bb said:Not really: Within the loader, the FreeBSD kernel is not active. The loader fully depends on the BIOS to setup devices.
Does lsdev show your internal drive?
harishankar said:Yes, it does show the CDROM and the internal drive.
I think part of the problem is that the BIOS is refusing to detect the external USB hard drive even though it has that option for boot up.
Very peculiar. The BIOS is Phoenix BIOS from http://www.hp.com an update which I downloaded and flashed from Windows Vista (they only provide .exe files). Even with the "updated" BIOS I saw no change.
hitest said:That is a drag! Have you considered installing FreeBSD onto your HD? FreeBSD supports dual booting with Linux.
harishankar said:I just missed your reply. Actually I don't have any free space on the HD and I cannot resize the Linux partition as well because it's quite full at the moment (almost 75%).
I don't want to get rid of Vista because I need it for Skype which I use to communicate with my brother overseas, and Skype won't play with 64-bit Linux even. Proprietary crap as it is, it's the only voice chat solution with video and there's no reliable video chat software on Linux either.
hitest said:I understand. That is a smart idea to make a snapshot back-up of your Debian installation. I keep one partition of Windows XP Pro SP3 on one of my PCs so that I can easily access some proprietary company software.
I hope you enjoy the FreeBSD install, my friend!
harishankar said:I've done it...
Installed FreeBSD 8.0-current on an external USB hard drive which actually booted from the BIOS.
I've installed Xorg, Xfce 4 and I'm now typing this in Firefox. It took a while to download the Xorg files, but luckily the connection was fast.
There's no pre-packaged binary KDE 4 for -current; had I realized it I would have downloaded 7.2-release. It will take ages to compile from ports.
However, thanks to FreeBSD and the excellent handbook which I read from a tty, it was relatively painless (considering that FreeBSD is a geek OS anyway )
hitest said:Congratulations, my friend!! Nicely done! Yes. Compiling KDE4 from source does take time. For future reference you can also install the KDE4 packages from the CLI with this command:
# pkg_add -r kde4
That will pull down, install KDE4 from the Internet.
harishankar# pkg_add -r kde4
Error: FTP Unable to get ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8-current/Latest/kde4.tbz: File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
pkg_add: unable to fetch 'ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8-current/Latest/kde4.tbz' by URL
harishankar said:This is what I get when I try
DutchDaemon said:It is not, though other parts of kde4 are; see ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8-current/kde/
tangram said:Nvidia + i386 is pretty decent in term of graphics performance. amd64 drivers are being worked on.
harishankar said:The problem is my laptop is not booting any i386 OS I've tried so far.
hitest said:I'm running FreeBSD 7.2-amd64. Maybe you might like to try the 64 bit version of the stable branch of FreeBSD? This version comes with KDE 4.2.2 on the DVD.
harishankar said:But once there is a stable release of 8.0, is it possible to switch from -current to -stable?
wonslung said:I think the system of compiling software from source is a goods one once you get used to it. Sure it takes more time than binary downloads but you end up with a system set up to your specific needs with software optimized for your hardware. The only other downfall of the system is that no two systems are really the same and that can make it somewhat more difficult to track down problems when they DO occur but in my experience with the freebsd forums here, there hasn't been a major issue i haven't been able to resolve yet.
I feel like i've learned more in the first 2 weeks of using FreeBSD than i did the entire time i used linux and that's saying a lot. It's mopstly due to the help provided in this forum and the EXCELENT online documentation via the freebsd handbook, that is an unparalleled source of information.
harishankar said:I don't think I'll get used to compiling from source. I was using gentoo for around a year and then let it rot away, simply because the compile from source became MORE annoying over time. It wastes so much CPU cycles and time that I am surprised that a lot of people use this method of installing software.