Date: Tue, 08 Oct 96 18:16:07 -0700 From: Randall Raemon <delta1@netcom.com> To: sue@welearn.com.au Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: It's the little things... Message-ID: <199610090116.SAA12954@netcom12.netcom.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In message <199610082159.HAA24542@mail.zip.com.au>
"Sue Blake" writes
> Sometimes I can't access all the commands, and sometimes I can, and
> I can't find a pattern to it. When the _first_ login after booting
> is _root_ on console _one_ there seems to be no problem. Or is this
> just coincidence? I know it's a FAQ. I searched the WWW site for
> half an hour and found many prior questions on this, but no answers.
I haven't seen this one... Could be an alias/hash buffer getting
fouled up. "hash -r" will reset all the /bin/sh aliases.
> To be able to su root, do I just add my name to wheel in the group
> file? I did this and rebooted, but it didn't seem to work properly.
> The installation material implies that right after install you can
> and should use su, but that's far from the case.
Add your userid to the wheel group. Then on your next login, you will
be able to su. The /etc/group file is read once during login, and
subsequent changes have no effect until the next login.
> How can I set the prompt (to username and/or working directory... any
> damn thing other than the machine name)? I'm using tcsh for myself
> (set up with sysinstall's facility) and the default as root. I've
> systematically edited and retried every dot file in my dir and can't make it
> change. The files in /etc that look relevant are blank except for
> comments.
The provided /bin/sh doesn't seem to have the capability, though
I haven't gone thru it's manpage thoroughly. Both ksh and bash have
an internal variable ${PWD} which tracks the current directory, which
I set on my PS1 prompt string. /bin/sh ignores such settings. For the
time being, I simply shift over to my other shell once in as root.
> I believe I shouldn't change root's shell, but I'd like a command
> history. Is there any problem with simply logging in as root then typing
> tcsh? If that's ok, would it also be available (or advisable) in
> single user mode? And if not, how does root erase the "[" or "]" that
> remains after accidentally pressing the up-arrow and erasing most of
> the resultant junk from the command line?
The default /bin/sh does indeed have a command history invoked like
that of ksh or bash. I'm a vi-hack, so I do a "set -o vi" and
scroll/edit accordingly.
> How do you install the ports or packages which auto-request the files
> by ftp? It doesn't seem to initiate ppp so I ran user ppp first,
> connected with my ISP, then ran sysinstall. Whoo! Screen went blank
> and keyboard locked until I switched the modem off. Is this the wrong
> procedure or a misconfig?
I do all mine straight from the CD. I do the following:
cd /cdrom/packages/All
pkg_add <desired_package>
Otherwise I get source off the net, and build...
> Minicom is very badly behaved. I think it's terminal emulation
> problems. I've set it to vt100. Funny characters appear on screen,
> and Minicom keeps responding with its signature (Minicom v.xxx...) and
> strings that look something like "Muummuunnnuy!nnnnumy". Even when I
> first told my console to use vt100 instead of cons25 (through tcsh
> for me, and also during the root login question) it didn't help minicom.
> Not having a viable zmodem further insulates me from the non-Internet
> world, but that's another issue. Is minicom being silly or am I?
Haven't tried minicom. ecu in the 2.1.5 release hase zmodem builtin,
though there are some quirks with the ecu package (black-on-black
screen defaults...). You have to set up your own "colors" file to make
any sense of it.
> What's _the_most_proper_ way to stop everything before turning the
> machine off? I could not find anything written about this!! Surely
> turning the power off is not kosher :-) Should I use shutdown or
> halt? (Indeed, how was I to know that these commands existed?) They
> don't seem to do a great deal, or leave me in single user mode ready
> for login, not knowing if at that point it's safe to turn off power
> or not. This is a most serious omission in the reading matter, or I
> need new glasses.
Classic Unix lore that everybody knows but is never documented.
Use shutdown if you want to be polite to other users, else halt or
reboot. Shutdown is a script that does a wall message and a sleep
and then runs halt/reboot.
> What's the deal with MFS? I reckon I don't need half of my 64 megs of
> ram so it'd be useful as /tmp. Am I reading this right? If so, what's
> the syntax to tell the kernel how much ram MFS can have? I think it's
> taking the lot (because I didn't say how much) and that might be a
> bad thing, so I've unmounted MFS though there were no ill effects
> while I was feeling bolder.
>
> I was naughty and set my swap to only 70 megs. If I donate 32 megs
> to MFS (if that's how it works) then I guess 70 is fine. Otherwise I
> know it's no good. Which device will explode in my face if swap is
> only half its suggested size, and will I still be alive to ask you
> more questions?
Can't help with this. Haven't tried it.
> My preferred text editor is joe. I found a copy and extracted the
> contents. Having no idea what I was doing I typed 'make' and found an
> executable which I put in bin and a .joerc which I put in my own dir.
> So far it works but am I playing with fire?
If you built it from source, you're probably okay. If you grabbed a
binary, then you've got somebody else's assumptions about machine
configuration.
--
Randall Raemon
delta1@netcom.com
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199610090116.SAA12954>