Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!pulsar.ctr.columbia.edu!wpaul
From: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.0R: Dir structure, etc
Date: 7 Dec 1994 06:30:39 GMT
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
Lines: 165
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3c3kqg$re7@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
References: <3c37m0INNplc@hpsdlss3.sdd.hp.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pulsar.ctr.columbia.edu
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se, Matt Bonner
(mattb@sdd.hp.com) had the courage to say:
: Okay, installation of 2.0R went pretty smoothly after I gave
: up on floppies and used the DOS part of the hard drive, congrats
: to the FreeBSD team! But what little sysadmin skills I acquired
: with 386bsd seem to have become irrelevant.
No skills are ever irrelevant. You just have to learn to adapt.
: My questions...
: 1. Is there somewhere traditional one should mount a DOS file-
: system? I notice /mnt and I notice that the install uses
: that, but that doesn't leave room for mounting floppies and
: such. Is there an intended scheme?
DOS is non-traditional in and of itself, so why be traditional when deciding
where to put it? (I decided where to put it long ago, but that's another
matter.) I have my MS-DOG disk mounted as /dos. I leave /mnt for mounting
floppies or other sundry things, which tend not to stay mounted for long.
I think I have a /mnt2 floating around as well. But I'm weird, so you
probably won't want to do what I do. The simplest solution is to create
a /a and /b for mounting floppies, a /dos for your DOS hard disk partition,
and leave /mnt for a spare.
: 2. I went ahead and made / and /usr different filesystems as
: the docs suggest, but I notice user accts go in /home, ie
: on /. Is this intentional? There ain't much space there...
When setting up a system for the first time, I find the following defaults
work well:
/ : 16 to 20 megs
/usr: at least 100 megs
/home: at least 100 megs, preferably 200
swap: as much as you can afford, at least 20 megs, 30 to 40 for systems
with lots of RAM (> 16 megs).
My primary disk is a Maxtor 345 meg IDE disk, and these numbers worked
out fairly well. I keep /usr/local and /usr/X386 (Xfree86 2.1.1) on /usr
while user accounts go on /home. Occaisionally I cheat and make a software
directory on /home (like /home/ghostscript) and kludge things up with
symbolic links.
If you don't want to repartition and /usr on your system is very big, I
would suggest making a /usr/home, and then making /home a symbolic link
to /usr/home to keep the adduser script happy. You don't want user accounts
on /, since you need the space there for the system log files, and /tmp.
: 3. Why, when booting up, does the kernel call my faithful
: Archive Viper 2150 "a known rogue"? Is there something I
: should be watching out for?
I don't have a tape drive myself, but I recall seeing some posts on here
discussing this message. I believe the problem is that the SCSI tape
driver needs to be tweaked to work correctly with certain drives, and
the driver generates this message when it detects that your tape drive
is one of the troublesome ones. Presumeably the message means that the
driver knows how to adjust itself in this particular case (which makes
sense, since yours is a fairly well-known drive). If you don't have
any trouble using the drive, I wouldn't worry.
: 4. I set the CMOS clock to GMT after reading the warnings, but
: of course Windoze now always thinks it's 3 in the morning
: or some such. Anyone know if there's a way to get windoze
: to consider time zones? (Yes, I know this isn't a windoze
: group, but I figure the problem will be somewhat common).
No no no, you're thinking about it the wrong way! It's FreeBSD that needs
to be adjusted, not Windoze. Set your CMOS clock to local wall clock time
and create an empty file called /etc/cmos_wall_clock. You can use the touch
command for this:
# touch /etc/cmos_wall_clock
/etc/rc looks for this file when the system boots, and if it's found it
adjusts the kernel timezone offset so that it matches your CMOS clock.
This way FreeBSD and MS-DOG/Windoze can coexist peacefully.
: 5. When I log in as myself, the backspace key just echos ^H's
: so I always have to stty erase ^H. What's the best way
: to fix this? I can just put it in every .cshrc I suppose...
You'd want it in .logon, not .cshrc. .login is run once when you log in.
.cshrc is run once for each csh shell you spawn. You only need to run
stty once to change the erase character.
You could remap your keyboard with the kbdcontrol command too, but
using stty is the simplest way, really. This is how it's done for root
anyway (check root's .login file).
: 6. What's the correct way to shutdown the machine if I want
: to power off the computer? I did something like
: shutdown +1
: but I was left at a prompt and got fsck errors next time
: I powered up...
Check the shutdown man page. (C'mon people! In spite of the fact that
they're in a seperate archive, the man pages are *NOT* an optional part
of the system! Install them! Read them! Learn from them! I'm a complete
idiot and I figured this stuff out, so there's no reason why you can't
too!)
Anyway, what you should be doing is something like this:
# shutdown -h now
Techically, shutdown just puts the system in single user mode, which
is what you did. If you want to use shutdown to really shut the system
down, you also need the -h (halt) flag. You'll see messages telling you
that the disks are being sync'ed, and after a few seconds you'll see
another message telling you that it's safe to reboot. If you're in
a real rush and there aren't any other users on the system, you
could also do this:
# reboot
or
# halt
There is also a fastboot command which tells the system to bypass the
disk checks the next time the system boots, but I don't recommend that
you use it unless you know what you're doing.
Yes, there are manual pages for halt, reboot and fastboot too. Have a
look at the sync(1) man page while you're at it.
: Sorry to be such a newbie, I tried looking through the FAQ's,
: but didn't see much to help with these questions, are they all
: there somewhere?
Yes! In the man pages! You wouldn't need the FAQs if you just stopped
to read the man pages! Gawd, I'm starting to sound like a broken record.
Then again, so are you guys.
(I feel like Professor Steamhead from Ninja High School: "Manual pages
will save mankind!")
: help! (thanks)
: matt
: --
: Matt Bonner | Email: mattb@sdd.hp.com
: Hewlett-Packard Company | Snail: 16399 West Bernardo Drive
Hunh? You work for HP and you don't know this stuff?
: Ink-jet Supplies Business Unit | San Diego, CA 92127-1899
Oh. Nevermind. :)
-Bill
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Bill Paul System Manager
wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu Center for Telecommunications Research
(212) 854-6020 Columbia University, New York City
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Møøse Illuminati: ignore it and be confused, or join it and be confusing!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~