Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 20:03:04 +0000 () From: James Raynard <fqueries@jraynard.demon.co.uk> To: RYAN DARBY <DARBY1@x400.telkom400.inca.za> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Dummies guide to freebsd ? Message-ID: <199608072003.UAA03020@jraynard.demon.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <0119114072317950*@MHS> from "RYAN DARBY" at Aug 7, 96 10:08:22 am
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> Is /usr mentioned in the install the directory /usr as a subdirectory > of / on the disk? And is the / in the install /root on the disk? /usr is indeed a subdirectory of /. One of the nice things about the Unix filesystem is that it's all one big hierarchy and you can add extra partitions, disks, CDROMs, NFS-mounted filesystems etc etc into it without all this nonsense about having to remember that your CDROM's on drive P:, except it's on Q: if you add a network drive... /root is the directory you arrive in if you log in as the superuser (using the login name "root"). /, which is rather confusingly known as "the root directory", is the base of the filesystem hierarchy (think of the hierarchy as a tree, with directories branching off it, and the origin of the term "root directory" may become a little clearer, although people seem to make a habit of drawing the tree upside down, for some reason). > Also, I get a WARNING : / NOT PROPERLY DISMOUNTED when I boot. I logout > and then turn off. I am running on a standalone PC. Am I doing something > wrong to get out of it? Welcome to the world of real operating systems :-) In Unix (and other systems like OS/2 and WinNT) a lot of data is kept in memory in case it's needed again, rather than saving it to disk and re-loading it again. When you turn off the computer without shutting it down properly, any data that has not been saved to disk will be lost. A program called 'fsck' is run at boot time to check that the file systems are self-consistent; it notices that / was still open when the system went down and warns you so that you can investigate whether any important data was lost. The correct way to finish off a FreeBSD session is to use the "halt" or "reboot" commands, which do the obvious things immediately; if you're sharing the system with other people, "shutdown" is a more friendly way, giving people time to save their work first. > Also, is there perhaps a FAQ or giude to BSD on the internet that is > intended for total begginers such as myself? I am battling along in a > small desert town with nothing but Win95 for 500Km around me! You really *are* a long way from civilisation (and I'm not talking about the desert here :-) Try http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/ for starters; if you can get hold of one of the sysadmin books it recommends, so much the better. Also try looking out for the comp.unix.questions FAQ.
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