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Date:      Fri, 07 Jan 2005 17:20:59 +0000
From:      Peter Risdon <peter@circlesquared.com>
To:        Marty Landman <MLandman@face2interface.com>
Cc:        "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: clearing space
Message-ID:  <1105118459.708.180.camel@lorna.circlesquared.com>
In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.0.20050107115026.03103bd0@mail.face2interface.com>
References:  <6.2.0.14.0.20050106184116.01f2aa80@mail.face2interface.com> <20050107053638.GE27020@turingmachine.mentalsiege.net> <6.2.0.14.0.20050107074632.03093500@mail.face2interface.com> <1105103142.708.136.camel@lorna.circlesquared.com> <bc5b6385050107055571c9dd2b@mail.gmail.com> <6.2.0.14.0.20050107091811.01f21c78@mail.face2interface.com> <1105108254.708.141.camel@lorna.circlesquared.com> <6.2.0.14.0.20050107094403.030a3d38@mail.face2interface.com> <1105110920.708.152.camel@lorna.circlesquared.com> <6.2.0.14.0.20050107102842.01f00398@mail.face2interface.com> <1105115565.708.165.camel@lorna.circlesquared.com> <6.2.0.14.0.20050107115026.03103bd0@mail.face2interface.com>

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On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 11:59 -0500, Marty Landman wrote:
> At 11:32 AM 1/7/2005, Peter Risdon wrote:
> >On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 10:41 -0500, Marty Landman wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > This has become a problem. Took a working keyboard from another box and it
> > > won't work. Unless by some weird chance I should reboot first.
> > >
> >
> >This happens, but don't just reboot.
> 
> Peter, are you saying that it's possible my keyboard isn't working because 
> the console hasn't been used for a very long time? If so, why isn't 
> rebooting the easiest thing to do?

Sort of. Sometimes, not often, just plugging a ps2 keyboard into a
running machine won't work. It's also capable, even more rarely, of
damaging the motherboard.

[...]
> 
> >No - you ought to be able to su to root still.
> 
> But how?
> 
> %su -
> Password:
> su: no directory
> %

I still have the machine on which I moved /root available and here's
what happens:

-bash-2.05b$ ls /
COPYRIGHT       dev             kernel.GENERIC  nonexistent     stand
bin             dist            kernel.old      proc            sys
boot            etc             mnt             razor-agent.log tmp
cdrom           home            modules         sbin            usr
compat          kernel          modules.old     service         var
-bash-2.05b$ su
Password:
%ls /
.cshrc          compat          kernel.GENERIC  proc            tmp
.profile        dev             kernel.old      razor-agent.log usr
COPYRIGHT       dist            mnt             sbin            var
bin             etc             modules         service
boot            home            modules.old     stand
cdrom           kernel          nonexistent     sys
%pwd
/usr/home/peter
%         

One thing that does occur to me: what is your user's shell and, if it
isn't bash, do you have bash installed? And have you changed the root
shell from csh? I suspect the latter.


[...]
> >If you can boot onto a FreeBSD CDROM it'd be easy to fix this. Can you?
> 
> I still have the 4.8 mini-iso the system was installed with. But I need the 
> console to do this right? Any way I can be sure that the ps2 port/mobo 
> isn't what's really shot? Or does it even matter?

The keyboard will almost certainly work after a reboot. If not, you've
got other worries with that machine anyway. You can get a shell with
root privileges from sysinstall and make your link. Move /sbin back,
though. This was a bad thing to relocate.

Peter.



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