Frustrating 9.1-REL installation

S

sgunn

So I've been using FreeBSD since the 3.x branch. I love FreeBSD.

But I've got to say, the last couple of releases have been very frustrating to install, mostly because of getting KDE and the X environment up.

Now sure, I know FreeBSD's motto is "The Power to Serve" and it's used as a headless server for a lot of people, but so are all the Linux distros, and they've automatically configured and brought up at least a minimal X enviroment for 10 years.

At work we use SUSE, and I use opensuse for my desktop. I installed OpenSuse 11.2, it took about 20 minutes, and I had a fully functional kde desktop.

The FreeBSD 9.1 installer doesn't even give you the option to install KDE or Gnome. Really?

So I downloaded and burned the dvd image for 9.1R. Did the install. Supposedly the dvd includes kde, but I didn't see any options to install it. Maybe I'm just stupid. I'm sure somebody will tell me that I'm lazy and didn't read some post somewhere, but frankly, why should I need to?

So I go to build Xorg/KDE whatever else I need from ports. Takes half a day. Finally get the Xorg test pattern to come up. Go to start kde, and I get a black screen. Looks like some sort of problem with libdrm.

I have the ports tree released with 9.1R just a few days ago, and yet, libdrm *will not build* with KMS enabled, which is one of the big features of 9.1 that everyone is excited about. It complains about missing stuff in the cairo package.

I really don't want to do all this. I just want to install FreeBSD, get a reasonable KDE environment up and running and install the services and apps I want running.

I don't want to spend a week updating, building and installing KDE.

Am I missing something? Am I the only frustrated one? I realize there is a small, overworked, not paid, dedicated group of people working on FreeBSD, but is it too much to ask to just have KDE or Gnome install and work out of the gate on an install?

Stephen
 
sgunn said:
Am I missing something? Am I the only frustrated one? I realize there is a small, overworked, not paid, dedicated group of people working on FreeBSD, but is it too much to ask to just have KDE or Gnome install and work out of the gate on an install?
Click to expand...
I do believe you will be much happier if you use PC-BSD.
 
sgunn said:
Supposedly the dvd includes kde[red]KDE[/red], but I didn't see any options to install it.
Click to expand...
Mount the DVD, locate the packages and use pkg_add(1).

Or, as said by others above, consider PC-BSD. And I don't mean that in a condescending way. PC-BSD is not merely "FreeBSD for dummies" or something. Under the hood, it's "just" a FreeBSD release. Except it has its own installer that installs a preconfigured version of KDE and probably features some graphical configuration tools. In a way, I'm inclined to say it's kinda like a FreeBSD "distribution". If you're looking for something that's easy to install yet still is basically FreeBSD underneath, PC-BSD is worth having a look at.

Fonz
 
SirDice said:
I do believe you will be much happier if you use PC-BSD.
Click to expand...

I know that is the answer to many inquiries on the forums here when people ask similar questions. But frankly PC-BSD also install a bunch of stuff that the user might not want in his or her computer, so for some people it might not be the right way.

for sgunn perhaps installing all pre-compiled application would be a better answer unfortunately at this point that option is not available in FreeBSD 9.1
 
TroN-0074 said:
unfortunately at this point that option is not available in FreeBSD 9.1
Click to expand...
The old sysinstall did have a package installation option, but apparently that particular functionality has been lost somewhere down the road. However, as said, one can of course still install the packages manually: mount the installation medium, locate the packages and pkg_add(1) them. Simple.

Fonz
 
So I thought I'd update this. After messing around trying to build ports, I decided to reinstall from the DVD. This went fine, and I installed kde and X11 from the packages on the DVD. Fine. That you can do this and how to do this should be somewhere in the release notes or somewhere, but I didn't see it. Maybe I'm just clueless.

But after all that, the video support I got was VESA. I was under the impression that intel integrated video support was one of the cool new working features under 9.1? Apparently not.

So since this machine will not primarily be used as a desktop, I will live with the VESA graphics. Oh, and KDE started fine, but complained about all sorts of missing services, specifically the virtuoso server, which appears to be running, but isn't recognized by KDE. And this from the pre-built packages. Faaantastic.
 
sgunn said:
But after all that, the video support I got was VESA. I was under the impression that intel integrated video support was one of the cool new working features under 9.1? Apparently not.
Click to expand...
It's probably not included by default. What I think you need is x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel (and of course adjust /etc/X11/xorg.conf by (re)doing # Xorg -configure.

Hope this helps (I'm using that driver, it works fine).

Fonz
 
sgunn said:
That you can do this and how to do this should be somewhere in the release notes or somewhere, but I didn't see it. Maybe I'm just clueless.
Click to expand...
I suspect it's probably (consciously or not) assumed to be common knowledge. However, with the package installation option dropped from the installer (for whatever reason), perhaps it could indeed be mentioned a bit more clearly indeed.

Fonz

P.S. Personally I wouldn't touch KDE with a ten-foot pole, so I can't help you with that.
 
Yeah, I had the intel driver installed. I went so far as to remove the vesa driver and re-run Xorg -configure, which resulted in "no driver found"

Thanks for everyone who responded trying to help. I'll just wait and hope that they get everything ironed out by the 10.x releases.

It is unfortunate that the KDE package is also at least partially broken.

Stephen
 
sgunn said:
Yeah, I had the intel driver installed. I went so far as to remove the vesa driver and re-run Xorg -configure, which resulted in "no driver found"
Click to expand...
That's a more serious problem. If you're quite sure that x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel is the driver that should work with your hardware, I suggest you file a PR (but since X is in ports, do file it under ports or perhaps contact the port maintainer).

Fonz
 
Fonz,

So my processor is a Pentium G645 LGA 1155, Sandy Bridge, with integrated Intel HD Graphics. Sounded like it should be supported from what I read.

The motherboard, if it matters, is an ASRock H77M-ITX, with, of course, integrated Intel HD Graphics.

So I realize you're not necessarily the expert, but does that sound like it should be supported?

Stephen
 
KMS does not work until after WITH_KMS is added to /etc/make.conf and graphics/libdrm, and the xf86-video-* and xf86-input-* ports are rebuilt.

Without KMS, the Intel video driver doesn't work, and you end up with VESA.
 
Wblock,

Thanks for your reply. I went down that road, and with a clean install of 9.1REL, libdrm does not build for me.

My post on trying to build libdrm is here:

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=36868

And hey, I just realized that you already saw that post.

No worries, hopefully all with be straightened out in the next release.

Stephen
 
wblock@ said:
Without KMS, the Intel video driver doesn't work, and you end up with VESA.
Click to expand...
Is that still the case? The Intel driver appears to be working just fine on my system without any fiddling whatsoever.
 
AFAIK, it is still the case. With 9.1, anyway. I have not kept track of all the permutations of Intel drivers and xorg version.
 
So I was able to rebuild and reinstall libdrm, xf86-intel, and xf86-keyboard & mouse with KMS enabled. Don't know if it worked this time because I didn't use portsnap to fetch a new copy of the ports, or because I didn't build Xorg from source, or because I didn't include:

Code: 
WITH_NEW_XORG="YES"

in make.conf.

However,

Code: 
Xorg -configure

still gets me a vesa driver.
 
Hey, hey! I got the Intel driver working. Very nice. Thanks to all who responded.

So for anyone else, I'm pretty sure you need both:

Code: 
WITH_KMS=yes
WITH_NEW_XORG=yes

added to make.conf

and then you need to rebuild at least libdrm and xf86-video-intel. Maybe also libGL, libGLU, and dri.

I'm not sure, but I believe that adding WITH_NEW_XORG causes config options to show up in libdrm to turn on Intel support.

You do not need to rebuild xorg-server.
 
sgunn said:
I don't want to spend a week updating, building and installing KDE... is it too much to ask to just have KDE or Gnome install and work out of the gate on an install?

Stephen
Click to expand...

But equally, I don't want to spend a week removing KDE or Gnome either.
 
neilms said:
But equally, I don't want to spend a week removing KDE or Gnome either.
Click to expand...
That's one of the reasons I use ports-mgmt/portmaster: before actually installing anything it lists what it's going to install and asks whether that's ok. If that list contains GNOME or KDE stuff, I have the opportunity to think twice before going ahead and actually having it installed.
 
Same issue with 9.1 Rel

I have been having the same issue. I have tried installing KDE4, KDE3, GNOME2 and every time the installation starts it takes forever almost a whole day. All that just to give errors at the end of the installation.

I have tried:
# rm /usr/ports/
# portsnap fetch
# portsnap extract
# portsnap fetch
# portsnap update

I tried to installed from DVD but it gives the error:
Code: 
Unable to fine index file

After reading these forums I am a bit confused. I thought the idea when moving from one release to a newer one was to improve it. It seems that with each new release it gets worse which in any case defeats the purpose of moving to a new better and improved release. And then the question arises: Why bother with an OS that is decaying instead of improving?

I can see everyone is giving work around the issue and finally advising to move to a different distribution. Then the question rises: should be better to move to Windows OS?

It seems a common factor among many of the *nix flavors. With each release it seems they are getting worse in user friendliness, deployment and scalability. And finally many wonder why Windows dominates the market, isn't this ludicrous?
 
Hmm. I've been running 5.0 and 6.0 servers for years and a desktop at version 8.0 from a couple years ago. I just built a new box with Ivy Bridge and Nvidia graphics card, dual monitors, 32GB RAM, SSDs, USB3 ports and installed from scratch 9.1. It was the smoothest and easiest installation I've ever done and I've been doing it in between remodeling my house, painting and, a few days ago, dealing with a flooded basement while running a web dev business.

iow, I've hardly had the time to pay attention and I've forgotten more than I know over the years but, other than a mistake on my part with VirtualBox, I've not had one issue installating that, i3 window manager, Chromium, Firefox, vim, mupdf, networking, and Gimp from ports.

I've become more of a user than a system hacker and I've never been a sysadmin except when needed for my own company purposes. So I don't get this "things are getting harder/more difficult". If one wants a works-out-of-the-box experience, FreeBSD is not where you should be and that's why one may get directed to PC-BSD, assuming they still want to stay with FreeBSD.

When I was a ham radio operator, there were those who got their license without any knowledge of radio or electronics (by hook and by crook). The derogatory term for them was "appliance operators" cause they only wanted to use the push-to-talk button on their microphone and nothing else. They never built their own equipment, didn't know how it worked and couldn't care less.

But they had nowhere else to turn except CB radio. In the computer world, I'm not sure Linux distributions are appropriate for that kind but, at least, there is always Windows for those who only want to be "appliance operators".
 
Ok, pardon me if my post seems like a small rant. I suppose it is to some extend but the thing is, I've seen threads like these appear almost everywhere I go and they all share the same origin, or so I think. It doesn't matter if we're talking about (software) synthesizers on the Ableton forum, ASP.NET programming on their forums, right down to Java programming and your average Linux distribution forum or mailing list.

There is nothing wrong with some negative or positive feedback because in the end it will most likely only help the product evolve, even if it is only slightly. Negative comments can be picked up to make things better whereas positive comments are always nice to receive because that's a signal towards the "powers that be" that there are people around who appreciate their work.

However, there's one thing which you should always realize; no operating system, no program, not even a specific synthesizer will be the answer for all your needs or problems. This isn't saying that it can't full-fill that role, but whether it does or doesn't mainly depends on one thing: your own personal needs and requirements. And how the product at hand fits in also heavily depends on yourself.

But always realize that there is also very realistic possibility that a certain product isn't the best choice for whatever you're trying to do. As clichéd as it sounds I would never recommend picking up a product solely because of its name, reputation or pricetag. Not even the "coolness" factor should be important here.

Instead, try focussing on what really matters: does it work for me?

And like I mentioned earlier, there's nothing wrong with sharing some sharp criticism. But you should always realize that if something doesn't work for you then this doesn't mean it also doesn't work for others.

For example, the complete lack of a graphical installer was actually a key issue for me in my evaluation last week. Of course I'm using FreeBSD in a server environment and not so much a desktop environment, but that's besides the point since we're discussing FreeBSD as a whole after all.

In this particular case my suggestion would actually be to look into a Linux distribution instead. It provides the same graphical environment consisting of X.org, KDE or GNOME (or whatever window or desktop -manager you fancy). The main difference is both the underlying operating system as well as the several provided tools to help you set things up more easily and quickly. Of course this also heavily depends on the distribution you chose.

And sure, if the whole X.org fiddling gets boring or turns into a major annoyance then there's also nothing wrong with resorting to a Windows environment. If it works and it helps you get the job done, why not? Last I checked it was also a very highly rated choice for gamers, might provide some fun on that front as well ;-)

Oh well, just my 2 cents on this matter though.
 
I agree with @drhowarddrfine. For those who want turnkey systems, PC-BSD or some common version of Linux like Ubuntu is a better choice.
 
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