[PC-BSD Testing] PCBSD 1.4 Test - Experiences

[Harshad Sharma]

Hi,

1. Fresh Install

I've been using PCBSD since 1.1, and have been very happy about the progress. 
The installer is superb, and it works nicely for me - with only one issue 
(since 1.1 till 1.4 latest test version as of 5 Jul 2007)

The nvidia driver conflicts with the splash driver built into the kernel of 
PCBSD. I am unable to choose the graphics card since the driver does not 
start up. I have to recompile the kernel (which needs downloading the system 
source code) and last time I tried I was unable to locate/load the kernel 
module - which made me go fetch the ports for nvidia drivers and do another 
compile for the drivers before graphics worked well. This might be a FreeBSD 
specific issue - but it affects PCBSD more since the splash driver is 
compiled into the PCBSD kernel and is active since the first boot.

This is a minor inconvenience for me, however I thought I should bring this to 
your notice. Here are the specs: I have a nVidia GeForce 6100 onboard 
graphics processor on a nForce 410 based motherboard.

From dmesg:
	CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ (2069.52-MHz 686-class CPU)
	  Origin = "AuthenticAMD"  Id = 0x40ff2  Stepping = 2
	real memory  = 1040121856 (991 MB)
	ACPI APIC Table: <Nvidia AWRDACPI>
	nvidia0: <GeForce 6100> 
		mem 0xfb000000-0xfbffffff, 0xe0000000-0xefffffff, 0xfc0000
		00-0xfcffffff irq 16 at device 5.0 on pci0
	nvidia0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
	pcm0: <nVidia nForce 410 MCP> port 0xdc00-0xdcff,0xd800-0xd8ff mem 
		0xfe02c000-0x 
		fe02cfff irq 20 at device 16.2 on pci0
	pcm0: <Avance Logic ALC655 AC97 Codec>
	sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
	sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
	vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0

If there is any information/assistance I can provide to solve this issue, 
please let me know.



2. Upgrade/Repair

I installed 30 June snapshot and then decided to upgrade to 05 July snapshot 
instead of doing a fresh install. I had not tried this before - and I think a 
few things could be different. Only my opinions...

  - Do not overwrite xorg.conf - for my machine, it takes quite some magic and 
a sacrificial ritual before xorg and nvidia drivers work. If I was not used 
to taking backups, I would have to sacrifice another IDE drive before things 
worked! :-P

  - All my pre-installed software is gone; which I understand is necessary 
because of the way shared libraries work. The software installed with PBIs 
remains, however the symlinks that glue it to the rest of the system are 
gone. I can run firefox with 
    /Programs/Firefox2.0.0.3/bin/firefox
but not as 
    /usr/local/bin/firefox

- All source code and the ports tree is gone. I recently moved to broadband, 
so it is painless to download the full source code and ports tree all over 
again. But for those still on dialup it is quite a pain. Can we leave the 
ports tree and source code alone? Those who use it probably also know how to 
keep it up to date.

- I could not find the firewall configuration. From the emails here, I see its 
not just me. Can we please have that config screen back? Or am I overlooking 
something?

- The installation of extra packages is nice. I appreciate that a lot!

Cheers!
Harshad.

-- 
If heaven doesnt allow bikes, I will ride mine straight to hell
http://www.bikenomads.com/
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