC-BSD 8.0 setup, I needed to make changes to the hard disk partition. So I decided to edit the partitions using GParted. According to the site:

"The GParted application is a graphical partition editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions.

A disk device can be subdivided into one or more partitions. The GParted application enables you to change the partition organization on a disk device while preserving the contents of the partitions."

On the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS installation, I did an install of GParted.

$sudo apt-get install gparted

After the installation of GParted, I ran into some problems.

Dual-Boot Ubuntu and PC-BSD - Part 0: Overview

I continue to learn about Ubuntu by searching forums or good ol' Google. In some of my searches, I noticed that some people think negatively about Ubuntu, or Linux in general. And those people also think that BSD is better. So I did a search and came upon PC-BSD.

Based on the PC-BSD site:

"PC-BSD is a free operating system with ease of use in mind. Like any modern system, you can listen to your favorite music, watch your movies, work with office documents and install your favorite applications with a setup wizard at a click."

I decided to download the PC-BSD 8.0 DVD image and try it out. And as it is still downloading as of this posting, I have decided that I will make my laptop go dual-boot with Ubuntu and PC-BSD.

First order of business -- repartition my hard drive to accommodate the PC-BSD install. Details will be posted in a new entry in the near future.