PC-BSD Users Handbook
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PC-BSD Guide
Welcome to the PC-BSD Guide; brought to you by the Documentation Team:
Jacob Cervantes - Paul J Baptie - Brian J. Barber - Karl Fischer - Dragon Flyer - Wayne Fowler - James Knightly - Dru Lavigne - Roger O'Donnell - Terry Poulin - Terry Schima - Roberto Soriano - Gerard van Essen - Terrance Young - Kris Moore
This Guide is aimed at users new to PC-BSD, FreeBSD and Unix in general. As it is under constant development, you may come across mistakes and out-of-date information. If so, feel free to report them to us on the documentation forum, the Documentation Mailinglist, or by leaving a comment at the PC-BSD Blog. We hope this guide is both simple and useful and makes using PC-BSD an enjoyable experience.
If you have suggestions for PC-BSD, you can either let us know on the Feature Requests forum or send an e-mail to the Public Mailinglist. We value your opinion and thank you for your support.
Welcome to PC-BSD!
Welcome to PC-BSD and many thanks for your interest.
With the arrival of easy-to-use Linux distributions (another Unix-like operating system) and their immediate success, it became obvious that there was a large niche market. However, Kris thought that the Linux market could have advanced more in user friendliness. The BSD community had very good server operating systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, but none for the desktop market. Taking a strong liking to FreeBSD due to its design, speed, and robustness, Kris Moore decided to create a user-friendly and intuitive FreeBSD based operating system for desktop use.
PC-BSD is a desktop-oriented operating system to the likes of Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X. It is based on FreeBSD which is well known for its stability, scalability and openness.
PC-BSD started off as an independent project, but since 10 October 2006 PC-BSD is (financially) backed and supported by the enterprise-class hardware solutions provider iXsystems.
Differences Between PC-BSD and FreeBSD
The main difference between PC-BSD and FreeBSD is that PC-BSD is geared towards desktop use, while FreeBSD has been created with server use in mind. Other differences include:
- PC-BSD pre-configures the KDE desktop environment (currently 4.4.5)
- PC-BSD is installed by a graphical installer rather than a text based installer
- PC-BSD installs a number of pre-installed applications
- PC-BSD uses the unique PBI ([[#Package Management | Push Button Installer) package system and also supports FreeBSD's packages and ports systems
- PC-BSD’s kernel has been recompiled with some configuration tweaks to better suit it for desktop use
- PC-BSD comes pre-configured with a number of automatic scripts to perform tasks such as connecting digital cameras or USB memory sticks
In summary, there is no major difference between PC-BSD and FreeBSD. PC-BSD is basically FreeBSD with a nice installer, some pre-configuration, kernel tweaks, PBI package management, pre-installed packages and some handy graphical utilities to make PC-BSD suitable for desktop use. As a user of PC-BSD, you don’t have to worry about configuring your system, but rather to simply install it and start using it.
Differences Between PC-BSD and Microsoft Windows
As you may already know, PC-BSD is a different kind of operating system compared to Microsoft Windows. Let's have a look at some similarities and differences between PC-BSD and MS Windows.
Some similarities:
- Both have a useful graphical user interface
- Both have an excellent Internet connectivity stack (IPv4 and IPv6)
- Both have a large collection of applications available. For example, the FreeBSD ports collection currently has over 22,000 applications that have been ported to FreeBSD
- Both can browse and share Windows networking resources such as shared folders and printers
- Both can handle audio/video, play CDs/DVDs and can be used for word processing, photo editing, databases, etc.
- Installing software is easy, quick and straight forward
However, there are also some major differences:
- PC-BSD is free of charge and its source code is free to view and to download
- A PC-BSD computer won't get slow after a few months' of use
- PC-BSD is not affected by the viruses, spyware and other malware that plague Windows systems
- PC-BSD doesn't always have drivers or support for the latest or less popular hardware
- Hard drives or partitions with PC-BSD installed don't need to be defragmented
PC-BSD's Goals and Features
PC-BSD has been designed with the "casual" computer user in mind. The PC-BSD community aims to provide the following features:
- Easy installation: to install PC-BSD, simply insert the installation DVD, reboot the system to start the installer, and answer a few questions in the graphical menus.
- Automatically configure hardware: such as video, sound, network and other devices so that they are available for use at the first system startup.
- Intuitive desktop interface: PC-BSD comes with the latest stable version of the KDE award-winning desktop environment. The KDE applications alone will probably cover most of your day-to-day computing needs.
- Easy software management: with the included PC-BSD [Using_Software_Manager Software Manager] utility, installing, upgrading, and uninstalling PBI software is safe and easy.
- Easy to update: PC-BSD provides a built-in Update Manager that will notify you of available system updates to install security fixes, bug fixes, system enhancements and newer versions of software.
- Visually attractive: PC-BSD installs Nvidia video card drivers and the Compiz-Fusion accelerated 3D desktop for the next level desktop experience. Adobe Flash is installed so you can watch your favorite movies and videos on Youtube and Google Video.
- Architecture support: PC-BSD is available for the i386 architecture and for 64bit systems.
- Laptop support: provides power saving and swap space encryption
- Secure environment: PC-BSD provides a pre-configured PF firewall and brute-force attack protection with denyhosts. It is also safe from viruses, adware, spyware and trojans.
- Binary compatibility: able to run almost all GNU/Linux applications like Oracle, WordPerfect, Skype, Doom 3, Quake 4, etc. through the Linux Compatibility Layer (LCL) and able to run Windows XP/2000 through emulators (such as Qemu or Win4BSD) and Windows applications through the Wine PBI.
- Easy system administration: PC-BSD provides many graphical tools for performing system administration tasks.
- Localization: PC-BSD supports a number of native languages and locales.
- Vibrant community: PC-BSD has a friendly and helpful support community.
- Professional support: professional email and phone support is available from iXsystems.
PC-BSD Releases
As of September 2008, PC-BSD release version numbers are the same as FreeBSD's. When the first number of a release is followed by a zero, this means that this version of PC-BSD introduces many new features. When the second number of a release is not a zero, this means that the new version may have some new features, but it mostly fixes known software problems and security vulnerabilities. If a release includes the letters RC, this means that it is a "Release Candidate", or that the developers are still adding and fixing features and need testers to help them find any existing problems. If the release includes the word BETA, this means that this version is still buggy and needs the help of testers to find as many problems as possible so they can be fixed.
This list shows all of the releases of PC-BSD and the dates the release became available. Click on a version to read its Release Notes, which describe the features and software included in that release.
- PC-BSD 8.1 - 20 July 2010
- PC-BSD 8.0 - 22 February 2010
- PC-BSD 7.1.1 - 06 July 2009
- PC-BSD 7.1 - 10 April 2009
- PC-BSD 7.1 (RC1) - 27 March 2009
- PC-BSD 7.1 (BETA1) - 06 March 2009
- PC-BSD 7.0.2 - 10 December 2008
- PC-BSD 7.0.1 - 17 October 2008
- PC-BSD 7.0 - 15 September 2008
- PC-BSD 7.0 (BETA1) - 28 August 2008
- PC-BSD 1.5.1 - 23 April 2008
- PC-BSD 1.5 - 12 March 2008
- PC-BSD 1.4.1.2 - 04 January 2007
- PC-BSD 1.4.1.1 - 03 December 2007
- PC-BSD 1.4.1 - 16 November 2007
- PC-BSD 1.4 - 24 September 2007
- PC-BSD 1.3.4 - 18 April 2007
- PC-BSD 1.3.3_1 - 07 March 2007
- PC-BSD 1.3.3 - 12 February 2007
- PC-BSD 1.3.2 - 19 January 2007
- PC-BSD 1.3.1 - 09 January 2007
- PC-BSD 1.3 - 31 December 2006
- PC-BSD 1.3 (RC1) - 11 December 2006
- PC-BSD 1.3 (BETA2) - 26 November 2006
- PC-BSD 1.3 (BETA1) - 18 October 2006
- PC-BSD 1.2 - 12 July 2006
- PC-BSD 1.11a - 25 June 2006
- PC-BSD 1.11 - 13 June 2006
- PC-BSD 1.1 - 28 May 2006
- PC-BSD 1.0 - 28 April 2006
- PC-BSD 1.0 (RC2) - 20 January 2006
- PC-BSD 1.0 (RC1) - 10,21 November 2006
- PC-BSD 0.8.3 - 22 October 2005
- PC-BSD 0.8.2 - 23 September 2005
- PC-BSD 0.8.1 - 19 September 2005
- PC-BSD 0.8 (BETA) - 11 September 2005
- PC-BSD 0.7.8 (BETA) - 18 July 2005
- PC-BSD 0.7.5 (BETA) - 24 June 2005
- PC-BSD 0.7 (BETA) - 13 May 2005
- PC-BSD 0.6 (BETA) - 01 May 2005
- PC-BSD 0.5a (BETA) - 18 April 2005
- PC-BSD 0.5 (BETA) - 15 April 2005
Pre-Installation Tasks
Installing PC-BSD is very easy. However, you should review this section to make sure your hardware is supported and you know how to prepare your installation media.
Migrating to PC-BSD
Migrating your computer to a brand new operating system can sometimes be a daunting task.
Before you begin, there are a few things you should check to ensure that your system is ready to install PC-BSD.
- Are you dual-booting or installing over the entire drive? If you are dual-booting you will need to ensure that you have at least a 6GB primary partition available. You should also review the seciton on Dual Booting to determine which boot loader best suits your needs.
- What type of video card is your system using? PC-BSD supports many video cards, including 3D acceleration on most NVIDIA cards and some Intel integrated cards. Like most open source operating systems, PC-BSD uses X.org drivers for graphics support. You can check if your video card is supported at the X.org Drivers page.
- Are you using a WiFi card in your system? PC-BSD has built-in support for dozens of wireless networking cards. You can check if your card is supported here.
- Have you backed up your important data? This is an important step to never forget. Any irreplaceable data, such as emails, bookmarks, or important files and documents should always be backed up to an external media, such as a removable flash drive, before installing or upgrading any operating system.
After you have gone through these items, you should be ready to start the installation of PC-BSD. Should you run into an issue with your installation there are many different ways to get help.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
PC-BSD has moderate hardware requirements and commonly uses less resources than its commercial counterparts. Before installing PC-BSD on your computer, please make sure you meet the minimum requirements.
Minimum system requirements: at a bare minimum, you need to have the following computer hardware in order to install PC-BSD:
- Pentium II or higher
- 256MB RAM
- 12GB of free hard drive space
- Network card
- Sound card
Recommended system requirements: note that these are minimums and that the faster your computer hardware, the better your computing experience:
- Pentium 4 or higher
- 512MB of RAM
- 20GB of free hard drive space
- Network card
- Sound card
- 3D accelerated video card (NVIDIA or Intel)
You can never have too much RAM, so install as much as you can afford. To play modern video games, you should use a fast CPU. If you want to create a collection of tunes and movies on your computer, you will want a large hard disk drive which can be internal or external.
Supported 32 bit (i386) processors:
PC-BSD will install on 32-bit systems containing the following processors:
- Intel 80486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4
- Intel Xeon and Celeron®
- Am486®, Am5x86®, K5, AMD-K6®
- AMD Athlon, including Athlon-MP, Athlon-XP, Athlon-4, and Athlon Thunderbird
- AMD Duron™
- AMD Élan SC520
- Transmeta Crusoe
- Cyrix
- NexGen
Supported 64 bit processors:
PC-BSD will install on 64-bit systems containing the following processors:
- AMD Athlon™, including 64, XP, 64 X2, FX
- AMD Opteron™
- AMD Sempron
- AMD Turion 64, AMD Turion 64 X2
- all multi-core Intel Xeon™ processors except Sossaman
- single-core Intel Xeon processors Nocona, Irwindale, Potomac, and Cranford
- Intel Pentium®, including M, D, and Extreme Edition
- Intel Core
- Intel Pentium® D
- Intel Pentium 4
- Intel Celeron D
Hardware Compatibility
Most hardware should work with PC-BSD, but in some cases, cheap hardware has been reported not to work. If you use mainstream or top-end hardware, such as those that feature VIA or NVIDIA chipsets, it will usually work flawlessly.
To ensure your hardware is supported, check the FreeBSD 8.1 Hardware List.
Partitioning the Hard Drive
PC-BSD doesn’t come with a built-in partition manager. If you’re planning to install PC-BSD on a brand new hard drive or you wish to shrink an existing partition to make disk space for PC-BSD, you will need to use a third-party partitioning utility before starting the PC-BSD installation. Many partitioning applications are available. Two free live CDs are particularly user friendly: PartImage and PartedMagic.
Before creating or editing any partitions, make sure you back up your valuable data first to an external media, such as a removable flash drive, first!
If you are dual-booting and your hard drive already has partitions, you should double-check that you have a free primary partition as PC-BSD will not install on a logical or secondary partition. You can use your partitioning application to convert a secondary to a primary partition if you don't have an available primary partition.
Obtaining PC-BSD
The installation files for PC-BSD can be downloaded for free and come with an .iso or .img file extension. Depending upon the type of file you choose, the size will vary between ~200MB and ~4GB. This section will show you how to select which file to download, how to verify the download, and how to burn the file to media.
If you have a slow download connection or wish to support the PC-BSD project financially, you can purchase PC-BSD DVDs from FreeBSD Mall.
Members of the PC-BSD project attend many IT conferences across the globe and give out PC-BSD DVDs at conference booths. Visiting a PC-BSD booth is an excellent way to meet other PC-BSD users and to get your questions answered. Check the the PC-BSD website to see if any Upcoming Events are happening near you. If you are organizing a PC-BSD booth, contact us to arrange for DVDs.
When you go to the Download page of the PC-BSD website, you will find a number of files available for download:
- DVD (requires a DVD burner)
- USB Flash (requires a USB memory stick or flash card)
- Boot-Only CD (requires a network connection during the install)
- Boot-Only USB (requires a USB memory stick or flash card and a network connection during the install)
There are two versions available for each type of file: one for 32 bit (i386) systems and one for 64 bit systems. It is important that you download a file that is correct for your computer's architecture (32 or 64 bit).
Note: If you plan to use VirtualBox to install PC-BSD, download the 32-bit version, even if your computer is 64-bit. At this time, VirtualBox can only install 32-bit operating systems. Don't worry, the 32-bit install will still work if you're using VirtualBox on a 64-bit system.
The rest of this section will show you how to verify the integrity of the ISO you downloaded, then how to burn it to media.
Data Integrity Check
After downloading the file that is correct for your architecture and installation type, it's a good idea to check that the file is exactly the same as the one on the PC-BSD server. While downloading, some bits and bytes may get "damaged" or lost, so it's wise to check the integrity of the downloaded file. Did you know that missing a few bits can make the installation file unusable?
If you are currently using a Windows system, you can download the free data integrity check (also known as an MD5 checksum]) application Mat-MD5, seen in Figure X-XX, or WinMd5Sum.
Figure X-XX
On Unix-like systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, or PC-BSD, you can use the md5 commandline tool to check the data integrity. Run the command as seen in Example X-XX, substituting the name of the file that you downloaded. In this example, the file is located in the Downloads subdirectory of the user1's home (~) directory:
Example X-XX
md5 ~/Downloads/PCBSD8.1-x86-DVD.iso MD5 (/home/user1/Downloads/PCBSD8.1-x86-DVD.iso) = 6702a54dc517e0dc18abccc04fdc11e7
You will find the MD5 checksum on the download page of PC-BSD for each .iso file. The checksum reported by either Mat-MD5, WinMd5Sum or md5 must be the same as the checksum listed on PC-BSD's download page. If the MD5 numbers don't match, you'd better download the file again.
Burning the installation DVD
You have now downloaded PC-BSD and checked if the download has gone OK. It's now time to burn the ISO to a DVD. This section will assist you to burn PC-BSD onto a DVD-R (Writable) or on a DVD-RW (Rewritable). This tutorial assumes you already have:
- A DVD-RAM drive that allows you to burn media and not just read
- A writable medium in your DVD-RAM
- A file with a .iso extension containing PC-BSD
- A Windows or Unix computer to burn your ISO file.
At this point, you will have to choose how you want to burn the downloaded .iso file. If you use a Windows computer, you can choose from ImgBurn, Nero, CDBurnerXP, or InfraRecorder. If you use a Unix computer with KDE (such as PC-BSD), you can use K3B. Alternatively, if you use a Unix machine with Gnome, you can use Gnome Baker.
Burning the DVD on Windows
ImgBurn
ImgBurn is one of the easiest image burners available as it simply does what its name suggests: burns images/ISO files.
To burn an ISO, open ImgBurn, select the "Please select a file..." button, seen in Figure X-XX, to locate the downloaded ISO and click the DVD image at the bottom to burn.
Figure X-XX:
Nero
Nero is one of the most popular commercial applications on Windows to burn DVDs. Although it is commercial, you usually have a month free to test it. To burn an ISO, launch Nero, click "Recorder → Burn Image", select your .iso file and burn your DVD. Alternatively, you can click "File → Open", as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
In the Windows dialog box, select the penultimate option labeled "Image Files" to display the .iso files, as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Browse to the directory where you stored your .iso file of PC-BSD; you should see your file listed. Select it and click "OK". On the next screen, click the "Burn" button, seen in Figure X-XX, and Nero will start burning your disk:
Figure X-XX:
After a few minutes, Nero will alert you that the burning process is complete and will eject the DVD for you.
CDBurnerXP
CDBurnerXP is another freeware application for Windows. It has a modern interface and looks similar to its commercial counterparts. Using CDBurnerXP is also very easy. Launch the application and a dialog window will appear and ask you whether you want to continue burning files on a writable disk that already has files (multi session), or whether your DVD doesn't have any content yet (No multi session). Click the second option "Don't Continue Disc (No Multi Session)", as seen in Figure X-XX.
Figure X-XX:
Afterwards, CDBurnerXP's main interface will show up. In the upper-left corner, click "File → Write Disc from ISO File...", as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
A dialog window then appears for you to select your .iso file. Under "Select an ISO image to write", click the "..." button, seen in Figure X-XX, to select your file:
Figure X-XX:
The file will be listed in the main window. The only thing you have to do is "Write Disc", and CDBurnerXP will start burning your .iso file onto your DVD, as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
InfraRecorder
InfraRecorder is another free, open source burn application that is simple, powerful, and burns both CDs and DVDs. It uses source code from cdburnerxp, and can be portable using InfraRecorder Portable.
To burn the ISO, open InfraRecorder and click on "Write Image". Search for the location of the PC-BSD image with the extension .iso at the end, and double click it. Lastly, click "OK", and watch it burn.
When it is finished, the tray with the DVD will open and a dialog box will appear indicating that the burn is finished.
Burning the DVD on a Unix system
Using K3B on Unix-like installations using KDE
Any Unix-based operating with the KDE Windows manager, such as PC-BSD, FreeBSD or Linux distributions using KDE, are suited to K3B, one of the best burning applications for Unix. K3B has a similar interface to other modern burning software found on Windows, such as Nero or CDBurnerXP, and is equally easy to use.
To burn your ISO, launch K3B and click "Tools → Burn Image...", as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
A new window, seen in Figure X-XX, will launch so that you can choose your .iso file. Under "Image to burn", click the blue folder icon to select your file:
Figure X-XX:
Once your file is listed, click the "Start" button in the top-right corner, and K3B will burn the .iso file onto your DVD.
Using Brasero on GNOME
Brasero is an easy to use CD-ROM/DVD burner included with the GNOME desktop. To launch Brasero... and click ...", as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
A dialog window will be displayed and you will be able to select your .iso file. Select it and click "OK". The next window, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to select your CD-ROM drive, as well as a few other options. Leave these options as default. Click "Start" and Brasero will begin to burn your DVD:
Figure X-XX:
Burning a ISO image on a Mac OSX system
Launch 'Disk Utility', seen in Figure X-XX, located under 'Applications' → 'Utilities':
Figure X-XX:
As seen in Figure X-XX, click on 'File' → 'Open Disk Image...' then browse to the location of the ISO image. Select the ISO image and click 'Open'.
Figure X-XX:
As seen in Figure X-XX, the ISO will now be displayed in the right hand side pane. Select the ISO image and click the 'Burn' icon.
Figure X-XX:
Insert the appropriate media, check the 'Verify burned data' if applicable (seen in Figure X-XX), and click 'Burn'.
Figure X-XX:
Writing the ISO to Flash media
To write the USB IMG file to a Flash Card or USB pen drive you can do this with the Unix/Linux command dd:
dd if=<path_to/img_file.img> of=/dev/da0 bs=1m
Just substitute da0 with the device name of your USB stick.
NOTE: The USB images are FreeBSD-UFS formatted, and will not show up as a viewable file-system under Windows.
ADD SECTION ON how-to to flash a USB pen drive with the installer image. On Unix system this can be done with dd(1) and on Windows there's a nice tool with gui written by the M0n0wall crew: http://m0n0.ch/wall/physdiskwrite.php
PC-BSD Live Mode
Beginning with PC-BSD 8.0...
Using VirtualBox
A virtualized environment allows you to "test drive" an operating system without overwriting your current operating system. This is an excellent way to practice installation, to see if all of your hardware is supported, or to try multiple versions of operating systems. Virtualization software effectively creates "windows" (known as virtual machines) into which you can install and use an operating system. The only limitation to virtualization is your hardware as each guest uses CPU and RAM. Depending upon the amount of CPU and RAM in your computer, you may find that the operating system you install using virtualization software runs slowly. If your computer really slows down, try closing other applications running on your computer to free up some RAM.
PC-BSD provides a PBI for VirtualBox, an open source virtualization program originally created by Sun Microsystems. VirtualBox also runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and OpenSolaris and supports a large number of operating systems that can be installed into a virtual machine.
If your computer is already running a version of PC-BSD, you can use Software Manager to install VirtualBox. If your computer is running another operating system, download the binary for your operating system from the VirtualBox Downloads page.
Once installed, start VirtualBox and you will see the screen shown in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Creating a Virtual Machine
Before you can install an operating system, you need to create a virtual machine. To do so, click the New button to start the new virtual machine wizard. Click the Next button to see the screen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Enter a name for your virtual machine, which can be anything that makes sense to you. Click the Operating System drop down menu and select BSD which will automatically change the Version menu to FreeBSD. Click Next to see the screen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
The base memory size should be changed to at least 256 MB. If your system has a lot of RAM, you should probably assign more memory to your virtual machine. Any number within the green area is considered a safe value by VirtualBox, meaning it should not slow down your computer too much. When finished, click Next to see the screen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
This screen is used to create the virtual hard disk--in other words, the amount of disk space that will be available to the virtual machine. If this is your first virtual machine, keep the default of "Create new hard disk" and click Next. If you have created a virtual machine in the past and wish to reuse its disk space, select "Use existing hard disk" and select it from the drop down menu. You can create as many virtual machines as you wish. However, if your computer is getting low in disk space, you should consider reusing existing virtual hard disks to prevent your hard drive from being used up by old virtual machines.
If you choose to create a new hard disk, the "Create New Virtual Disk Wizard" will launch when you click Next. Click the Next button to see the screen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
You can now choose whether you want "Dynamically expanding storage" or "Fixed-size storage". The first option uses disk space as needed until it reaches the maximum size that you will set in the next screen. The second option creates a disk the same size as that specified amount of disk space, whether it's used or not. Choose the first option if you are worried about disk space; otherwise choose the second option as it allows VirtualBox to run slightly faster. Once you select Next, you'll see the screen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
This screen is used to set the size (or upper limit) of the virtual machine. If you plan to install PC-BSD into the virtual machine, increase the size to at least 10 GB or you will receive an error during PC-BSD installation. Depending upon your current operating system and if you plan to install PBIs within the virtual machine, you will probably want to choose at least 20 - 30GB. Whatever size you set, make sure that your computer has enough free disk space to support it. Once you make your selection and press Next, you'll see a summary of your choices. You can use the Back buttons to return to a previous screen if you wish to change any values. Otherwise, click Finish to finish using the wizard. Your virtual machine should now show in the left box, as seen in the example in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Before starting your virtual machine, you will want to configure it to use your installation media. Click the Storage hyperlink in the right frame to access the storage screen seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Double-click the word Empty, which represents your DVD reader. If you wish to access the PC-BSD installer from your DVD reader, double-check that the Slot is pointing to the correct location (e.g. IDE Secondary Master) and use the drop down menu to change it if the location is incorrect. Click the CD/DVD Device drop down menu to change it from empty to the Host Drive value.
If you prefer to use an ISO that is stored on your hard disk, click the folder icon to access the Virtual Media Manager screen seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Click the Add icon to navigate to the installation ISO you wish to use. Once you press OK, it will show as the CD/DVD device. Click OK to save your changes.
Note: the selected ISO/DVD must be 32-bit, even if you're using VirtualBox on a 64-bit system.
You're now ready to install PC-BSD into your virtual machine. Simply highlight the virtual machine and click on the green Start icon. A window will open indicating that the virtual machine is starting. If you have a DVD inserted, you should hear it spin and it should start to boot into the installation program. If it doesn't or if you're using an ISO stored on the hard disk, press F12 to select the boot device when you see the message to do so, then press "c" to boot from CD-ROM. You can then proceed through the installation as described in the Installation section.
Note: The virtual machine will "capture" your mouse pointer. Use your right Ctrl button if you wish to leave the virtual machine and use your mouse to interact with other applications on your computer. To go back to the virtual machine, simply click anywhere inside the virtual machine and VirtualBox will re-capture your mouse pointer.
Installing PC-BSD
PC-BSD can be installed from the installation media directly onto a hard drive or it can be installed into a 'virtual computer' using virtualization software such as VmWare Hypervisor or Virtualbox. You can also try PC-BSD without installing it by selecting the Live option when you booth the DVD.
The PC-BSD installer has made installing a Unix-like operating system as easy as installing Microsoft Windows. When installing PC-BSD you don’t need to use the command line or text-based installers, neither do you have to manually edit configuration files.
The installation of PC-BSD is a fast, easy and straight-forward process with a pretty looking Installer. An easy-to-use wizard will take you step-by-step through the whole process by asking a few simple questions and after a few minutes you will have your system up and running. Though the installation process has been made as short and as easy as possible, there are still some advanced options available for power users.
Starting the PC-BSD Installation
This section will show you how to install PC-BSD.
Insert either the installation DVD into the computer's DVD drive or insert the USB drive containing the installation media into a USB port. Boot the system and the installation should begin. If the computer instead boots into an existing operating system, reboot and check your computer's BIOS program to ensure that the drive containing the installation media is listed first in the boot order. Save your BIOS changes and reboot.
After a couple of seconds, a series of lines of code will scroll down the screen, meaning that PC-BSD is being loaded. Soon after, you should see a screen similar to Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
There are 8 options to choose from:
- 1. Boot Installer [default] - Starts the installation program with all standard options enabled. This is the default if you don't select anything else within 10 seconds.
- 2. Boot Installer with ACPI disabled - This disables power management, which may be useful for certain BIOS's and laptops. If the installation program hangs while probing your hardware, restart the computer and see if selecting this option makes a difference.
- 3. Boot in Live Mode - Select this option if you want to test-drive PC-BSD without installing it.
- 4. Boot in Safe Mode - Select this option if installation still hangs when probing your hardware and option #2 did not help. It will boot with a forced PIO mode (disabling the use of DMA), disable write caching for all IDE hard drives and CD ROM drives, disable the probing of EISA slots (as very few systems have them), and (on i386 systems) disables the use of ACPI and APICs.
- 5. Boot with verbose logging - Select this option if you would like to see more detailed messages during the boot process. This can be useful if you are troubleshooting which piece of hardware is causing the installation to hang.
- 6. Boot to emergency console - Advanced users can use this option to fix critical system failures.
- 7. Run X in VESA mode - If the installation program is unable to load your video driver, restart the computer and select this option. The installer will default to VESA mode which will work on any system with a video card.
- 8. Escape to loader prompt - Advanced users can select this option to issue advanced commands, such as changing kernels or loading kernel modules.
Once you make a selection, the boot splash screen will load. If you'd like to save some time, press any key when prompted, then type in n and press enter when you see this message:
Check integrity of installer archive? This may take several minutes. [y]:
Language Selection Screen
The next screen, seen in Figure X-XX: indicates that the installer successfully loaded and is ready to present you with its options:
Figure X-XX:
The installer is divided into three logical areas:
- The left panel which lists the screens the installer will step through. The current step is highlighted in red text.
- The main area in the centre where the installer expects user input.
- The bottom navigation bar where you can go forward, backward or Abort the installation.
This screen allows you to select your language. PC-BSD's menus have been translated to several different languages and you can see the status of your native language at the PC-BSD Translation Site. At this website, if your language does not show 100% translation, it means that not all of the menus have been translated yet and that the untranslated menus will instead display in English. You are welcome to join the PC-BSD Translators Mailing List if you would like to assist in translating menus to your native language.
By default, PC-BSD menus will display in English, unless you select another language in the drop down menu in this screen. When you are finished, click Next to go to the next installation screen.
Keyboard Selection Screen
The next screen, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to change your keyboard model, keyboard layout, and preferred variant. If English is your native language and you are using a basic English keyboard, you can just press Next to accept the defaults.
Otherwise, use the menus to change the default selection(s) to match your keyboard type and language. You can test your changes by typing into the white area at the bottom of the screen, just below the message that indicates you can test your selected settings.
Figure X-XX:
System Selection Screen
The next screen, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to choose between a fresh install (overwrites everything on the install partition), an upgrade (keeps settings from an earlier version of PC-BSD), or to restore from a backup (requires you to have first made a backup using Life Preserver. The default is to do a fresh install.
Figure X-XX:
NOTE: Regardless of which choice you make, make sure you have a backup of your important data as it is always possible for existing data to be overwritten. If you have not made a backup yet, press the Abort button to leave the installation program, make and verify your backup, then restart the installation program.
This screen also allows you to decide between installing PC-BSD (the default) or FreeBSD. As of version 8.x, the PC-BSD installer does not allow you to select which installation sets get installed with FreeBSD and only performs a base install. This functionality may change in future versions. If you decide to install FreeBSD using the PC-BSD installer and want additional distribution sets, type sysinstall -> Configure -> Distributions after you boot into your FreeBSD system.
Finally, this screen allows you decide whether the installer will copy the files it needs from the DVD/USB image you booted from or from a location over the network.
NOTE: If you are installing PC-BSD as the only operating system on your computer, the default settings are fine and you can click Next to continue. However, if this is not your intent, you will need to review the sections that apply to your situation:
- Upgrading PC-BSD
- Use PC-BSD Installer to Install FreeBSD
- Install PC-BSD Over a Network
- Install PC-BSD in its own Partition on a Multi-Boot System
Disk Selection Screen
The next screen, seen in Figure X-XX, is used to determine which hard drive and partition to install PC-BSD into.
Figure X-XX:
NOTE: If you are installing PC-BSD as the only operating system on your computer, simply check the "Use Entire Disk" checkbox then click Next to continue. However, if this is not your intent, you will need to review the sections that apply to your situation:
If your computer contains multiple hard drives, use the drop down menu at the top of the screen to select the drive you wish to install into.
The check box at the bottom of the screen determines whether or not to Install the PC-BSD bootloader, which is currently the same as the FreeBSD boot loader. You should leave this box unchecked if:
- you have no plans to use PC-BSD with another operating system on the same computer
- you plan to use the Windows boot loader instead
However, if you plan to share the computer with a Linux distribution, you want to check this box. Even though you will probably use the Linux boot loader, this option will create the partition table info that other boot loader will need (CHECK THIS).
The PC-BSD/FreeBSD boot loader is extremely basic and wasn't designed to look fancy or to be customized. If you select to install it and decide later on to replace it with another boot loader, see the section on Dual Booting for other boot loader alternatives.
Users Creation Screen
The next screen, seen in Figure X-XX, requires you to set the administrative password and to create at least one user account.
Figure X-XX:
The administrative password, also known as the root or superuser password, is required for system administration tasks such as installing software, setting up your printer, or changing settings that affect all users. You will need to remember this password for the times that you are prompted for it. Use this screen to type in the password you want to use; you are required to type it in twice to confirm the password.
For security reasons, PC-BSD will not let you login as the administrator; instead it will prompt you for the administrator password whenever it is needed to perform a system task. This means that you need to create a user account that you will use to login to your system. If you share your computer with other users, you should create an account for each user. That way, each user will have their own home directory where they can store their files and not interfere with the files created by other users.
To create a user, complete the following fields:
- Username: you need to remember this name as it is used to login. It is case-sensitive, meaning you have to remember if you use any capitalization. It cannot contain any spaces.
- Full name: this name can contain spaces and is used as a description to help you remember who uses this user account.
- Password: you will need to type this in twice. If you or another user forget their password, see the FAQ on Help, I Forgot My Password!
- Shell: can be left as-is. This option is used by advanced users to choose their default shell when using a command prompt. The shell is to PC-BSD what MS-DOS was to Microsoft Windows.
When you have filled in the information for the new user, click the +Add button and the user account should appear in the "User Accounts" field underneath. You can click a user name at any time and modify its details. If you change your mind about a user, highlight their entry and click the -Remove button to prevent the user account from being created by the installation.
If you are security conscious or if you share the PC with others and you don't want others to automatically login to your account in order to access your files, unmark the checkbox for "Auto-login User".
Click the Next button when you are finished.
Time Selection Screen
This screen, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to select your time zone from a drop down menu.
Figure X-XX:
There is also a check box that allows your PC-BSD system to automatically connect to a time server on the Internet to ensure it is keeping accurate time. Accurate time is sometimes needed by time-sensitive applications, such as logging into a server that uses Active Directory. You can uncheck this box if you don't think you need it or if your system isn't always connected to the Internet.
If your native language is English and you don't want to install other language support (which does take up disk space), check the box "Remove all other language support files". CHECK THIS
Components Selection Screen
This screen, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to select which software components can be installed with the operating system.
Figure X-XX:
Highlight the software you would like to install in the "Available Components" box and click the blue > button to add them to the "Selected Components" box. If you change your mind, highlight the item in the "Selected Components" box and click the blue < button. Whatever shows up in the "Selected Components" box when you click the Next button, will be installed for you.
The following software is available as components:
- Mozilla's popular web browser - (firefox)
- Powerful CD /DVD burning tool - (k3b)
- Full featured office suite - (openoffice)
- Web Browser with BitTorrent client - (opera)
- FreeBSD ports collection - (ports)
- FreeBSD system source - (src)
- Jail management and administration - (thewarden)
- Mozilla's popular E-mail client - (thunderbird)
Note: You can still install additional software after PC-BSD is installed. The components that show during installation came with the installation media, meaning they can be installed quickly and don't require a connection to the Internet.
Installation Summary Screen
This screen, seen in Figure X-XX, provides a summary of all of the options you selected in the previous screens.
Figure X-XX:
You should review this information to make sure it is correct. If you would like to change anything, use the Back button to navigate to the options(s) you would like to change. When finished, click the Next button. A popup message will ask if you want to start the installation. If you're ready, click the Yes button.
Note: this is your very last chance to make sure you're ready. Once you click Yes, the selected hard drive or partition will be formatted and any data it contains will be lost.
Installation Progress Screen
This screen, seen in Figure X-XX, uses a progress bar and messages so you can watch the installation's progress.
Figure X-XX:
How long the installation takes depends upon the speed of your hardware, the installation type you selected, and whether or not any additional software components will be installed. A typical installation takes between 15 and 30 minutes.
Installation Finished Screen
This screen, seen in Figure X-XX, appears once the installation is complete.
Figure X-XX:
You can now remove your installation media and click the Finish button to boot into your PC-BSD installation. If you installed the PC-BSD bootloader, you will can choose "FreeBSD" from the list, in order to load PC-BSD. Otherwise, your computer should load PC-BSD directly without your intervention.
Advanced Installation Topics
Upgrading PC-BSD
PC-BSD's installation program makes it easy to upgrade to the latest version of PC-BSD. First, you need to download or obtain a copy of the new DVD for the version of PC-BSD you wish to upgrade to. Boot from the DVD as you would for a regular install, and select the "Upgrade" button when you get to the System settings screen:
Figure X-XX:
As seen in Figure X-XX, the installer should detect the current installation of PC-BSD and display a short description in the "Select the system to upgrade" box. In this example, PC-BSD 8.0 is currently installed and the user booted using the PC-BSD 8.1 installation DVD.
Highlight the detected version that you wish to upgrade. If you wish to keep the data in your home directory, check the box "Keep current users desktop configuration". If there are multiple users, this check box refers to the user that automatically logs in (the first user that was created during the original installation). CHECK THIS
WARNING: As with any operating system upgrade it is always wise to backup important files and data beforehand to an external backup device such as a removable USB drive.
After clicking Next, you will be presented with the Components selection screen where you can choose which new PBIs to install. WHAT IF ALREADY INSTALLED?
The update will now take place, preserving the home data, installed PBIs, /usr/local and user accounts. When the installation is finished, simply reboot and you will booted into the new version of your PC-BSD operating system.
MENTION BACKUP DIRS IF CHECKED BOX
Restoring PC-BSD from Backup
Figure X-XX:
Use PC-BSD Installer to Install FreeBSD
Disk Encryption
Install PC-BSD Over a Network
Figure X-XX:
Using a Custom Partition Layout
THIS SECTION NEEDS UPDATING
The "Detected Hard Drives" field lists the disks that PC-BSD has found during boot up, from which one needs to be selected. If you want PC-BSD to use the entire disk, for instance if you don't have any other operating systems on your PC, and no separate partition is used to store documents, you can check the "Use entire disk" option underneath to use all disk space of your hard disk drive. Be very careful when you select "Use entire disk" as it will overwrite all partitions!
In FreeBSD, and hence PC-BSD, each partition has a code in front of them, such as /dev/ad0s1, which is the path to the device (dev) file. Naming convention is as follows:
- ad0 or da0 means "first drive"
- ---s1 means the first "partition" or slice in FreeBSD vocabulary
FreeBSD, starts counting disk drives from "0", and starts counting partitions from "1". Here are a few examples:
- /dev/ad0s1 — First drive, first partition
- /dev/ad1s1 — Second drive, first partition
- /dev/da0s3 — First drive (SCSI), third partition
- /dev/da1s1 — Second drive (SCSI), first partition
You also need to select the partition on which you want to install PC-BSD. If you already have more than one partition, all of them will be listed under the "Partition Selection" box. Select the one you want to use.
If Microsoft Windows is already installed and if you wish to have PC-BSD on the same computer, check the "Install the PC-BSD bootloader" option. The next time your computer boots up, a welcome screen will allow you to select which operating system you want to use. If you wish to use only PC-BSD on your computer or if you already have a Unix-based operating system installed with a bootloader such as Grub, GAG or Lilo, uncheck this option to keep your existing bootloader. When Windows is installed after PC-BSD, the FreeBSD bootloader will be overwritten and PC-BSD will be unbootable, which can be easily fixed. More information on the boot process, the FreeBSD bootloader and troubleshooting can be found here.
If you want to make a custom partition layout mark the corresponding checkbox (recommended for advanced users only).
Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
If you marked the checkbox for a custom partition layout, you may now edit the partition layout to your needs.
On the partition editing screen the BSD disk partitions can be customised. PC-BSD (and FreeBSD) have two levels of partitioning:
- Regular partitions, also known as "Slices" by FreeBSD (ie: C:, D:, etc...);
- Sub-partitions invisibles by non-BSD systems, and known as "Partitions" by FreeBSD (ie: /boot, /var, /home, etc....)
You can keep all your mount points under "/", or you can spread them across several partitions or disks, or even across raid arrays for maximum performance. At the very least, you need a "/" partition with enough room for your files (4GB+) and a SWAP partition for virtual memory. Typically, SWAP space is advised to be set twice as big as your amount of RAM. This is not always necessary, for instance if you have 1GB of RAM, 1 GB of SWAP is probably sufficient for ordinary users. More information and examples check the "Allocating Disk Space" from the FreeBSD Handbook.
For more security, you can check the "Use Encrypted Swap Space" option, which will not leave any passwords or credit card numbers visible in your swap space. Swap Space Encryption can also at a later stage be turned of or off with the Services Manager.
Dual Booting
When setting up a dual boot or a multi boot system, it is best to first backup any important data, and to fully investigate what boot manager you will use.
Please note: none of these procedures are guaranteed to work. If performed incorrectly, you might render some of your systems unbootable or you might lose data. Always make a backup first!!!
You may also find the following tutorials handy:
- HOWTO boot FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows XP with GAG, GRUB, LILO, and BootEasy
- FreeBSD & WINDOWS VISTA
FreeBSD Boot Manager
During the installation of PC-BSD, you will be given the option to install the FreeBSD boot manager. If you plan to use or install a Linux distro on the same computer you are installing PC-BSD, be sure to install the FreeBSD boot manager. Even if you don't plan on using this boot manager, this is a necessary step as it will install the boot blocks needed by other boot managers. This section demonstrates both the FreeBSD boot manager as well as other freely available alternatives.
Note: if you plan to use the Windows boot manager, do not select the FreeBSD boot manager when installing PC-BSD. If you have already overwritten the Windows boot manager by mistake, see the section on Recovering Windows Boot loader after installing PC-BSD.
The FreeBSD boot manager is a chain loader that typically occupies sector 0 of a disk, which is known as the Master Boot Record (MBR).
The FreeBSD Boot Manager is also referred to as boot0 or "boot easy".
Example Boot Menu:
F1 FreeBSD F5 Drive 1 Default: F1
Please note that recent versions of Windows have been found not to work with the FreeBSD boot manager as Windows requires the Windows Boot Manager to be installed in the MBR. If you wish to dual boot with Windows, For please refer to the EasyBCD section.
For information on understanding and using the FreeBSD boot manager, please refer to this section of the FreeBSD Handbook.
For more information regarding the FreeBSD boot process, refer to the following man pages:
GAG, The Graphical Boot Manager
GAG is a versatile boot manager, capable of booting many different operating systems. After downloading and unzipping GAG, burn the cdrom.iso to a CD.
When you reboot the machine with the GAG CD inserted, select the option to Install GAG. You can then select S to set up GAG and choose to add the PC-BSD operating system to the GAG menu.
NOTE: If you are dual-booting with Linux, GAG requires that either grub or lilo be installed in the / or /boot partition of the Linux system.
Grub
Many Linux distros use grub as the boot loader. This section shows you how to add PC-BSD to an existing grub menu. You may also find the PCBSD FAQs on using Grub in Linux to boot PC-BSD and How can I use Grub in PC-BSD to manage several operating systems? to be helpful.
While booted into the Linux system, use the grub command line tool to list all devices that can be seen by grub's drivers. This will help you workout what drive options to use when setting the root option in the examples below.
$ sudo grub grub> ls grub> quit
There are two versions of grub that are in use. To see which version your Linux distro is using:
grub> grub --version
If the version number is less than 2, see Adding PC-BSD to Grub Version 1. If the version number is 2 or higher, see Adding PC-BSD to Grub Version 2.
Adding PC-BSD to Grub Version 1
Here is an example of adding PC-BSD to a Linux distro that is using grub version 1:
title PCBSD 8.1 root (hd0,1) kernel /boot/loader
- Title: This will be the text that is shown in the boot menu and can be anything that makes sense to you.
- Root: The root of the partition containing PC-BSD. In the above example, PC-BSD is installed on the first hard disk (hd0) and on the first partition (,1). Start counting your hard disk from zero (e.g. disk 0 for the first hard disk, disk 1 for the second hard disk) and your partition from one (e.g. 1 for first partition on that disk, 2 for second partition, etc.)
- Kernel: Used to load the primary boot image. For FreeBSD and PC-BSD, always use /boot/loader.
For more information on using grub version 1, refer to the Grub Legacy Manual.
Adding PC-BSD to Grub Version 2
If your Linux distro is using grub version 2, the entry would now look like this:
title PCBSD 8.1 root (hd0,1,a) kernel /boot/loader boot
Here are some examples of more complex grub version 2 entries:
To set some sysctl values when loading the kernel:
menuentry "PCBSD (FreeBSD) 8.1" {
insmod ufs2
set root=(hd0,3)
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
set KFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:dev/label/rootfs0
set KFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
}
To use the specified drive UUID:
First, at a command prompt in the PC-BSD system, determine the UUID with this command:
# /usr/local/sbin/grub-probe -d /dev/ad4s1 -t fs_uuid
Then, use that UUID in the grub menu entry:
menuentry "FreeBSD ad4, direct" {
insmod ufs2
set root=(hd0,1,a)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4b22f9090565ab77
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
kfreebsd_loadenv /boot/device.hints
set KFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ad4s1a
set KFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
}
To use ZFS on GPT Partition:
zfs set mountpoint=legacy on all datasets on ${ZPOOL} and manage mountpoints in ${ZFSDATASET-INSTALLATION}/etc/fstab
menuentry "FreeBSD install in ${ZFSDATASET-INSTALLATION} (i.e. 8.1-RELEASE-amd64) on ${ZPOOL} (i.e. zroot)" {
insmod zfs
# search for ${ZPOOL}
search -s -l zroot
# Load kernel of FreeBSD, kfreebsd /${ZFSROOTDATASET}/${ZFSDATASET-INSTALLATION}@/boot/kernel/kernel (-aCcDdghmnPpqrsv)
kfreebsd /8.1-RELEASE-amd64@/boot/kernel/kernel
kfreebsd_module_elf /8.1-RELEASE-amd64@/boot/kernel/opensolaris.ko
kfreebsd_module_elf /8.1-RELEASE-amd64@/boot/kernel/zfs.ko
# Loading kernel modules (${VAR}_load="YES") here, /boot/loader.conf isn't processed
# kfreebsd_module_elf /${ZFSDATASET-INSTALLATION}@/boot/kernel/${VAR}.ko
kfreebsd_module /8.1-RELEASE-amd64@/boot/zfs/zpool.cache type=/boot/zfs/zpool.cache
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=zfs:zroot/8.1-RELEASE-amd64
# Loader Tunables (${TUNABLE}="variable" -> set kFreeBSD.${TUNABLE}=variable)
}
CHECK IF NECESSARY:
After a Grub2 configuration change you need to run update-grub as the superuser or sudo update-grub.
For more information please refer to the Grub 2 manual
Dual Boot with Windows Using EasyBCD
EasyBCD was developed by the non-profit NeoSmart Technologies to make modifying the Windows Boot Loader easier. EasyBCD can be used to set up dual-boots between Windows and Linux, BSD, or Mac OS X.
To prepare the system for dual-booting PC-BSD and Windows, follow these steps:
- 1: Using partitioning software, prepare at least 2 primary partitions.
- 2: Install Windows first.
- 3: In the second primary partition install PC-BSD. Don't check the boot loader option. This will prevent the install from interfering with the Windows boot loader.
- 4: When the install is finished, reboot into Windows.
- 5: In Windows, download the latest version of EasyBCD.
- 6: Run EasyBCD. Add an entry for your BSD partition. Go to the Linux/BSD Tab (older version might only read Linux for the tab) and from the dropdown menu options select FreeBSD and the relevant partition / drive.
Recovering Windows Boot loader after installing PC-BSD
Windows users often end up overwriting their Windows boot loader, thus losing access to Windows and only being able to boot into PC-BSD. This happens when the boot loader option is checked during the installation of PC-BSD. It is recommended that you first recover your Windows boot loader and then use the EasyBCD instructions above to setup a boot option for PCBSD.
If you are using XP, use the Windows XP instructions. If you are using Vista, use How to Restore Vista Boot Manager.
Post Installation Configuration
This section will demonstrate how to configure your display settings the first time you boot into PC-BSD.
Starting PC-BSD for the First Time
Boot up selection
PC-BSD shows a boot up menu with eight choices when starting up. Most of them are identical to the options shown during booting up the PC-BSD Installation CD (see above). However, instead of "Boot PC-BSD to emergency prompt", option 6 is now "Run installer in VESA mode". This is the option to choose should you get a black screen or in case you have problems with the screen resolution stopping you from using KDE.
Display Settings
Once PC-BSD has finished booting for the first time, you will see the Display Settings screen shown in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Here you can select your desired screen resolution, color depth and the video driver. By default, PC-BSD should list the name of your video card. However, it will select the "vesa" driver which should always work but will give you sub-optimal performance. You should click on the drop down menu and change "vesa" to the driver that most closely matches your video card name. In the example shown in Figure X-XX, the XYZ driver was selected.
You can also use the drop down menus to change the screen resolution and color depth values. If the value you desire is not listed, it may be that the selected driver does not support that resolution or depth.
Advanced users can select their monitor's horizontal sync and vertical refresh rate in the Advanced tab, seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Use caution and refer to your monitor's documentation if you make any changes here. If you're not sure what you're doing, leave the default values as-is.
If your computer is connected to two monitors, check the box "Enable Dual-Head support".
When you are finished, click the "Apply" button for your settings to be saved and tested. If anything goes wrong during testing, you should be taken back to this "Display Settings" screen, so you can amend the details. If you're happy with the resolution, click "Yes" in the next step. Click "No" to return to the "Display Settings" screen and try other settings.
ADD SECTION ON HOW TO RETURN TO THIS SCREEN
Logon to PC-BSD
If you selected the " " checkbox during installation, you will now automatically login to PC-BSD and see a screen similar to Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Otherwise, you should see the login screen shown in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
PC-BSD is now up and running. Welcome to the desktop!
Installing True Type Fonts
If you would like to install Microsoft True Type fonts, click on the Software Manager icon on your Desktop. Search for "fonts" in the search bar and you should see a result similar to Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Click the download button to install the fonts PBI. It will automatically setup your system to use these fonts.
If you already have a collection of fonts that you have downloaded or purchased, you can configure your PC-BSD system to use these as well using the Font Installer utility.
Click the KDE menu → System Settings → Font Installer to start this utility. Figure X-XX shows all of the fonts installed on this system (as All Fonts is currently selected under the Group column).
Figure X-XX:
Only the administrator can add system fonts, so highlight Personal Fonts under the Group column, then click the +Add button. This will allow you to browse to the font you wish to add. You can add multiple fonts in the same directory by holding down the Ctrl key while making your selection. Click the Open button, which will install the font for you. When it is finished, you will see the message in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Your newly installed font(s) should now show up in the Personal Fonts section in the Groups column and be available to the applications you use.
Java and Flash
Should just work. ADD MORE DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
Multimedia Codecs
For licensing reasons, the PC-BSD Project cannot ship proprietary multimedia codecs. If we did ship proprietary codecs, you could play any multimedia format, but PC-BSD wouldn't be free of charge. Apple and Microsoft have paid for their codecs and are legally allowed to redistribute them. Another reason why we cannot ship codecs is that this practice is illegal in some countries. Some groups that create codecs group, such as the MPEG group, restrict the distribution of their codecs.
However, you should be able to play most multimedia formats on your PC-BSD system thanks to some open source media players that allow you to play many popular media formats. If you do happen to come across a file that you can not play in the Konqueror or Firefox web browsers, it is because it is in a proprietary format that requires a licensing fee. However, you should be able to play Youtube videos, GIVE MORE EXAMPLES
Your PC-BSD system comes with the following multimedia players installed:
ADD LIST AND DESCRIPTIONS OF PLAYERS THAT COME WITH PC-BSD AND PLAYERS AVAILABLE AS PBIS
In addition, you can install the following multimedia PBIs:
Installation Troubleshooting
Installing PC-BSD is usually an easy process that "just works". However, sometimes you will run across a problem. This section will look at solutions to the most common installation problems.
No PC-BSD Welcome Screen
If you can't get to the boot screen, seen in Figure X-XX, try unplugging as many devices as possible, such as webcams, scanners, printers, USB mice and keyboards. If this solves the problem, plug in one piece of hardware at a time, then reboot. This will help you pinpoint which device is causing the problem.
Figure X-XX:
UPDATE SCREENSHOT
ACPI
If unplugging all of your external devices does not solve your problem, try selecting the menu option to disable ACPI.
Computer Freezes
If your computer freezes after the installation boot menu (while probing hardware) and unplugging extra devices or disabling ACPI does not fix the problem, it is possible that the installation media is corrupt. If the MD5 on the file you downloaded was correct, try reburning the file and double-check that you are using your burning software correctly (e.g. are not choosing a burning speed faster than your DVD drive supports).
ADD SECTION HERE ON SENDING EMAIL TO TESTING WITH DIAGNOSTIC INFO
If you successfully install PC-BSD but have problems rebooting into the new installation....
LBA
A not uncommon cause for problems is the LBA (Logical Block Addressing) setting in the BIOS. If your PC is not booting up before or after installation, check your BIOS and turn LBA off (don't leave it on automatic)
Monitor Detection
It is possible to run the Monitor Detection again if PC-BSD starts up with the wrong resolution or not using the correct videocard driver. To rerun the monitor detection, start the Display Setup Wizard UPDATE THIS AS NOW A TOGGLE
If none of the above has fixed your problem, search the PC-BSD forums to see if a solution exists, try a Google search, or check the section on getting Help & Support.
Exploring PC-BSD
KDE or the K Desktop Environment, is a contemporary and easy to use desktop environment for Unix desktops and compatible systems, similar to desktop environments found on the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. While KDE includes a window manager, virtual desktops, file manager, panel, control center and many other components that one would expect to be part of a contemporary desktop environment, the true strength of this environment lies in the large suite of applications and interoperability of its components. Desktop environments are the interface that make interaction of your hands through a mouse/keyboard as logical and easy as possible and display the results of your actions on the screen in a manner so that you quickly and easily understand the consequences of your actions. KDE is a desktop environment that aims to be the best graphical interface between humans and the information they have stored Even though there are a number of desktop environments available, such as Gnome, XFCE, Enlightenment etc, PC-BSD currently supports KDE only. KDE Frequently Asked Questions here, KDE Quick Start manual here
KDE Desktop
The first thing of KDE you see is the splash screen with the little glowing icons showing the progress of loading the desktop.
If you are familiar with MS Windows, you won't get lost with PC-BSD, and if you have already used KDE, you will feel right at home! PC-BSD's workspace is an intuitive interface that follow common sense usability rules which you can find in other modern operating systems, with the desktop, a taskbar at the bottom of the screen and a start button, which in this case is the red icon in the lower-left corner, also known as the "Start menu", and your application shortcuts in the main screen:
Desktop
The PC-BSD desktop is, just like the system: clean, bare and very customisable. By default, four icons are installed on the default desktop for you:
- PC-BSD Website: provides a shortcut to pcbsd.org.
- Ports Jail: used by advanced users to install FreeBSD ports or packages. See the section on Using Ports Jail for more details.
- Software Manager: used to install, uninstall, and upgrade PBIs. See the section on Using Software Manager for more details.
- Users Handbook: provides quick access to the online version of the PC-BSD Users Handbook (this document).
Taskbar or KDE Panel
The taskbar, also known as the KDE panel, is located at the bottom of the desktop. It contains the following icons and areas, going from left to right. If you hover over an icon with your mouse it will display its name and description. If you right-click an icon, you can access its settings or remove it from the panel.
- Kickoff Application Launcher, sometimes called the KDE start menu.
[[Image:]] - Show the Desktop:
- Show the Plasma Dashboard:
[[Image:]] - Pager: lets you switch between 4 virtual screens, i.e. instead of having multiple physical monitors, you can switch between virtual screens on one monitor.
[[Image:]] - the middle section of the panel contains icons for any applications you have launched. Click on the icon to maximize that application's window.
- Device Notifier: shows, when clicked, all found and mounted disks (incl. USB memory sticks)
[[Image:]] - Date and Time:
- lets you adjust the audio output
[[Image:]] - System Tray:
- Trash:
[[Image:]] - Panel Tool Box:
System Tray
click on < button to maximize and see all of the icons
[[Image:]] - Klipper:
- Update Manager: Depending on whether PC-BSD and installed PBIs are up-to-date, it can show different colors, indicating different updates
[[Image:]] - IBus:
[[Image:]] - Keyboard Layout Switcher:
[[Image:]] - KMix:
- Device Notifier: shows, when clicked, all found and mounted disks (incl. USB memory sticks)
- KOrganizer: keeps track of any appointments that are in Kalendar
[[Image:]] - File Indexer:
- Battery Monitor: the green level indicates the charge level and the yellow bolt indicates that the battery is currently plugged in and charging. Hover over the icon to see the charge as a number percentage.
[[Image:]] - Notifications and Jobs:
- activates the network manager when right-clicked. Hovering the mouse pointer over the icon shows current settings. CHECK ORDER
Start menu
As you will have noticed see, the start menu looks slightly different from the one on Windows. Clicking the "Start Menu" toggles a list of options:
There are five main buttons at the bottom of the start menu:
- Favorites – programs that are marked as favorites are listed here. You can add any program here by right-clicking on them in the start menu and clicking "add as favorite". Having your favorite programs listed on this first tab saves you time browsing through the regular application menu.
- Applications – In this list, you can find all applications that come with PC-BSD as well as software that you installed separately. Applications are sorted by category (Games, Graphics, etc...).
- Computer – shows shortcuts to System Settings, your home folder, the network, root and the trash can.
- Recently Used – shows a list of the last few
- Leave – here you can logout, lock and switch users, or shutdown/restart the PC.
File system
On PC-BSD like most other forms of the BSD Operating System files are stored as part of a single hierarchy starting with the root folder known as '/'. This is the top level of the file system.
If you have used a DOS or Windows NT based operating before you may have noticed that Unix derived systems such as PC-BSD use a forward slash ('/') to separate the names of folders in a 'file path' instead of the backslash ('\'). There is also no such thing as a 'drive letter' under Unix like systems because all disk partitions and removable media (CDs, DVDs, USB memory ticks, etc) are attached or 'mounted' onto the root (/) of the file system.
Note that the root user account has unlimited access to all files as it is used for system administration tasks, such as installing new software, starting and stopping certain services, or editing critical configuration files.
Files are spread out among several directories as is Unix tradition. The programs that are essential for starting up your system are found in the /boot, /bin, /sbin, /lib, and the /etc folders. You probably will not use any of these programs unless you choose to explore the command prompt and the directory structure. These folder are essential to the functioning of PC-BSD’s startup sequence.
More details on disk organisation can be found in the Disk Organisation chapter in the FreeBSD Handbook.
Folder hierarchy
A full description of the FreeBSD system can be found in the hier manual page. You can view this by opening a Konsole session and typing the command:
man hier
Use the up and down arrow keys to move up and down, press the 'q' key when you are done or simply close the window. You can also view the manual page right in your web browser with Konqueror by going to the following link
man://intro/usr/share/man/man7/hier.7.gz
Here is a small mapping of the file system (more details can be found in the FreeBSD Handbook)
| Directory | Description | |
| / | Root (top of file system tree) | |
| /PCBSD | PC-BSD specific files and programs | |
| /Programs | The default storage location of PBI Packages | |
| /bin | Critical command line user programs | |
| /boot | Stores startup code, including hardware drivers | |
| /compat/linux/ | Linux software compatibility files | |
| /dev | Device 'special' files | |
| /etc | System configuration files | |
| /etc/X11 | Your xorg.conf file | |
| /etc/rc.d | Scripts for controlling services and system startup | |
| /home | Stores individual user files | |
| /home/username | Personal files of user 'username' | |
| /lib | System libraries for programs in in /bin and /sbin | |
| /libexec | Miscellanies system libraries and binaries | |
| /media | Mount Point' for storage media, CDs, DVDs, etc | |
| /mnt | Temporary 'Mount Point' for disks | |
| /root | System Administrators (root) personal files | |
| /sbin | Critical command line programs for system admin. | |
| /tmp | Temporary file storage | |
| /usr | Programs and files used by most PC Users. | |
| /var | Files that may vary in size greatly, | |
| /var/log | Log files used by the operating system | |
| /var/spool | Printer job specific files | |
| /var/db | Database files | |
| /usr/bin | Command line programs common to all users | |
| /usr/games | Command line games for all users | |
| /usr/home | A symbolic link for /home | |
| /usr/include | Standard 'include' files for C/C++ programs | |
| /usr/lib | Libraries for programs in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin | |
| /usr/local | Files specific to this system | |
| /usr/local/bin | Graphical programs for all users | |
| /usr/local/etc | Configuration files for site specific services | |
| /usr/etc/rc.d | Scripts for controlling services under /usr/local/* | |
| /usr/local/include | Location of 'include' files for C/C++ developers | |
| /usr/local/lib | Libraries used by programs under /usr/local/* | |
| /usr/local/man | Manual pages for programs under /usr/local/* | |
| /usr/local/sbin | Site specific programs for administrators | |
| /usr/local/share | Common program data and configuration area | |
| /usr/local/share/applnk | Standard K-Menu short cuts | |
| /usr/local/share/doc | Documentation for programs under /usr/local/* | |
| /usr/local/share/examples | Examples from programs under /usr/local/* | |
| /usr/local/share/fonts | System wide fonts for graphical applications | |
| /usr/local/share/icons | Icon files for KDE (K Desktop Environment) | |
| /usr/local/share/sounds | System sounds used by KDE | |
| /usr/local/share/themes | KDE Themes shared by all users | |
| /usr/local/share/wallpapers | Wall papers shared by all users | |
| /usr/local/share/appname | Data files specific to 'appname' | |
| /usr/ports | The local ports tree, used to install software | |
| /usr/share | System documentation, manual pages, etc | |
| /usr/share/doc | Extra documentation from FreeBSD | |
| /usr/share/examples | Examples from FreeBSD documentation | |
| /usr/sbin | More command line programs for admins | |
| /usr/src | FreeBSD source code |
Home Folder
Every user account is given a 'home directory' to store there personal files, a directory is the same thing as a folder. The home directory is normally named for the users log in name and stored in the /home folder. For example if your account (login) name on the computer is johnsmith, your personal files would be stored in the folder /home/johnsmith. It is not a requirement that home directories be created this way but it is the system default and common convention on many Unix like operating systems.
On PC-BSD a new user receives a set of folders for storing files. Typically these are Documents, Music, and Images. You are free to do any thing you wish within your home directory. Only the root user account and your own can modify files; by default all other users can read files. With the exception of several that are made read-only for security reasons. You can change this, however
Mounting/Unmounting drives
A great example of this is accessing the contents of a CD-ROM. If you place a disk into your CD-ROM drive PC-BSD will attempt to automatically detect its presence and issue you a prompt asking you what actions you wish to take. Hardware support is not perfect so results are likely to vary with quality of your computers ACPI implementation.
If the system fails to detect an inserted disk, right click on the CD-ROM icon on your desktop that represents your disk and click the mount option, double clicking on the icon should cause it to automatically mount and browse to its contents. By default the desktop will create a folder to use as a mount point in the /media folder.
You can also mount partitions from the command line directly using Konsole, which is very useful for finding problems when partitions fail to mount. Open a konsole and use the following command to mount your CD-ROM on to the /mnt folder:
mount /dev/acd0 /mnt
The file /dev/acd0 represents the first optical disk drive on your system, this is typically a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. Each drive is assigned a number starting at zero so to mount your second CD-ROM drive (if you have one) you would replace /dev/acd0 in the command above with /dev/acd1 and so on.
Once the disk is mounted you can access the files on it from that specific folder, in the above example our CD-ROMs files can be viewed through the folder /mnt/. You can mount hard drive partitions in the same way as above but the device names are different (see below). Before you eject the disk you must close any programs accessing files on the disk and inform the system that the disk is about to be ejected. This is the same principal as working with a USB stick or an external hard drive under other operating systems.
Right click on the desktop icon representing your CD-ROM drive and choose to "unmount" it and then eject the disk. You can also do this from the command prompt in a konsole with the umount command (note that it is 'u' not 'un'):
umount /mnt
You can mount almost any storage medium like this but in order to modify files on it. You must have file permissions set on the mount point that allow the necessary user accounts to do so.
On MS-DOS and related operating systems each disk drive is assigned a drive letter, for example A:\ represents the root of your first floppy drive if installed. On PC-BSD since you can mount disks anywhere on the file system (with sufficient file permissions). It is quite possible to always mount your disk to /home/username/Floppy instead and so on.
Again, many more details can be found in the FreeBSD Handbook on Mounting and Unmounting File Systems.
Installing Applications
There are several methods of installing software on a PC-BSD system. Each method will be described in more detail below.
- PBIs through Software Manager, the easy way (recommended)
- Install the Binary [Package], the quick FreeBSD way
- Compile the [Port], the slow FreeBSD way
When installing a PBI, you will be presented with a simple graphical interface which takes you through the steps to install your software. Similar to many other popular operating systems, you just click and go. Most PBIs are created from the original FreeBSD package and are automatically updated whenever the underlying package version changes.
Advanced users can also use the FreeBSD command line utilities to compile ports and install packages. See the section on Using Ports Jail to learn how to do this safely on your PC-BSD system without inadvertently affecting your PC-BSD installation.
Using Software Manager
When you install a program through the PC-BSD Software Manager, the application and all the files and libraries it needs are placed in its own subfolder of /Programs and linked into the system. This means that even novice users can safely install and uninstall PBIs without inadvertently overwriting or deleting files needed by the operating system or other applications. The PC-BSD Software Manager automatically adds newly installed software to the KDE menu and creates application shortcuts on the KDE desktop.
Installing a PBI
To install a PBI, start Software Manager by double-clicking its icon on the Desktop or going to the KDE menu -> System Settings -> Software & Updates. You will be prompted for the administrative password as only the superuser can install software. Once the password is accepted, Software Browser will launch, as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
If you know the name of the application you would like to install, type its name into the Search bar. Alternately, you can click on a Category to browse for available software. Use the Software Browser's forward and back arrows to navigate between browsing screens.
Once you find a PBI you would like to install, click on its Dowload icon. When the installation is complete, the new PBI will be displayed in the Installed Software tab. You can launch the application from the KDE menu. Type its name into the KDE menu's Search bar to find its location in the menu. Once you find the application, you can right-click its name to add an icon to your Favorites KDE menu, your Desktop, or your panel.
You can also create a Desktop icon in the Installed Software tab. Simply right-click the application's name and select Install Desktop Icons from the menu.
Uninstalling a PBI
To remove a PBI, simply highlight it in Installed Software and click the Remove button. In Figure X-XX, the VirtualBox PBI is selected for removal:
Figure X-XX:
Using Ports Jail
THIS WHOLE SECTION NEEDS TO BE UPDATED AND EXPANDED
Starting in PC-BSD 8.0 a new utility has been added, which allows users to compile and run ports in a separate jail environment. After performing a default install, this icon is available on the desktop as "ports console", and under start -> applications -> system -> ports console.
Within this clean ports environment it is possible to maintain and run a complete FreeBSD ports tree, without fear of destroying the installed package set of your main desktop. Additional functionality is also provided via the "portjail" command, which allows you to start / stop the jail, open a new console session, or run a target application within the ports jail.
% portjail PC-BSD Port Jail Management -------------------------------- Usage: portjail start - Starts the jail, root only portjail stop - Stops the jail, root only portjail console - Starts a shell session within the jail portjail run <cmd> - Runs the specified command within the jail
For example, if you've compiled FireFox within the jail, and wish to execute is via your regular konsole or a desktop link, it would be done with the following command:
% portjail run /usr/local/bin/firefox
FreeBSD packages
Packages are prepared files for installing software, they install software into the system and can cause dependency issues. The package system is comparable to yum, and apt-get used in several Linux distributions. To find the name of a package, first you need to search on the FreeBSD ports database. For instance if we want to install Skype, we search for "skype" and we find 2 search results: the development release and the stable release. If you pass your mouse over the name of the package of the stable release, you see something like http://cvsweb.freebsd.org/ports/net/skype in the status bar of your browser. The /net/skype part tells you that the name of the package is skype and that it belongs to the net category. You don't have to download anything, as the package manager will take care of that for you. Just remember the name of the package.
Installing packages requires you to open a console with root permissions and use the runports command before installing. You can type kdesu konsole in a run dialog from the K-Menu or open a konsole from the K-Menu in super user mode, or open a konsole and type su - and press "Enter". You will be prompted for the root (super user) password, it will not display the password on screen for security reasons. After switching to the super user account you have complete access to the system and can install software at will. You can install a program using the package system thusly:
# runports # pkg_add -r irssi
This will install the "irssi" program with all required files but not update the K-Menu or desktop. You can generally find the binary (executable) in /usr/local/bin, configuration files in /usr/local/share/ or your home directory and the libraries (like .dll) will be placed into the system as needed and shared between applications.
You can uninstall a package by using the pkg_delete command and the name and version of the package or a wild card.
# pkg_delete irssi-0.8.10_2 # And pkg_delete "irssi-*" are equivalent.
You can get info about an installed package the same way using the pkg_info command.
# pkg_info "irssi-*" # Or pkg_info | grep irssi
FreeBSD ports
Traditionally BSD installs software from source; the ports collection. You first need to install an up to date ports collection before you may use the ports collection to install software. New users coming from Gentoo GNU/Linux will find this similar to the "Emerge" system which is based on FreeBSD ports.
To install the ports collection click on the K-Menu and navigate to: "Settings → Administration → PC-BSD System". Enter the super users password to access the admin panel and click on the "Tasks" tab. Now click "Fetch ports" and it will begin downloading the necessary files and installing them. This will take a while depending on your Internet connection and Processor speeds.
If you wish to do this from the command line open a console as the super user as described in fetching packages and run the following command:
# cvsup -g -L 1 /root/ports-supfile
You can also use the portsnap method
# portsnap fetch extract
If you install ports using portsnap you should not update the ports collection with cvsup, instead use:
# portsnap fetch && portsnap update
if you installed ports using cvsup you may update them in the same way as before:
# cvsup -g -L 1 /root/ports-supfile
You can edit the supfiles and set a download mirror closer to you, please see the FreeBSD handbook for more information on using CVSUP.
Now that the ports collection is installed if you look in /usr/ports you will see a simple tree structure of folders. The structure is in the format of category > program name.
Then, to install an application from ports, first run the runports command, cd to the application directory, for instance /usr/ports/net/skype and start compilation:
# runports # cd /usr/ports/net/skype # make install clean
After a few minutes or hours, depending on the size of the package, the application is installed on your system.
Removing a package or a port
To remove a package or port, first you need to find the name of the package. For instance if you want to remove kopete, to find out its full name, you will type:
# pkg_info | grep kopete kdenetwork-kopete-0.11_1 KDE multi-protocol instant messenger (IM)
Then to uninstall the package, type as root:
# pkg_delete kdenetwork-kopete-0.11_1
If you installed from the ports, you can also uninstall going to the specific port directory and you can uninstall from there:
# cd /usr/ports/net-im/kopete # make deinstall
To learn more about ports and packages, feel free to read the excellent FreeBSD handbook.
Keeping PC-BSD up-to-date
This section covers how to keep your PC-BSD system updated, both in minor online updates and major point releases. Using PC-BSD's Update Manager to download and install updates is highly recommended in order to keep your operating system safe and free of bugs. The Updater will also check if any newer and more up-to-date versions of software have become available since you installed or last updated a particular PBI.
Applying online-updates to your PC-BSD system is easy. The PC-BSD Update Manager, located in your system tray, helps you to keep PC-BSD up-to-date by downloading and installing the latest patches and updates for you.
While starting up, PC-BSD checks by default if any updates are available (Internet connection is required). The Updater icon in the system tray (right hand bottom of the screen near the clock) shows whether or not your system is up-to-date.
There are five different states of the Updater system tray icon:
- Your system is up-to-date
- Looking for updates and patches
- Your operating system is out-of-date; system update(s) and patch(es) are available to be downloaded and installed
- PBI update(s) are available for downloading and installing
If you right-click the icon, you will see the menu shown in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Double-clicking the notifier will launch the PC-BSD Update Manager, and any available online update(s) will be listed. You can also launch this utility by going to the KDE menu -> System Settings -> Software & Updates. The PC-BSD Update Manager contains three tabs, seen in Figure X-XX, and a configuration button.
Figure X-XX:
Let's have a look at the configuration button and each tab.
Configuration
The Configuration button has four tabs, as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Mirrors
Software
Figure X-XX:
System
Figure X-XX:
Misc
Figure X-XX:
Software Browser
Figure X-XX:
Installed Software
The Installed Software tab, seen in Figure X-XX, shows your currently installed PBIs and will indicate if there are any newer versions available. For instance, if you have installed Firefox 2.0.0.11 and version 2.0.0.12 is available, the Updater will list version 2.0.0.12. Simply highlight the application you would like to upgrade and click Update. The upgrade process will save all of the current version's settings--for example, when you upgrade Firefox, it will keep all of your bookmarks, history, and cache.
Figure X-XX:
System Updates
Figure X-XX:
Though the installation of updates is highly recommended as they make your system more secure, add more functionalities and fix bugs, these updates are not mandatory; you’re free to download and install (a selection of) them.
Installing online updates
Select the online update(s) you wish to install, and click the "Install selected updates" button. You can watch the update's progress as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
The patches will now be downloaded and applied to your system. If the patch requires a reboot you will be notified to do so after the patch has been installed. When the installation of the update(s) is successfully completed, the Installer will notify you of this with either "Updates successfully installed" or "Updates successfully installed! Your system will need to reboot to finish". In the latter case, clicking the OK button won't reboot the PC automatically. Finish whatever you're doing and reboot the computer at a convenient time manually.
PC-BSD Tools
KDE comes with great tools for managing certain tasks, but PC-BSD additionally comes with some extra tools written by the PC-BSD developers for some specific PC-BSD tasks:
The PC-BSD desktop allows users the ability to find nearly anything you would ever want to know about your system. PC-BSD is built on FreeBSD so users can always use the command line in a terminal to see system information but what is the fun of that? In PC-BSD/KDE there are specific desktop programs to do this job for you using a graphical interface.
System Network Configuration Manager
Setting up your local network to access the Internet is easy with PC-BSD. During installation, PC-BSD configures your connection using DHCP so that if you already have a connection to the Internet in your home or office, you get connected automatically. You still have the ability to manually change your network settings such as IP address, gateway, netmask and DNS using the System Network Configuration module, seen in Figure X-XX.
PC-BSD's System Network Configuration utility, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to easily and quickly view and set up your network and network interfaces.
Figure X-XX:
There are two ways to configure your network interfaces:
- Your Internet provider assigns your addressing information automatically using the DHCP protocol (recommended as it should "just work")
- You want to manually assign the IP addressing information (requires you to understand the basics of TCP/IP addressing)
Viewing and Configuring Interface Configuration
To start configuring your network interface, click the KDE menu -> System Settings -> System Network Configuration". Alternately, you can click the network icon in your system tray.
If you highlight an interface and click the Configure button in the Devices tab, you will be prompted for the administrative password. A popup Configuration window then appears for you to adjust various settings. Figure X-XX provides an example of clicking on the Ethernet interface named "re0":
Figure X-XX:
General tab
By default, the "Obtain IP automatically (DHCP) option is selected. If you wish to manually set your IP address, uncheck this box and type in the IP address and double-check that the subnet mask (Netmask) is correct.
By default, the "Disable this network device" box is unchecked. If you do not want this interface card to receive an address when you reboot, uncheck this box. If you decide you do want to activate this card, you can recheck this box.
Advanced tab
The Advanced tab, seen in Figure X-XX, allows advanced users to change their MAC address and to use DHCP to automatically obtain an IPv6 address. Both boxes should remain checked unless you are an advanced user who has a reason to change the default MAC or IPv6 address and you understand how to create an appropriate replacement address.
Figure X-XX:
Info tab
The Info tab, seen in Figure X-XX, will display the current address settings, some traffic statistics, and provide the option to disable the network device.
Figure X-XX:
If you make any changes in the tabs, click the Apply button to activate them. Click the OK button when you are finished to go back to the System Network Configuration window.
You can repeat this procedure for each network interface that you wish to view or configure.
Advanced Network Settings
Figure X-XX shows an example of the "Network Configuration (Advanced) tab:
Figure X-XX:
Be sure to highlight the interface you wish to configure before clicking on this tab.
If the settings in this tab are greyed out, it is because your settings were automatically obtained from a DHCP server. If they are empty, it means it is waiting for you to input the information manually. To add the settings or override the existing settings, click the Change Configuration button and input the administrative password when prompted. You can now set the following settings:
- Primary and secondary DNS servers (DNS 1 and DNS 2)
- Search domain (used by DNS)
- Hostname (make sure it is unique on your network)
- Gateway (default router) address
- Enable (by checking the box) or disable (by unchecking the box) IPv6
- IPv6 gateway address
- Enable (by checking the box) or disable (by unchecking the box) PPPoE (see section on PPPoE for more details)
- PPPoE username
- PPPoE address
- PPPoE service name
- Whether the PPPoE connection is always connected (don't check if you pay by amount of time connected to the Internet)
- Internet connection sharing
If you make any changes, click the Save button to apply them.
Wireless Settings
ADD SCREENSHOT FOR PROFILE SETTINGS
Connecting to Secure Networks
EXPLAIN WEP AND WPA
Troubleshooting
HOW TO FIND YOUR DRIVER IF IT DOES NOT SHOW IN NETWORK SETTINGS
USING NDIS?
PPPoE and PPP
If you connect to the Internet using a dialup or DSL connection...
System Manager
The System Manager, seen in Figure X-XX, is unique to PC-BSD. It can be launched by clicking on the "KDE Menu -> System Settings > System Manager". You will have to type in your root password to allow the System Manager window to open.
Figure X-XX:
System Manager has 4 tabs, described in the following sections.
General tab
The General tab displays the version of PC-BSD as well as the underlying FreeBSD base. It's a good idea to include both versions when asking questions on the [PC-BSD forums] or any of the [PC-BSD mailing lists].
The Generate button can be used to create a report. While this report doesn't show all the system attributes, it does hold an abundance of pertinent information. The report includes the following items:
- kernel messages (output of dmesg command)
- the last few lines of the /var/log/ messages log file
- your resource configuration file (/etc/rc.conf)
- your boot configuration file (/boot/loader.conf)
- the free space of your hard drive (output of the command df -m)
- a listing from the top command showing currently running processes
You will be given an opportunity to save the generated report to a file and directory of your choice. Once it is saved it will open up in any text editor for your inspection. When troubleshooting your system, this file is handy to include in your forum post or mailing list message.
Kernel tab
The Kernel tab, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to enable/disable ATAPI DMA Mode and set the boot delay.
Figure X-XX:
Be VERY CAREFUL if you decide to change the options on this tab. The ATAPI DMA option will probably not cause any problems if you turn it off but it may slow down your disk access. There seems to be some computers with mostly older CD-ROMs or hard drives that may benefit by having this turned off.
The Boot Delay option can be set anywhere from 0 to 60 seconds. It defaults to 10 but some people prefer to set it higher if they are diagnosing problems or need to boot with special flags set. If you set it to 0, you will not be able to respond to the menu choices when booting the system.
Any changes on this tab can be saved by clicking on the Apply button.
Tasks tab
The tasks tab, seen in Figure X-XX, is divided into two sections as follows:
Ports Console
- Fetch Ports Tree
System Tasks - Advanced Users Only
- Fetch System Source
- Fetch System Ports Tree
Figure X-XX:
Misc tab
The Misc tab, seen in Figure X-XX, allows you to...
Figure X-XX:
Printer Configuration
Power Management
Session Manager
Services Manager
Services Manager, seen in Figure X-XX, is an easy-to-use GUI tool for managing some KDE and FreeBSD services. It allows services to be enabled/disabled at system startup or to change their current status to stopped/running.
Figure X-XX:
The following services can be managed with this GUI:
- ACPI -
- Avahi -
- cpufreq - a background process (daemon) to adjust CPU speed and voltage on the fly. This can save battery power because the lower the clock speed, the less power the CPU consumes. It is especially recommended for laptop users.
- CUPS - required for printing.
- Denyhosts - a script that analyses log messages to determine what hosts are attempting unauthorised access to your system. It also determines what user accounts are being targeted and keeps track of the frequency of hacking attempts.
- NFS -
- PF - the default firewall for filtering TCP/IP network traffic and doing Network Address Translation (NAT). It's recommended to keep the PF firewall turned on, unless you have installed another firewall or are using a router with a built-in firewall.
- SSH - a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged over a secure channel between two computers by using data encryption. SFTP and (SCP) capabilities are also handled through the SSH protocol.
- swap monitor -
Firewall Manager
Managing the Firewall with fwbuilder
Managing Jails with The Warden
The Warden is a powerful, yet easy to use [Jail] Management program for PC-BSD and FreeBSD. By using The Warden, it is possible to create virtual environments, which can be used to run services, such as Apache, PHP, MySql and others, in a secure manner which does not effect your desktop or other jails.
Installation
The Warden is available for PC-BSD in the PBI format, as well as a FreeBSD port. Use Software Manager to install the PBI on a PC-BSD system. Figure X-XX shows a search for warden in the Software Browser:
Figure X-XX:
The installation will create an icon on your desktop which you can use to launch The Warden.
To install The Warden on a FreeBSD system, use this command as the superuser:
# pkg_add -r warden
To start The Warden on a FreeBSD system, type warden at the command line.
Creating a Jail
The first time you start The Warden, you will be presented with the main window, which should be empty. To create your first Jail, go to File -> New Jail
To create a jail, you will need to start by entering the IP address you wish to associate to this jail, and a hostname. This IP should be available for usage, and not an existing IP on your network. You may also check the options to include both the FreeBSD source tree, and FreeBSD ports tree in this Jail. This will allow you to rebuild the world, or manually install ports into this Jail. These options will require that you have source & ports installed in /usr/src and /usr/ports respectively. If you wish to start this jail every time you reboot the system you may select the option to do so now.
After you have entered the IP address and hostname, you will need to set the root password, and create an initial account for this jail. When the jail is started, SSH will be enabled, so you will want to make both of these passwords secure.
Once you have setup the username / password for this jail, The Warden will create the jail, and setup the initial options. This may take some time, if you choose the options to include the FreeBSD source and/or ports tree.
Starting / Stopping a Jail
Starting a jail in The Warden GUI is very simple. Simply right-click on the jail you wish to start, and click "Start this Jail". Once the jail has been started, you will be able to SSH to its IP address using the username / password you provided. You may need to open firewall port 22 if you run into difficulty connecting to the jail.
Figure X-XX:
Installing Inmates
Exporting / Importing Jails
Command-Line Usage
Making a System Backup using Life Preserver
Applications -> System -> Life Preserver Backup
Figure X-XX:
New Preserver Wizard
File -> New Preserver to launch the new preserver wizard. Click the Next button to get started and see the screen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Input the IP address of the remote system that will store your backup and the name of the user account to use to login to that system. By default, port 22 is selected, meaning that SSH will be used to make the connection. This means that an SSH server (sshd) needs to be running on the remote system.
Once you click the Next button, you can decide whether or not to schedule regular backups, as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
PC-BSD Thin Client Server Documentation
This document provides documentation and help for system administrators who wish to use a PC-BSD system as a Thin Client Server.
Installation
Converting a PC-BSD system into a working thin-client server is relatively simple. First, you will need an install of PC-BSD 7.x or higher, with dual network cards. One NIC should be connected to the outside world, while the other should be connected to a private LAN for the thin-clients to PXE boot from.
Once your system has the NICs setup properly, go ahead and grab the Thin Client Server PBI from here PBIDir
To install, simply double-click the PBI, or execute it
% ./ThinClient*.pbi
During the installation, the only question asked will be to identify which NIC you want to run DHCPD on. Select the NIC which is connected to your private network for PXE booting. After the install has finished, simply reboot the server for the changes to take effect. That's it! Any systems which are PXE capable should now boot up, and connect to the PC-BSD desktop via remote XDMCP.
Note: At install time, the user "pxeboot" will be created with the default password "thinclient". This username / password will be used to save working Xorg configuration files for each of the thin-clients you wish to configure. It is highly recommended that you change this password right away.
Configuration
While the initial setup of the Thin Client Server is relatively simple, you may wish to further customize the system after installation. This can be done by editing several of the configuration files used for operation.
/usr/local/etc/dhcpd.conf
This file is used to control the dhcpd and PXE boot configuration. You may change the IP configuration of dhcpd or increase the range of addresses and more in this file. More information about this may be found here: [1]
WARNING: Changing this file is risky, and could break your PXE setup. If you change the network addresses, you may also need to modify /etc/exports, /etc/hosts.allow and others to reflect your changes for NFS mounting.
/PCBSD/local/kde4/share/config/kdm/kdmrc
This file is used by KDM to adjust the login manager. Most of the variables are well documented, and you should take a look at them if you want to adjust any aspect of the X login screen that the client is presented with.
Usage
Using the Thin Client Server is relatively easy. After a successful installation and reboot of the server, DHCPD should now be running on the NIC you specified during the installation. Simply connect a hub/switch to this NIC and connect a PXE capable system into the switch. When you boot the Thin Client system, PXE should obtain an IP address and begin to load PC-BSD.
After the boot process is finished, the client will be brought to this prompt:
No saved xorg-config for this MAC: <Mac Address> Do you wish to setup a custom xorg.conf for this system? (Y/N)
If you wait 10 seconds, this message will timeout, and the client will bring up X in 1024x768 mode. However, if this isn't the resolution you wish to use, you may type "Y" and hit enter to bring up the Xorg Configuration screen. In this menu, you will be able to setup your own custom xorg.conf file, auto-detect settings, and test out your new configuration.
After you have tested and are pleased with the Xorg configuration for this client, you may now choose "Save working config" to send this configuration to the Server. You will be prompted for the password to the "pxeboot" user, which defaults to "thinclient", but you should have changed by this point. The file will be saved by the clients MAC address in /home/pxeboot/mnt/xorg-config/. Now when you reboot the client, it will automatically startup using this saved xorg.conf file and bring the system to the login screen.
FAQs
Q. Where is the client's boot environment stored?
A. The clients boot environment is located in /home/pxeboot. This is mounted read-only during the PXE boot process to allow the client to bootup, and then bring up an XDCMP connection to the server.
Q. Where are the saved xorg.conf files for clients located?
A. The clients xorg.conf files are saved in /home/pxeboot/mnt/xorg-config. They are saved by mac address of the client, I.E <mac>.conf
Help
Having trouble or want to help us with the Thin Client Server PBI? Please feel free to contact us on the PBI Developers Mailing List
Creating an Automated Installation with pc-sysinstall
Starting with X.X, PC-BSD provides a set of scripts that allow advanced users to create automatic and customized PC-BSD installations.
All of the files used by pc-sysinstall are located in /PCBSD/pc-sysinstall:
# ls -F /PCBSD-pc-sysinstall backend/ backend-query/ conf/ examples/ backend-partmanager/ components/ doc/ pc-sysinstall*
You can also browse the most recent pc-sysinstall src files at PC-SysInstall in Trac.
Creating a new PBI with the PBI Builder Software
The PBI Builder Software automates the process of converting an existing FreeBSD package into a PBI. Anyone with a bit of time, the willingness to learn new things, and the desire to increase the number of PBIs available to PC-BSD users is welcome to create and submit new PBIs.
Installing the PBI Builder software relatively easy, simply download the tbz package for you architecture and version of PC-BSD from the PBI Builder Homepage, and place it somewhere on your system with several GB of free space. Next run these commands (as root):
# tar xvjpf pbibuild*.tbz # ln -s `pwd`/pbi-build /pbi-build
PBI Building Concepts
The PBI Builder software relies on the following concepts:
1. Modules:a directory containing the files needed by the PBI. The next section will explain how to configure a module for a new PBI.
2. PBI Sandbox: in order to create a clean build environment that does not affect the software running on the host system, all PBI creation is done in the /pbi-build/pbisandbox directory. This is a complete buildworld environment, and you may chroot into it in order to tweak a port build, or inspect the built contents of a port by using this command as the superuser:
# chroot /pbi-build/pbisandbox
3. Build command: once you have a module, simply cd into the pbi-build directory and specify which module to build. Depending upon the size of the application, the build may take some time to finish. The following example will build the firefox PBI:
# cd /pbi-build # ./buildpbi.sh webbrowsers/firefox
4. Recreate command: during the creation of a new module, it may become necessary to recreate the PBI file to test new configurations. If the PBI has already been compiled once, a change often does not require the complete rebuilding of the port from source. By skipping the source build, a new PBI may be generated within moments. To skip the building simply run the 3.makepbi.sh script in /pbi-build/scripts/3.makepbi.sh as shown:
# cd /pbi-build/scripts # ./3.makepbi.sh webbrowsers/firefox
5. Distfiles: when running a port build, many files will be downloaded and stored in /usr/ports/distfiles within the /pbi-build/pbisandbox directory. The pbisandbox is removed between builds of modules, but starting in PBI Builder 2.0, the distfiles contents are preserved in the /pbi-build/distfiles directory.
Working with Modules
When starting the process of creating a new module for the PBI Builder, you should start with an existing module and modify it to suit your program's needs. You can either copy a module from /pbi-build/docs/module-examples, download a module from SVN, or download a template from SVN.
Modules currently in the PC-BSD Subversion repo can be browsed via the web.
To download a specific module, use the following commands, replacing "firefox" with the specific module you intend to checkout.
# cd /pbi-build/modules # svn co svn://svn.pcbsd.org/pbibuild/modules/webbrowsers/firefox webbrowsers/firefox
If you wish to start with a blank module template, you may download by using these commands:
# cd /pbi-build/modules # fetch http://www.pcbsd.org/files/templates/module-template.tgz # tar xvzf module-template.tgz
A proper module will contain several files and directories:
Required files / directories
- pbi.conf: the main configuration file for the module.
- copy-files: listing of the files and directories you wish to copy from the pbisandbox environment to your finished PBI file.
- kmenu-dir: directory of configuration entries for the K menu.
- overlay-dir: directory of contents to be applied to base PBI directory. Icons, PBI setup scripts, and most other files not added via copy-files are placed here.
Optional Files used on a per-need basis
- build.sh: script to run after the port make and copy-files are processed.
- preportmake.sh: script to run in pbisandbox prior to the port make being executed.
- mime-dir: directory of mime entries for your PBI.
The pbi.conf file
This file is the first thing you read for each module. The available variables are explained with the example of "FireFox" below:
# Program Name # The name of the PBI file being built PROGNAME="Firefox" # Program Website # Website of the program the module is building PROGWEB="http://www.mozilla.com" # Program Author # Who created / maintains the program being built PROGAUTHOR="The Mozilla Foundation" # Default Icon # Relative to overlay-dir, the main icon you want to show up for this PBI PROGICON="share/pixmaps/FireFox-128.png" # Port we want to build # The port the server will track to determine when it's time for a rebuild PBIPORT="/usr/ports/www/firefox/" # Set to "Auto or NONE" to have the PBI creator auto-populate libs or not # This allows you to also use the autolibs/ directory in your overlay-dir as a location for extra # library files PROGLIBS="Auto" # PBI Update URL set to "" or the http:// URL of update checker # Leave this as update.pbidir.com normally PBIUPDATE="http://update.pbidir.com" # Other Ports we need built # One per line, any additional ports that need to be built for this PBI OTHERPORT="" # Enter your custom make options here # Options that will be put into the make.conf for the build of this port MAKEOPTS="" # FBSD7BASE - (7.1 or 7.2) # This variable can be used to set the specific version of FreeBSD this port needs to be compiled # under. Use this is a port is known to not build / work when compiled on FreeBSD 7.0 (the default) FBSD7BASE="7.2"; export FBSD7BASE # This option determines if the pbi-builder will auto-copy files from the target port # Can be set to YES/NO/FULL # YES - Copy only target port files automatically # No - Don't copy any target port files (will need to use copy-files config instead) # FULL - Copy target port files, and recursive dependency files as well (Makes very large PBI) PBIAUTOPOPULATE="YES" ; export PBIAUTOPOPULATE # Can be set to OFF/NO to disable copying all files from ports made with the OTHERPORT variable # Leaving this unset will have the builder auto-copy all files from OTHERPORT targets PBIAUTOPOPULATE_OTHERPORT="" ; export PBIAUTOPOPULATE_OTHERPORT # Set this variable to any target ports you want to autopopulate files from, in addition to # the main target port # List additional ports one-per-line PBIAUTOPOPULATE_PORTS="/usr/ports/www/mplayer-plugin/" ; export PBIAUTOPOPULATE_PORTS # By default the PBI will remove any xorg-fonts, and create a sym-link to the the users system fonts # Setting this to YES keeps the PBIs internal fonts and doesn't create a link # PBIDISABLEFONTLINK="" ; export PBIDISABLEFONTLINK # By default the libGL* libraries will be removed from a PBI in order to use the systems libGL # Set this to YES to keep the PBIs libGL* libraries, and not use the system's # PBIKEEPGL="" ; export PBIKEEPGL # By default we prune any include/ files used for building, # Set this to NO to keep any include/ directories in the resulting PBI # PBIPRUNEINCLUDE="" ; export PBIPRUNEINCLUDE # By default we prune the python files used for building, # Set this to NO to keep any python files in the resulting PBI # PBIPRUNEPYTHON="" ; export PBIPRUNEPYTHON # By default we prune any perl files used for building, # Set this to NO to keep any perl files in the resulting PBI # PBIPRUNEPERL="" ; export PBIPRUNEPERL # By default we prune any doc files (such as man, info, share/doc) # Set this to NO to keep any doc files in the resulting PBI # PBIPRUNEDOC="" ; export PBIPRUNEDOC # Build Key - Change this to anything else to trigger a rebuild # - The rebuild will take place even if port is still the same ver BUILDKEY="01"
The copy-files configuration
This file is very straight forward, simply list the files you want to copy from the installed port, and where they should go in your PBI directory structure. The first argument should be the file/directory you wish to copy, and the 2nd argument will be the directory within the PBI it needs to be copied to.
Example copy-files from FileZilla:
/usr/local/bin/filezilla bin/ /usr/local/bin/fzsftp bin/ /usr/local/bin/gst-* bin/ /usr/local/bin/wxrc* bin/ /usr/local/bin/wxgtk2* bin/ /usr/local/share/filezilla share/filezilla
The preportmake.sh script
This script, if it present is run right before starting the "make install" of your port. This allows you to make modifications to the pbisandbox environment or to the port building source itself. Normally this won't be necessary, unless working with a very tricky program to get compiled.
Example:
#!/bin/sh # Script to grab the java files and place them in the right directory # before starting the build cd /usr/ports/distfiles fetch ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/autobuildpkgs/javapack.tbz tar xvjf javapack.tbz cd /usr/ports/java/jdk16/ echo "#!/bin/sh exit 0" > /usr/ports/java/jdk16/files/license.sh cd /usr/ports/devel/automake15 make install clean
The build.sh script
Below is the example of the build.sh script, which runs after all the files have been copied to your PBI directory. This allows you to make mods to specific things for your PBI to work properly. In this example we modify the uninstall script to use the right version.
#!/bin/sh
# PBI building script
# This will run after your port build is complete
# Build your PBI here, and exit 0 on success, or exit 1 on failure.
##############################################################################
# Available Variables
# PBIDIR = The location of where you can populate your PBI directory
# MODULEDIR = The location of the module directory for this PBI
# PORTVER = Version number of the port we used to build
##############################################################################
# Save the right version number in the removepbi.sh script
sed -e "s,CHANGEME,Firefox${PORTVER},g" ${PBIDIR}/scripts/removepbi.sh > /tmp/removepbi.sh
mv /tmp/removepbi.sh ${PBIDIR}/scripts/removepbi.sh
chmod 755 ${PBIDIR}/scripts/removepbi.sh
The kmenu-dir directory
In this directory you may make any number of files, which contain the .pbc configuration for your kmenu icons. This defines where you would like icons created for your users desktop
Example of kmenu-dir/firefox file:
ExePath: bin/firefox ExeIcon: share/pixmaps/FireFox-128.png ExeDescr: FireFox ExeNoDesktop: 0 ExeNoMenu: 0 ExeNoCrashHandler: 0 ExeRunRoot: 0 ExeRunShell: 0 ExeNotify: 1 ExeLink: 0 ExeWebLink: 0 ExeTaskbar: 0 ExeOwndir: 1 ExeKdeCat: Internet
Line-By-Line description of each entry:
ExePath: bin/firefox
This line indicates the binary / script we want this icon to run when the user clicks it. This is relative to the PBI directory, so we use bin/firefox
ExeIcon: share/pixmaps/FireFox-128.png
This is the icon you want to show up for this program, again it is relative to the PBI directory
ExeDescr: FireFox
This would be the name of the icon in the kmenu or on the users desktop.
ExeNoDesktop: 0
This allows you to disable creating a desktop icon for this entry. Set it to '0' if you want a desktop icon, or '1' if you don't wish an icon.
ExeNoMenu: 0
This allows you to disable creating a kmenu icon for this entry. Set it to '0' if you want a kmenu icon, or '1' if you don't wish an icon.
ExeNoCrashHandler: 0
This option enables / disables the usage of the PC-BSD CrashHandler program. This dialog warns the user that the application has crashed if it returns status non-zero (0), and provides the option to save the output of stdout and stderr from the application. Setting this to "1" disables the CrashHandler helper, which is useful for programs which normally return non-0, such as Window Managers and various apps.
ExeRunRoot: 0
This indicates if you want your program to be run as "root" when the user clicks it. Set it to '0' to run as a regular user, or '1' to run kdesu and switch to "root" Set this to '0'
ExeRunShell: 0
This indicates if you want your program to be executed in a konsole session, which may be useful for command-line applications. Set it to '0' if you dont want it to run in konsole, or set it to '1' if you do.
ExeNotify: 1
This indicates if you want to enable launch feedback in KDE, which is the bouncing icon, showing that the program is loading. Set it to '0' to disable launch feedback, or set it to '1' if you want this enabled. Normally it is best to leave this enabled.
ExeLink: 0
This is used to indicate if the ExePath variable was set to a local file / document you want opened with konqueror insetead of just being "run". This is useful for README type documents. Set this to '1' if you want your document opened with konq, or '0' to just run it as normal.
ExeWebLink: 0
This is similar to above, and instead indicates that the ExePath being opened is actual a web URL. Set this to '1' to open it the ExePath with Konq, or '0' to just run it as normal.
ExeTaskbar: 0
This indicates if you want this application icon added to the taskbar. Set it to '1' to add it, or '0' to leave it disabled. (THIS FEATURE IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE, BUT WILL BE ADDED DOWN THE ROAD)
ExeOwndir: 1
This option is used to specify where you want your Kmenu icon to be placed, and may be set to 0, 1, 2
0 = Place kmenu icon directory in top level.
I.E. Kmenu -> Firefox -> Firefox
1 = Place kmenu icon in its own directory in the sub category indicated by ExeKdeCat:
I.E. Kmenu -> Internet -> Firefox -> Firefox
2 = Place kmenu icon directly in the sub category indicated by ExeKdeCat:
I.E. Kmenu -> Internet -> Firefox
ExeKdeCat: Internet
This allows you to choose a kmenu sub-directory to place your icons / directory into, when ExeOwnDir is set to 1 or 2. Available options are:
ExeKdeCat: Development ExeKdeCat: Editors ExeKdeCat: Edutainment/Languages ExeKdeCat: Edutainment/Math ExeKdeCat: Edutainment/Misc ExeKdeCat: Edutainment/Science ExeKdeCat: Edutainment/Teaching ExeKdeCat: Games/Arcade ExeKdeCat: Games/Board ExeKdeCat: Games/Card ExeKdeCat: Games/Kidsgames ExeKdeCat: Games/TacticStrategy ExeKdeCat: Games ExeKdeCat: Graphics ExeKdeCat: Internet ExeKdeCat: Multimedia ExeKdeCat: Office ExeKdeCat: System ExeKdeCat: Toys ExeKdeCat: Utilities
The mime-dir directory
This directory allows to you specify mime types for your applications defined in the kmenu-dir entries.
Example of mime-dir/exe file:
MimeExt: *.exe; *.EXE MimeIcon: win_apps.png MimeProg: 0
The only catch to this is to note that the "MimeProg: 0" is a pointer to a file in the kmenu-dir structure. In this case you would have to ensure that the application you want to open .exe files gets added first to the template the server creates. Files in the kmenu-dir are added in the order of a "ls" listing, so if you have a wine-exe entry, you may wish to rename it to 00wine-exe to ensure it is added first, which would make this MimeProg: 0 entry work with it.
If you have more than 1 mime-type, you would then increment the MimeProg: 0 number to MimeProg: 1, MimeProg: 2, and so forth. Then you would do the same with your kmenu-dir entries, such as 00wine-exe, 01wine-bat, 02wine-msi
The overlay-dir directory
This folder contains any of the files you wish placed into your PBI program directory. Here is an example from firefox:
leftside.png PBI.FirstRun.sh autolibs lib PBI.RemoveScript.sh bin scripts PBI.SetupScript.sh header.png share
In this example you see we have added our PBI.* setup scripts, and the custom graphics we want for the PBI installer. You may also create directories that will be populated with the copy-files configuration, such as share/ or others you may need.
Getting Help
The PBI Developers mailing list can help if you:
- are stuck on building a PBI
- run into a bug in the PBI Builder software
- need to ask a question about your PBI
- are ready to submit a new module
- find a bug in an existing PBI
- have a bugfix for an existing PBI
Finding Help
While professional PC-BSD support is available from iXsystems, most users turn to the Internet for help. We are doing our best to make PC-BSD as easy as possible for newcomers. Should you need help, there are plenty of ways to get in touch with the PC-BSD community.
PC-BSD Forums
The PC-BSD Forums contain a wealth of information, tips and solutions which you can access from a web browser. There are many active members and you will find that many questions are replied to quickly. Anyone can read through and search the forums, however you have to create a login account and be logged in if you want to ask a question.
You can ask a question by clicking on the "New Thread" button in the forum category that most closely matches your question. For example, if you are having problems with your video settings, you should create a new thread in the Graphics Card forum. If you don't see a category that matches your question, try the General Support category.
Before creating a new thread, please do the following:
- Use the Search function to see if a similar question already exists.
- If you find a similar question, use the "Post Reply" button instead so that your question will be related to the information known so far.
- If you start a new thread, use a descriptive Title. For example, "Problems with NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT" is much more useful than "HELP!!!!".
- Try to be as clear as possible and include what version of PC-BSD you are using, any details your PC's hardware and what error messages you are seeing.
Most of the discussions on the forum are in English, but there are a few non-English forums:
FAQS
An FAQ is a Frequently Asked Question. For that reason, you should always check the FAQS before asking a question, just in case it has been answered many times before.
You can find the most current version of the PC-BSD FAQS here. The FAQs are currently a work in progress as we migrate the older FAQS and ensure that their answers work on current versions of PC-BSD. You can suggest an FAQ that you would like to see answered here.
IRC Channel
Like many open source projects, PC-BSD has an IRC channel to connect supporters and users. To get connected, use the following information in your IRC client:
Server name: irc.freenode.net
Channel name: #pcbsd
Software Manager has a "Chat -IM" category where you can find PBIs for IRC clients. If unsure which IRC client to use, we suggest KVirc or XChat.
IRC is a great way to chat with other users and get answers to your questions. A few things to keep in mind if you ask a question on IRC:
- Most of the regular users are always logged in, even when they're away from their computer or are busy doing other computing tasks. If you don't get an answer right away, don't get mad, leave the channel and never come back again. Stick around for a while to see if anyone responds.
- IRC users represent many different time zones. It is quite possible that it is late at night or very early in the morning for some users when you ask a question.
- Don't post error messages in the channel as the IRC software will probably kick you out. Instead, use a pasting service such as pastebin and refer to the URL on channel.
- Be polite and don't demand that others answer your question.
- It is considered rude to DM (direct message) someone who does not know you. If noone answers your question, don't start DMing people you don't know.
- The first time you join a channel, it is okay to say hi and introduce yourself.
Mailing lists
Mailing lists are a handy way to discuss problems, solutions, and requested features as they create a searchable archive of discussions. The PC-BSD Project offers the following mailing lists to cover a wide variety of discussion topics:
- Announcements: a read-only, low frequency list used by the PC-BSD team to make announcements to the community.
- Commits: lists SVN commits as PC-BSD code is added or modified by developers.
- Dev: for discussion related to PC-BSD technical development.
- Docs: for communications between those involved, or interested in contributing to, the PC-BSD documentation effort.
- Install-frontend: for discussion related to the frontend to the pc-sysinstall utility.
- Installer: for discussions about the backend to the pc-sysinstall utility.
- PBI-bugs: for users to report and discuss bugs found in PBI applications.
- PBI-dev: for discussions between PBI developers and users concerning PBI construction and maintenance.
- PBIbuild: lists SVN commits as PBIs are added or modified by PBI developers.
- PCBSD-Malaysia: general discussion list for Malaysian users in their native language.
- PCBSD-warden: the place to discuss The Warden software for PC-BSD.
- Public: general public list for discussion not related to the other mailing lists.
- Support: if you have a problem, you should report your issue or error messages on this list.
- Testing: for those wishing to participate in PC-BSD beta testing and feedback.
- Trac-bugs: lists notifications about changes to PC-BSD bug reports in Trac database.
- Translations: for those involved in translating for PC-BSD.
Each mailing list includes a description of topics suitable for discussion on that list and indicates if it is read only or available for user discussion. Anyone can read the archives for a list. If you wish to send an email to a list, subscribe to it and confirm your subscription first.
Apart from these official mailing lists, there's also a number of non-official mailing lists set up by PC-BSD users. Many of these lists are designed for discussion in other languages. A list of alternative PC-BSD mailing lists can be found here.
FreeBSD Handbook and FAQ
PC-BSD has FreeBSD as it's underlying operating system, so everthing in the FreeBSD Handbook and FreeBSD FAQ applies to PC-BSD as well. Both are very comprehensive and cover nearly every task you can accomplish on a FreeBSD system. They are also an excellent resource for learning how things work "under the hood" of your PC-BSD system.
Additional Resources
PC-BSD is part of the BSD family of operating systems based on Unix, and is specifically based on FreeBSD. Since PC-BSD has a fully functional FreeBSD system included, most adjustments that you do for FreeBSD also work for PC-BSD. As a result, the majority of FreeBSD material will be useful for you as an advanced user. Here is a non-exhaustive list of other resources on FreeBSD:
Forums
- FreeBSD Forums
- BSD Nexus
- BSD Foren (German)
- BSD Guru PC-BSD Forum (Polish)
- Usenet channel - comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Social Media
Search
Portals
- FreeBSD News
- BSDFreak
- BSD News Network
- About BSD
- BSD Guides
- O'Reilly's BSD Devcenter
- Slashdot BSD
- DistroWatch
- LinuxBSDos
Blogs
- The FreeBSD Diary
- A Year in the Life of a BSD Guru
- BSD Guru (Polish)
- Ilmu BSD (Indonesian)
- Mfaridi.com (Farsi)
Miscellaneous
- BSD Youtube channel
- PC-BSD Youtube channel
- PC-BSD Videos
- BSD Talk
- The BSD Show
- BSD Magazine
- BSD Hacks (book)
- Definitive Guide to PC-BSD (book)
- PC-BSD Section at Polish Linux (in English)
- PC-BSD Section at Jaki Linux (Polish)
- Screaming Electron's tutorials
- FreeBSD How-Tos for the Lazy and Hopeless
- KDE Documentation
Supporting PC-BSD
PC-BSD is a community project and relies on involvement from its users and supporters. This section lists some ideas for becoming involved.
In order to make PC-BSD better with each release we appreciate your feedback and help. You are welcome to post ideas and to report any bugs/problems that you encounter when using PC-BSD.
Intermediate and advanced users can help us assisting other users by answering their questions and trying to solve their problems on the PC-BSD forums and #pcbsd IRC channel.
Become a Beta Tester
If you like playing around with operating systems and have a bit of spare time, one of the most effective ways you can assist the project is by reporting problems you encounter using the current release of PC-BSD.
If you have a spare system, you can also download and try out the latest beta or release candidate version. These versions are still in testing and haven't been officially released yet. Having as many people as possible using PC-BSD on many different hardware configurations assists the project in finding and fixing bugs. This makes using PC-BSD better for everyone.
If this interests you, subscribe to the testing mailing list. As new testing versions become available they will be announced on this list. You will also be able to see what problems other testers are finding and can check to see if the problem exists on your hardware as well. You can also subscribe to Gmane's RSS feeds if you want a quick way to keep up with the subjects being discussed on the testing mailing list.
Anyone can become a beta tester. Follow these tips so that you can accurately describe your findings so they can be fixed as soon as possible:
- before sending an email, search the mailing list to see if anyone else has reported a similar problem
- when reporting a new issue, use a descriptive subject in your email that includes the error and the version of PC-BSD. Ideally, the subject is short (8 or less words) and contains key words about the error. An example would be "Warden on 8.1 fails to export jail".
- ensure that the body of your email includes the PC-BSD version and architecture (e.g. 8.1 RC2, 64 bit version)
- give a short (2-3 sentences) description of how to recreate the error (e.g. when I right click a jail in warden and select Export jail to a .wdn file, it lets me select a file name, but then it freezes)
- include any other info that may be useful (e.g. this seems to work on my 32 bit system or this used to work on 8.0)
- if the problem appears to be hardware related, include a copy of /var/run/dmesg.boot as this file shows the hardware that was probed the last time the PC-BSD system booted
Become a Translator
PC-BSD uses the Pootle management system for managing its localizations. Pootle makes it easy to find out if your native language is fully supported by PC-BSD. You can also assist translating any menus that have not been translated yet as Pootle provides a very easy to use editor for submitting translated text.
To see the status of a localization, open up the PCBSD Translation System in your browser, as seen in Figure X-XX:
Figure X-XX:
The localizations PC-BSD users have requested are listed alphabetically on the left. If your language is missing and you would like to help in its translation, send an email to the translations mailing list so it can be added.
The green bar in the Overall Completion column indicates the percentage of PC-BSD menus that have been localized. If a language is not at 100%, it means that the menus that currently aren't translated will appear in English instead of in that language.
If you click on a language name then click on the hyperlink Name pcbsd, you'll see each menu item. The example shown in Figure X-XX is for the Greek localization:
Figure X-XX:
In this example, the menu for CrashHandler is complete, but the one for LifePreserver is not.
Become a Developer
If you like programming, and especially coding on FreeBSD, we'd love to see you join the PC-BSD Team.
Report Bugs
Found a bug in PC-BSD? If so, please take the time to read through this section first to ensure that your bug gets reported to the correct group and is resolved in a timely fashion.
The first thing to determine is the type of bug you are encountering. Is it a bug that is preventing you from properly installing and running PC-BSD (a system bug), or is it an issue with an installed software package such as FireFox (an application bug)?
Application Bugs
An application bug can fall into a few different categories:
1. Application Packaging Bug
The first is a packaging bug, which is when you cannot install the application or it simply crashes on startup. For these types of bugs, please report them on our Trac Database and for the Type, select "PBI Packaging Bug". Please provide as much detail as possible about the bug, such as:
- Name of Program
- What version of PC-BSD you are running
- What architecture you are using (32bit or 64bit)
- Detailed description of the bug, including a copy of the crash logfile, if generated
2. Application Runtime Bug
An application runtime bug occurs when an application installs and is able to start successfully, but during use, it crashes or displays some other type of undesired behavior. An example would be OpenOffice failing to import a type of document properly or a chat client unable to keep a connection to a network. These types of bugs are best reported to the developers of the application. The best way to locate them is by searching for your application in Software Manager, then clicking the "Vendor" link. Most software sites have a "bug report" link or another way to contact the original developer to report your issue.
System Bugs
A system bug is any bug which prevents the initial installation of PC-BSD or issues with hardware. Some examples would be a non-bootable system, failed installation, missing drivers for your hardware, or a non-functional desktop after installation. To report this type of issue, please follow the instructions below for your type of system bug:
1. Driver Bugs
An example of a driver bug would be a missing network driver, no sound output, or no disk drives detected. Most of these types of issues are directly related to the FreeBSD base upon which PC-BSD is built, and are best fixed by discussing them with the FreeBSD team directly. Reporting a bug to FreeBSD can be done using the Send PR page. You should also search the FreeBSD mailing lists as other users may have already discovered the bug or have a work-around for your particular hardware. Below are some of the related mailing lists:
- ACPI - Power Management and ACPI Development
- Emulation - Place to discuss Linux, VirtualBox, Wine and Linux Flash plugin support
- Multimedia - Sound Drivers and Multimedia Applications
- USB - USB Support and Development
- Xorg - Xorg / Video Drivers and Development
2. Installation Bugs
Any bugs encountered during the installation routine of PC-BSD should be reported to the Trac Database, with as much detail as possible, including:
- PC-BSD version and architecture
- hardware information, disk sizes, amount of RAM and CPU
- specific installation notes such as any non-standard features chosen or a custom disk layout
- information in the "more details" box of the installation failed dialog box
3. Other Bugs
Please report any bugs with HAL or external USB disk mounting using the instructions here. Report issues specific to running the KDE desktop to the KDE on FreeBSD Bug Tracker and general KDE bugs to the KDE Bug Tracking system.
Submit PBI Requests
Want to request a specific application to be made available in PBI format? This is an excellent way to let PBI developers know which applications are most useful to PC-BSD users. Before requesting a PBI, please do the following:
- check in Software Manager to see if a PBI already exists. If one does but you want to request a more recent version, please say so in your request.
- search at Freshports to see if there is an existing FreeBSD package as it is much easier and quicker to make a PBI from an existing package. If a package does not already exist, please say so in your request.
- check to see if a request has already been made in the PBI Requests Forum or PBI-dev Mailing list.
You can make your request one of two ways:
- start a new thread in the PBI Requests Forum
- send an email to PBI-dev Mailing list
Whatever method you choose, please include the name of the PBI you are requesting in the thread name or email subject line. This way it is easy for PBI developers and other PC-BSD users to know which applications have already been requested.
Once a PBI developer has made a new PBI, the request will be removed from the PBI Requests Forum. Please note that it takes anywhere from 2-7 days for a new PBI to show up in Software Manager as it needs to be built and tested to make sure everything works.
If you wish to help test the resulting PBI before it has been approved, you may do so at the sites below:
- PC-BSD 7.x - i386
- PC-BSD 7.x - amd64
- PC-BSD 8.x - i386
- PC-BSD 8.x - amd64
- PC-BSD 9.x - i386
- PC-BSD 9.x - amd64
If you wish to be notified whenever a new PBI is added or an existing one is upgraded to a newer version, subscribe to the Latest PBI RSS feed.
Donate Money
To help the PC-BSD project financially, why not consider making a donation if you're happy with our product? Alternatively you can buy your PC-BSD installation CD/DVD and cool stuff from FreeBSD Mall, PC-BSD's sister company. Companies may consider buying professional support from iXsystems.
Host a Mirror
We are always interested in more download mirrors. If you have spare web space and bandwidth on your server, PC-BSD will be greatly helped if you would be willing to donate this to us. More mirrors means higher download speeds and more (local) servers for users to download from. PC-BSD is also distributed as torrent and you can help us with seeding, especially the first two weeks after a new release.
Mirrors are the lifeblood of any project such as PC-BSD. If you have a system with a high-speed connection, 150-200GB of space, and the ability to "rsync" with a host, then we need you!
To mirror the PC-BSD ISO / PBI collection, you may use "rsync".
NOTE: Once you've begin the rsync process, please send an email letting us know of the Mirror URL, so we can get you listed on pcbsd.org / pbidir.com.
- rsync -vaz --delete isc.pcbsd.org::ftp .
(Mirror the entire ISO / PBIdir collection) Recommended Frequency: Daily
Become an Advocate
So you love PC-BSD? Why not tell the world about it? Your family, your friends, fellow students and colleagues? You won't be the only one that likes a free, virus-free, spyware-free and adware-free operating system. You can burn a couple of DVDs and pass them out.
Webmasters and bloggers can put a Spread PC-BSD button on their site.
