vbox FreeBSD 13 or 14 as guest in VirtualBox 7 on Windows - first things to do?

C

crodgers

What suggestions do you have as the first thing to do after installing FreeBSD 13 or 14 as a guest in VirtualBox on Windows?

This is my first time trying to use FreeBSD and was trying to help a friend troubleshoot a script. In the past I would create a VM of CentOS for help with RHEL. But this time it is a friend on FreeBSD. I thought it would be simple, but it is turning out to be a bit frustrating.

I cannot seem to get the screen to resize without skewing the font, so I still end up with an 80 character wide terminal session. Additionally, cannot get copy/paste to work (mouse is captured, but I don't see it, so don't even know how to "copy"), so I cannot copy my script back to windows. Cannot figure out how to mount my existing shared drive (LinuxMint and Xubuntu have no issue mounting it). Could not figure out how to putty into the server, so I finally mapped port 22 in VB to port 22 in FreeBSD, and then I was able to ssh into the server with putty using VB IP address. Now I can use a screen wider than 80 character and I can have more than one terminal (the guest boots up into a terminal session, maybe I installed server instead of desktop?).

Does anyone have a list of the first few things they do for FreeBSD in VirtualBox 7 in Windows?
Any pointers on where to quickly get up to speed on FreeBSD 13 or 14 so that I can build out a descent testing platform for scripts, etc? I am a bit more familiar with *buntu and CentOS/RHEL than other flavors of linux, but always willing to learn other products.

Thanks for any pointers/help!
- Chris
 
crodgers said:
(the guest boots up into a terminal session, maybe I installed server instead of desktop?).
Click to expand...
There is no such thing as "different distributions" like "desktop" or "server" in FreeBSD.
The installer always performs a base install. If you need a GUI, you need to install Xorg or Wayland and a Desktop environment like KDE or XFCE manually.
For a first try, Xorg should be easier to set up.
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 5. The X Window System

This chapter describes how to install and configure Xorg on FreeBSD, which provides the open source X Window System used to provide a graphical environment
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org
 
elgrande said:
There is no such thing as "different distributions" like "desktop" or "server" in FreeBSD.
The installer always performs a base install. If you need a GUI, you need to install Xorg or Wayland and a Desktop environment like KDE or XFCE manually.
For a first try, Xorg should be easier to set up.
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 5. The X Window System

This chapter describes how to install and configure Xorg on FreeBSD, which provides the open source X Window System used to provide a graphical environment
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org
Click to expand...
Thank you, elgrande ! I did find a couple of threads talking about distributions (one long one about "marketing"). I understand now that the philosophy is just to install the base server and if you want a desktop, then install it. Definitely much less work for maintaining distributions than dragging along various versions with preinstalled desktops... different from the *buntu and variants that I have been using in the past.

If I don't need a GUI (happy in a shell), do you have any pointers for VirtualBox for getting the console session to resize and how to get copy-paste working? I am not even sure how to "copy" text from the session to be able to paste anywhere. Is there a method that uses a cursor or the mouse that is captured? Or will installing Xorg address that?
 
crodgers said:
do you have any pointers for VirtualBox for getting the console session to resize and how to get copy-paste working?
Click to expand...
Resizing can be done, sort of, it's not dynamic. If you configure the guest to UEFI boot you can add this to /boot/loader.conf:
Code: 
efi_max_resolution="1920x1080"
Copy/paste, dynamic resizing and "seamless" mouse only works with X (and requires the emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions).

The Virtualbox console is a bit finicky. I would suggest just enabling sshd(8) and use a Windows SSH client (PuTTY for example) to SSH into the guest.
 
I personally find Putty via SSH (as the OP already set up in his first post) the best solution for a server without X. It won't get any more seamless.
 
I wrote down some points for VirtualBox in window host. See doc ch:24.4 :freebsd as guest with virtualbox.
Virtualbox in terminal is only the basic way without screen size manipulation or you need X for that.
Install package virtualbox-ose-additions and in rc.conf add the following lines,
Code: 
vboxguest_enable="YES"
vboxservice_enable="YES"
For using X you have to use "VBoxSVGA" --- in Virtualbox display setting and use in .xinitrc
Code: 
VBoxClient-all
Other than the methods mentioned above you can use $ scp User@remoteIP:path1/file1 ~/path2/ You can try "Winscp" app in windows.
 
Thank you to everyone for their input! The easiest access seems to be to use a terminal client. I have used MobaXterm for several years (basically windowed putty, sftp, etc), so I will us that. It is interesting to use another OS, and I have learned a few things along the way troubleshooting my issues. I have a laptop that will be freeing up soon (got a newer one to replace it), so I might play around with FreeBSD as an install - and try to get Xorg and KDE or XFCE running.
 
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