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Date:      Mon, 4 Mar 2002 20:48:02 -0600 (CST)
From:      hawkeyd@visi.com (D J Hawkey Jr)
To:        ob1@yifan.net, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: I bought your system and am not so happy!
Message-ID:  <200203050248.g252m2S56492@sheol.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <20020305022609.8E7EA37B400_hub.freebsd.org@ns.sol.net>
References:  <NJEILFFGFACAOBDNPELNKEFFCAAA.kmccorm1_stevens-tech.edu@ns.sol.net> <20020305022609.8E7EA37B400_hub.freebsd.org@ns.sol.net>

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In article <20020305022609.8E7EA37B400_hub.freebsd.org@ns.sol.net>,
	ob1@yifan.net writes:
> I bought your system and I am pretty happy.
> 
> I'll start w/ my question first then talk about my transition / install 
> experience (experience is probably a m$ trademark by now)
> 
> Having succesfully installed 4.4 from the powerpack I'm curious whether I 
> should just get ahold of 4.5 and re-install before I get to far. I am really 
> fond of kde2 and seem to remember reading that this is not in the 4.5 dist. 
> is this true or am I just misinformed?

I can't answer this directly, but if so, the ports collections may have it
for you. Read up on installing and updating the ports collection on your
machine, and post another question after that if it still isn't clear.

I don't think there's anything vis-a-vis 4.4 and 4.5 toi prevent KDE2 from
running on your box, but I may be wrong.

> -----------------My Install-------------------------------------
> 
> I now boot m$, SuSE linux, BeOS, qnx rtp, and amithalon on this box.
> This weekend I added freeBSD4.4  (powerpak edition) to that list.
> I probably installed it 6 or 7 times (me not so smart). Read furthur.

Most folk I know need at least two tries on their first installation.
I think it took me three or four before I was satisfied (mostly with the
partition sizes).

You next one will be quite a bit easier, though, won't it?

> Had I been clueless I am sure that I would have taken the package back to the 
> store, The online info and the book definitely give anyone with an interest 
> in freeBSD enough info to decide for themselves whether or not they should go 
> through with an installation. 
> 
> I was tempted to return it as the disk/partition/slice terminology seemed 
> crazy to me, and I had no desire to break what I had working, but finally I 
> took the plunge.

Greg's book is wonderful. I've heard good things anout Annalisa's (sp?),
too, though I haven't browsed it.

> There was nothing that I ever read that said, "Just go do it, This will 
> replace windows and the mac. Nothing will go wrong and you won't need to 
> learn anything."

And you won't find any such text. I know of only two companies that might
or will say that, and only one can really get away with it. Can you guess?

> Now the good news. I finally did get freeBSD running. I believe all of my 
> problems came down to a combination of 2 things,
> 
> 1) xfree86 still has a way to go as far as being easy to set up.
> 	I kept thinking this was the source of my failures.

You're quite right, but you can't blame FreeBSD for this!

> 2) There was nothing to warn me that choosing high security (rather than 	
> moderate) in sysinstall would keep the xserver from being able to start.
> THIS WAS A BUGGER.

Didn't the F1 "help" mention it? IIRC, 4.5's does, but again, it may not,
as I blew by it pretty fast, and mostly from curiosity. I already was aware
of this.

> Finally after my 6th or 7th install it occured to me to try some of the 
> online documentation, low and behold there was the info I needed. Sure I 
> could have read all of the online docs before installing but I would have 
> expected such an important and basic piece of info to be right there in the 
> installation help file or in the general Installation documents.

Glad to read that you had the perseverance (stubbornness?) to overcome
the obstacles. Bravo.

> Anyway all is well, I look forward to a more "Desktop" related distribution 
> but by the time it arrives I hope I won't need it.

:-)

Keep up the perseverance (stubbornness). The reward is worth it.

> dh

Dave

-- 

Windows: "Where do you want to go today?"
Linux: "Where do you want to go tomorrow?"
FreeBSD: "Are you guys coming, or what?"


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