Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 2.X
- 1. Preface
- 1.1. What is the purpose of this FAQ?
- 1.2. What is FreeBSD?
- 1.3. What are the goals of FreeBSD?
- 1.4. Why is it called FreeBSD?
- 1.5. What is the latest version of FreeBSD?
- 1.6. What is FreeBSD-current?
- 1.7. What is the FreeBSD-stable concept?
- 1.8. When are FreeBSD releases made?
- 1.9. Is FreeBSD only available for PCs ?
- 1.10. Who is responsible for FreeBSD?
- 1.11. Where can I get FreeBSD?
- 1.12. Where do I find info on the FreeBSD mailing lists?
- 1.13. What FreeBSD news groups are available?
- 1.14. Are there FreeBSD IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels?
- 1.15. Books on FreeBSD
- 1.16. How do I access your Problem Report database?
- 1.17. Where can I get ASCII/PostScript versions of the FAQ?
- 1.18. Where can I get ASCII/PostScript versions of the Handbook?
- 1.19. The ASCII handbook isn't plain text!
- 1.20. I'd like to become a FreeBSD Web mirror!
- 1.21. I'd like to translate the documentation into Friesian.
- 1.22. Other sources of information.
- 2. Installation
- 2.1. Which file do I download to get FreeBSD?
- 2.2. Help! The boot floppy image will not fit on a single floppy!
- 2.3. Where are the instructions for installing FreeBSD?
- 2.4. What do I need in order to run FreeBSD?
- 2.5. I have only 4 MB of RAM. Can I install FreeBSD?
- 2.6. How can I make my own custom install floppy?
- 2.7. Can I have more than one operating system on my PC?
- 2.8. Can Windows 95 co-exist with FreeBSD?
- 2.9. Windows 95 killed my boot manager! How do I get it back?
- 2.10. Can I install on a disk with bad blocks?
- 2.11. Strange things happen when I boot the install floppy!
- 2.12. Help! I can't install from tape!
- 2.13. Connect two FreeBSD boxes over a parallel line (PLIP)
- 2.14. Can I install on my laptop over PLIP (Parallel Line IP)?
- 2.15. Which geometry should I use for a disk drive?
- 2.16. Any restrictions on how I divide the disk up?
- 2.17. What about disk managers? Or, I have a large drive!
- 2.18. When I boot FreeBSD I get ``Missing Operating System''
- 2.19. I can't get past the boot manager's `F?' prompt.
- 2.20. I have >16MB of RAM. Will this cause any problems?
- 2.21. Do I need to install the complete sources?
- 2.22. Do I need to build a kernel?
- 2.23. I live outside the US. Can I use DES encryption?
- 2.24. The boot floppy starts but hangs at the ``Probing Devices...''
- 2.25. I get a ``panic: cant mount root'' error when rebooting the system after installation.
- 2.26. What are the limits for memory?
- 2.27. What are the limits for ffs filesystems?
- 2.28. How can I put 1TB files on my floppy?
- 3. Hardware compatibility
- 3.1. What kind of hard drives does FreeBSD support?
- 3.2. Which SCSI controllers are supported?
- 3.3. Which CD-ROM drives are supported by FreeBSD?
- 3.4. Does FreeBSD support ZIP drives?
- 3.5. Does FreeBSD support JAZ, EZ and other removable drives?
- 3.6. Which multi-port serial cards are supported by FreeBSD?
- 3.7. I have an unusual bus mouse. How do I set it up?
- 3.8. How do I use my PS/2 (``mouse port'' or ``keyboard'') mouse?
- 3.9. Is it possible to make use of a mouse in any way outside the X Window?
- 3.10. How do I cut and paste text with mouse in the text console?
- 3.11. My mouse has a fancy wheel and buttons. Can I use them in FreeBSD?
- 3.12. How do I use the mouse/trackball/touchpad on my laptop?
- 3.13. What types of tape drives are supported?
- 3.14. Does FreeBSD support tape changers?
- 3.15. Which sound cards are supported by FreeBSD?
- 3.16. Which network cards does FreeBSD support?
- 3.17. I don't have a math co-processor - is that bad?
- 3.18. What other devices does 2.X support?
- 3.19. Does FreeBSD support power management on my laptop?
- 3.20. Workarounds for specific hardware problems
- 3.20.1. Micron systems hang at boot time
- 3.21. I have a newer Adaptec controller and FreeBSD can't find it.
- 3.22. I have an internal Plug & Play modem and FreeBSD can't find it.
- 3.23. How do I get the boot: prompt to show on the serial console?
- 3.24. Why doesn't my 3Com PCI network card work with my Micron computer?
- 3.25. Does FreeBSD support Symmetric Multiproccessing (SMP)?
- 4. Troubleshooting
- 4.1. I have bad blocks on my hard drive!
- 4.2. FreeBSD does not recognize my Bustek 742a EISA SCSI!
- 4.3. My HP Netserver's SCSI controller is not detected!
- 4.4. What's up with this CMD640 IDE controller?
- 4.5. I keep seeing messages like ``
ed1: timeout
''.
- 4.6. When I mount a CDROM, I get ``Incorrect super block''.
- 4.7. When I mount a CDROM, I get ``Device not configured''.
- 4.8. My printer is ridiculously slow. What can I do ?
- 4.9. My programs occasionally die with ``Signal 11'' errors.
- 4.10. When I boot, the screen goes black and loses sync!
- 4.11. I have 128 MB of RAM but the system only uses 64 MB.
- 4.12. FreeBSD 2.0 panics with ``kmem_map too small!''
- 4.13. ``CMAP busy panic'' when rebooting with a new kernel.
- 4.14. ahc0: brkadrint, Illegal Host Access at seqaddr 0x0
- 4.15. Sendmail says ``mail loops back to myself''
- 4.16. Full screen applications on remote machines misbehave!
- 4.17. My machine prints "calcru: negative time..."
- 5. Commercial Applications
- 5.1. Where can I get Motif for FreeBSD?
- 5.2. Where can I get CDE for FreeBSD?
- 5.3. Are there any commercial high-performance X servers?
- 5.4. Are there any Database systems for FreeBSD?
- 6. User Applications
- 6.1. So, where are all the user applications?
- 6.2. Where do I find libc.so.3.0?
- 6.3. ghostscript gives lots of errors with my 386/486SX.
- 6.4. When I run a SCO/iBCS2 application, it bombs on
socksys
.
- 6.5. How do I configure INN (Internet News) for my machine?
- 6.6. What version of Microsoft FrontPage should I get?
- 7. Kernel Configuration
- 7.1. I'd like to customize my kernel. Is it difficult?
- 7.2. My kernel compiles fail because
_hw_float
is missing.
- 7.3. Interrupt conflicts with multi-port serial code.
- 7.4. How do I enable support for QIC-40/80 drives?
- 8. System Administration
- 8.1. Where are the system start-up configuration files?
- 8.2. How do I add a user easily?
- 8.3. How can I add my new hard disk to my FreeBSD system?
- 8.4. I have a new removable drive, how do I use it?
- 8.5. How do I mount a secondary DOS partition?
- 8.6. Can I mount other foreign filesystems under FreeBSD?
- 8.7. How can I use the NT loader to boot FreeBSD?
- 8.8. How do I boot FreeBSD and Linux from LILO?
- 8.9. How do I boot FreeBSD and Linux using BootEasy?
- 8.10. Will a ``dangerously dedicated'' disk endanger my health?
- 8.11. How can I add more swap space?
- 8.12. I'm having problems setting up my printer.
- 8.13. The keyboard mappings are wrong for my system.
- 8.14. I can't get user quotas to work properly.
- 8.15. What's inappropriate about my ccd?
- 8.16. Why can't I edit the disklabel on my ccd?
- 8.17. Does FreeBSD support System V IPC primitives?
- 8.18. How do I use sendmail for mail delivery with UUCP?
- 8.19. How do I set up mail with a dialup connection to the 'net?
- 8.20. Eek! I forgot the root password!
- 8.21. How do I keep Control-Alt-Delete from rebooting the system?
- 8.22. How do I reformat DOS text files to UNIX ones?
- 8.23. How do I kill processes by name?
- 8.24. Why is su bugging me about not being in root's ACL?
- 8.25. How do I uninstall Kerberos?
- 8.26. How do I add pseudoterminals to the system?
- 9. The X Window System and Virtual Consoles
- 9.1. I want to run X, how do I go about it?
- 9.2. Why doesn't my mouse work with X
- 9.3. X Window menus and dialog boxes don't work right!
- 9.4. What is a virtual console and how do I make more?
- 9.5. How do I access the virtual consoles from X?
- 9.6. How do I start XDM on boot?
- 9.7. When I run xconsole, I get ``Couldn't open console''.
- 9.8. My PS/2 mouse doesn't behave properly under X.
- 9.9. My PS/2 mouse from MouseSystems doesn't seem to work.
- 9.10. When building an X app,
imake
can't find Imake.tmpl
. Where is it?
- 9.11. How do I reverse the mouse buttons?
- 10. Networking
- 10.1. Where can I get information on ``diskless booting''?
- 10.2. Can a FreeBSD box be used as a dedicated network router?
- 10.3. Can I connect my Win95 box to the Internet via FreeBSD?
- 10.4. Why does recompiling the latest BIND from ISC fail?
- 10.5. Does FreeBSD support SLIP and PPP?
- 10.6. Does FreeBSD support NAT or Masquerading
- 10.7. I can't make ppp work. What am I doing wrong ?
- 10.7.1. Ppp just hangs when I run it
- 10.7.2. Ppp won't dial in -auto mode
- 10.7.3. What does "No route to host" mean
- 10.7.4. My connection drops after about 3 minutes
- 10.7.5. My connection drops under heavy load
- 10.7.6. My connection drops after a random amount of time
- 10.7.7. My connection hangs after a random amount of time
- 10.7.7.1. The remote end isn't responding
- 10.7.7.2. Ppp is hung
- 10.7.8. Nothing happens after the Login OK! message
- 10.7.9. I keep seeing errors about magic being the same
- 10.7.10. LCP negotiations continue 'till the connection is closed
- 10.7.11. Ppp locks up shortly after connecting
- 10.7.12. Ppp locks up when I shell out to test it
- 10.7.13. Ppp over a null-modem cable never exits
- 10.7.14. Why does ppp dial for no reason in -auto mode
- 10.7.15. What do these CCP errors mean
- 10.7.16. Ppp locks up during file transfers with IO errors
- 10.7.17. Why doesn't ppp log my connection speed?
- 10.7.18. Ppp ignores the `\' character in my chat script
- 10.7.19. Ppp gets a seg-fault, but I see no
ppp.core
file
- 10.7.20. The process that forces a dial in auto mode never connects
- 10.7.21. Why don't most games work with the -alias switch
- 10.7.22. What are FCS errors ?
- 10.7.23. None of this helps - I'm desperate !
- 10.8. I can't create a
/dev/ed0
device!
- 10.9. How can I setup Ethernet aliases?
- 10.10. How do I get my 3C503 to use the other network port?
- 10.11. I'm having problems with NFS to/from FreeBSD.
- 10.12. Why can't I NFS-mount from a Linux box?
- 10.13. Why can't I NFS-mount from a Sun box?
- 10.14. I'm having problems talking PPP to NeXTStep machines.
- 10.15. How do I enable IP multicast support?
- 10.16. Which network cards are based on the DEC PCI chipset?
- 10.17. Why do I have to use the FQDN for hosts on my site?
- 10.18. ``Permission denied'' for all networking operations.
- 10.19. How much overhead does IPFW incur?
- 10.20. How can I redirect service requests from one machine to another?
- 10.21. Where can I get a bandwidth management tool?
- 10.22. Why do I get ``/dev/bpf0: device not configured"?
- 11. Serial Communications
- 11.1. How do I tell if FreeBSD found my serial ports?
- 11.2. How do I tell if FreeBSD found my modem cards?
- 11.3. I just upgraded to 2.0.5 and my
tty0X
are missing!
- 11.4. How do I access the serial ports on FreeBSD?
- 11.5. How do I enable support for a multiport serial card?
- 11.6. Can FreeBSD handle multiport serial cards sharing irqs?
- 11.7. Can I set the default serial parameters for a port?
- 11.8. How can I enable dialup logins on my modem?
- 11.9. How can I connect a dumb terminal to my FreeBSD box?
- 11.10. Why can't I run
tip
or cu
?
- 11.11. My stock Hayes modem isn't supported---what can I do?
- 11.12. How am I expected to enter these AT commands?
- 11.13. The
@
sign for the pn capability doesn't work!
- 11.14. How can I dial a phone number on the command line?
- 11.15. Do I have to type in the bps rate every time I do that?
- 11.16. I access a number of hosts through a terminal server.
- 11.17. Can tip try more than one line for each site?
- 11.18. Why do I have to hit CTRL+P twice to send CTRL+P once?
- 11.19. Suddenly everything I type is in UPPER CASE??
- 11.20. How can I do file transfers with
tip
?
- 11.21. How can I run zmodem with
tip
?
- 11.22. FreeBSD can't seem to find my serial ports, even when the
- 12. Miscellaneous Questions
- 12.1. FreeBSD uses far more swap space than Linux. Why?
- 12.2. Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable formats?
- 12.3. Yes, but why are there so many different
- 12.4. Why won't chmod change the permissions on symlinks?
- 12.5. Why are login names still restricted to 8 characters?
- 12.6. Can I run DOS binaries under FreeBSD?
- 12.7. What is ``
sup
'', and how do I use it?
- 12.8. How cool is FreeBSD?
- 12.9. Who's scratching in my memory banks??
- 12.10. What does 'MFC' mean?
- 12.11. What does 'BSD' mean?
- 13. For serious FreeBSD hackers only
- 13.1. What are SNAPs and RELEASEs?
- 13.2. How do I make my own custom release?
- 13.3. How do I create customized installation disks?
- 13.4. ``make world'' clobbers my existing installed binaries.
- 13.5. When my system boots, it says ``(bus speed defaulted)''.
- 13.6. Can I follow current with limited Internet access?
- 13.7. How did you split the distribution into 240k files?
- 13.8. I've written a kernel extension, who do I send it to?
- 13.9. How are Plug N Play ISA cards detected and initialized?
- 13.10. Does FreeBSD support architectures other than the x86?
- 13.11. I need a major number for a device driver I've written.
- 13.12. Alternative layout policies for directories
- 13.13. Making the most of a kernel panic
- 14. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS