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Questions tagged [freebsd]

FreeBSD is a Unix-like operating system which has grown out of the original BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) of the early days of Unix.

What is FreeBSD?

FreeBSD is a Unix-like (for legal reasons it can't be called UNIX) operating system which has grown out of the original BSD (Berkeley System Development) operating system of the early days of Unix.

The history of FreeBSD

BSD was started back in 1977 by the studens and staff of Berkeley University, California, and rapidly took hold as one of the most widely used version of Unix, mainly in use on the east coast of America (the west coast was largely AT&T Unix).

In 1993, when BSD was starting to wind up and stop all development and support, a number of original BSD developers and enthusiastic individuals started work developing a good version of BSD to run on standard PC equipment.

Drawing on previous code from both 4.4BSD (the last version to be released) and 386BSD (an early attempt to get BSD running on PC hardware) they came up with the first version of FreeBSD.

Since then, FreeBSD has gone from strength to strength, and has benefitted from input from such giants as Apple, and SUN.

Who uses FreeBSD?

A number of other projects have spun off from FreeBSD, the most notable of which is DragonflyBSD, created by one of the original FreeBSD developers Matt Dillon, in an attempt to create a more easily clusterable operating system.

While not as popular as Linux, FreeBSD has a good following amongst server sysadmins, because the lightweight, streamlined code and kernel make for a good stable server platform. Desktop environments like KDE and Gnome are available for FreeBSD but aren't anywhere as well-rounded as the Linux offerings like Ubuntu etc.

The whole ethos of FreeBSD dates back to the early days of BSD and the filesystem structure reflects that - most of the directory tree is exactly the same as it was 30 years ago. This makes managing any of the BSD systems a nice easy job, as they are all laid out the same way.

Important links

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Securing FreeBSD in single user mode

I have been shown that a FreeBSD system can easily be accessed in single user mode without the root password. Using the passwd command will allow anyone withh physical access to the system to change the password for root. Is there any way to prevent…
The BSD Guy
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How to manage local patches to the FreeBSD ports tree?

What is the preferred way to manage local patches in the FreeBSD ports tree. As an example look at textproc/urlview. This port installs the url_handler.sh script. This script defines applications to be used for different url types. The default…
tatt
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FreeBSD with 64 CPUs

I have a quad socket octo-core system running FreeBSD. Currently, I need to turn off HyperThreading to get it to boot, as FreeBSD only supports 32 CPUs. There were some patches made awhile ago against a trunk version of 8.1, but even after…
Brett
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Missing basic packages like pkg_add?

I recently performed a fresh install of 10.1-RELEASE (amd/x64_86) due to a botched upgrade. It seems like I'm missing basic utilities, like pkg_add. find / -name pkg_add is returning 0 hits (even when run as root). ports and portmaster seems to be…
jww
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Understanding FreebSD tax file naming conventions

I was trying FreeBSD and looked in the packages folder on the DVD for python packages. The saw the following: python-2.7_2,2.txz python2-2_3.txz python27-2.7.12.txz Am I to understand there are three separate packages here, called python, python2…
ana
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FreeBSD configure package options when installing with pkg

I moved from ports to pkg and I'm trying to find out how can I install package with specific options, like I was able to do with ports (make config). E.g. I need to add LDAP support to sendmail, which is off by default: $ pkg rquery '%Ok %Ov %Od…
Sammy Jenkins
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FreeBSD seems doesn't see my dlink wlan at all

I have a PC with a Dlink wireless PCI device in PCI slot. The LEDs are blinking, but when I boot FreeBSD I can not see the device in dmesg. Why? is it a BIOS issue? It's pretty ancient hardware. I don't know from where to start dig a problem at…
holms
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run_interrupt_driven_hooks still waiting after 60 seconds for xpt_config

I have downloaded the FreeBSD 9.0 for i836 but during boot/installation I get the following message: run_interrupt_driven_hooks: still waiting after 60 seconds for xpt_config I waited for 10 minutes and nothing changed. I have no idea how to fix…
Jack
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How to make freebsd's terminal prompt show current directory

My freebsd terminal always only show "#" I want it show current directory. How can I manage that? Thank you indeed!
Andy Leman
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Has anyone managed to compile nmon for freebsd? or alternatives?

Im used to this great tool called nmon. if you havnt heard of it you should check it out Anyway im dabbeling with freebsd, and wanted to see if i can get it compiles. I managed to get the includes working, more or less atleast. and it compiles. But…
madmaze
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Can't boot FreeBSD after successful installation

I've installed Slackware 14.2 in /dev/sda1 and x86Solaris 10 U6 in /dev/sda3 (sda2 is Linux swap)and boot menu was Solaris grub but, later deleted Solaris partition and installed FreeBSD12 (for i386) on the same partition. I created separate…
Trumvect Gendila
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How can I restrict CPU scheduling in FreeBSD 12?

How are other admins managing CPU resources on multi-core hosts that run jails, such as allocating the appropriate number of cores for exclusive use by specific jails, and likewise reserving the appropiate number of cores for exclusive use by the…
Jim L.
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How to avoid "Proceed with this action? [y/N]" of pkg?

Or: What's the equivalent of apt-get install --yes in FreeBSD's pkg? I know about yes | pkg install ..., but an option seems to be much more conveniant and savely avoids answering y to questions during eventual installation and configuration…
Kalle Richter
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FreeBSD no internet

I downloaded and installed FreeBSD 10.2 on to an Oracle VM. First thing I am trying to run pkg, it gives me an error with: No address record A pre-built version of pkg could not be found for your system. Then I try to ping google, it gives me an…
Tom
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How to figure out the revision of FreeBSD ports?

FreeBSD ports are upgradable (with portsnap fetch), ergo they must have some kind of revision which refers to the status of the complete ports collection. Which is easiest way to figure this revision (during portsnap fetch a file name is displayed…
Kalle Richter
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