Terry Poulin

PC-BSD Quick Guide, draft part I

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Here is a draft of some thing I’ve been writing. Gotta love vim for text editing, it’s actually written in HTML so I’d get a little more used to using it. I know enough html and can look up enough to be able to get around, the only problem is any thing I cook up will have “Designed for lynx” written all over it. I don’t enjoy html enough to get fancy with it ^_^

//Start draft

Common tasks

In this chapter we will go over a number of common tasks faced by every day users and administrators. We will discuss such matters using plain english and discribe using graphical user interfaces and the command line interfaces as well as configuration files. This will allow you to chose which method you prefer and to be more productive.

We have broken down common tasks into the following:

  • Installing applications
  • Adding new users
  • Adding custom fonts
  • Downloading system updates

Installing Applications

There are several methods of installing software on a PC-BSD system. Each method will be discribed in more detail below.

  1. PBI Installer, the easy way
  2. Packages, the quick FreeBSD way
  3. Ports, the traditional FreeBSD way

When you install software from a PBI you will be presented with a simple graphical way to install software. Simular to many other popular operating systems you just click and go. Since PBI programs are created from traditional FreeBSD ports and packages they are fewer and less up to date then ports.

Ports and Packages are the traditional ways of installing software. You can get the most up to date software by compiling from ports. You may also quickly install allot software using packages, but not all software is available as a package or PBI.

Installing software via PBI

When you install a program through the PcBsdInstaller system it is placed with all required files in it’s own folder in /Programs and linked into the system. This is very simple and safe to the persons system as person is not changed more then necessary to allow the packages to function/*Footnote*/

To install a PBI we need to go to the PBI Directory and download a program

Once the download is completed simply double click on the file to launch the installer. It will prompt you once for the super users password before beginning the installation process. This is to ensure you are installing the program and not any one that may have sat down at your computer. It’s both effective as a security measure and parental control.

Click next at the welcome screen, you will then be asked to read any license agreements that comes with the program you are installing. Check the I agree box and click next to continue installation. You will now have the options of placing icons on your desktop and entries in the PBI Programs section of the K-Menu. Check all boxes that you wish done and click install. Once it has completed the installation click finshed and tryout your program

If at a later date you wish to add an icon to your desktop you may do so by right clicking on the desktop….. You can also install in text mode from a console by changing directory to the location of the PBI and run the following as the super user.
./PBI_File -text

/*Footnote*/ Some PBI do modify the base system beyond standard restrictions out of requirment. Examples of this include the Linux Compatiblity layer, Graphics and Audio drivers, e.t.c.

Fetching packages

Packages are prepaired files for installing software, they install software into the system and can cause dependancy issues. The package system is comparable to RPM, Dpkg, and Apt-Get used in several Linux Distros. Installing packages requires you to open a console with root permissions. You can type kdesu konsole in a run dialog from the K-Menu or open a konsole from the K-Menu in super user mode, or open a konsole and type su and press enter. You will be prompted for the root (super user) password, it will nto display the password on screen for security reasons. After switching to the super user account you have complete access to the system and can install software at will.

You can install a program using the package system like so:

#pkg_add -r irssi

will install the irssi with all required files. You can generally find the binary (execuitable) in /usr/local/bin, configuration files in /usr/local/share// or your home directory and the libraries (like .dll) will be placed into the system as needed. This is true for ports as well, the PBI system is favored by users wanting to avoid this at the minor expense of some disk space. As PBI install all files into /Programs/ but ports are kept up to date and contain many more programs

You can uninstall a package by using the pkg_delete command and the name and version of the package or a wild card.

pkg_delete irssi-0.8.10_2 and pkg_delete “irssi-*” are equavilent.

You can get info about an installed package the same way using the pkg_info command.

#pkg_info “irssi-*”

Installing software using ports

Traditionally BSD installs software from source, the ports collection is a easy to use system that makes this as painless as possible. You first need to install an up to date ports collection before you may use ports to install software. New users coming from Gentoo Linux will find this simular to the Emerge system based on FreeBSD ports.

To install the ports collection click on the K-Menu and navigate to settings, administration, PC-BSD System. Enter the super users password to acces the admin panel and click on the tasks tab. Now click fetch ports and it will begin downloading the necessary files and installing them.
This will take awhile depending on your internet connection and Processor speed.

If you wish to do this from the command line open a console as the super user as discribed in fetching packages and run the following command

#cvsup -g -L 1 /root/ports-supfile

You can also use the portsnap method

#portsnap fetch && portsnap extract

If you install ports using portsnap you should not update the ports collection with cvsup, instead use:

#portsnap fetch && portsnap update

if you installed ports using cvsup you may update them in the same way as before:

#cvsup -g -L 1 /root/ports-supfile

You can edit the supfiles and set a download mirror closer to you, please see the FreeBSD handbook for more information on using CVSUP

Now that the ports collection is installed if you look in /usr/ports you will see a simple tree structure of folders. The structure is in the format of catagory, program name.

//end draft

I need to start looking at KPorts and a few other things, I also have some notes in the text but Live Journal treats them as comments just liek HTML, although you don’t need any html skill at all to use LJ.

AAO 2.7 Released

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Amercia’s Army Ops v2.7 has been released in two 1.6gb download parts. A number of bug fixes/revamped UI is expected (I’m looking forward to the situational awareness indicator). Revamped training mission, new vehicles/weapons including Up-Armoed Humvee’s, CROWS, AT4 and Javalin weapon systems. + 2 Coop missions.

I was hoping for a better show of Coop so [SAS] could day dream for a realistic game of AAO, but alas most AAO servers I’ve met team work in Vs. Play is only out of the hunt for more kills. (Boring). PErsonally I like a mission carried out in a realistic manor. I’d rather clear a hostage rescue map with 10 X-Rays then fight may way threw a fortress of 60 enemies.

Player Vs. Player can be fun but is rarly realistic, becahse no matter how much they reenforce realism in Advers gaming. Joe blow turkey can’t stand to play as a team and fight like a man if you paid him 2,000,000 points a second. Ever see bunny hoppers packing AT4’s or 30lbs packs? (playerswho jump up and down allot in CQB to avoid being shot=Bunny hopper) BF2 was kind enough to make it so they couldn’t shoot till they landed, but also made it so you can jump and chuck C4. (My favorite way of using it was to chuck it far over a wall onto an Op4 Pos). In AAO, we have side stepping. You engage a target and the side step to one side out of your LoF, they then side step back *accross your LoF* and magically evade more bullets when they just walked accross your 20 rounds of 5.56x45mm. I was trained you have no where to go, bastardo is shooting at you and your on the run. You move as fast as possible *ahead* of their line of fire. A very fast moving threat at short range can be hard to keep targeted if they are ahread of your LoF, I should know I’ve done enough Infighting in my time as a MechWarrior (although I was mostly a Sniper or Recon/Harasser pilot). It’s also very effective in RvS when you get in a really bad situation or just want to have fun with the instant 1 shot one kill ghost tangos !

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Good training with the Wiz, Blade, the red rooster and some record setting attempts with Wiz, Rouge, and later Leon. About 1:30-2:10 we got on a dynamic hostage rescue. Usually one can do both hostages in about 5 minutes but we figured we’d waltz in 🙂

I love to try and beet speed records, I’ve always tried to be working at a bat out of heck speed in dynamic when ever it’s safe since my Recruit tryout. I had a great teacher, Relish. I learned that when the X-Rays know your coming and the hostages live is on the line. You go as fast as is safe, rapid movement, quick shooting, and short desisive violence of action. I’m sure the real world SAS could do it better but we tend to do things pretty well. I wish more teams online played with realistic tactics. In RvS, Coop is a joke on most servers. Generally on public servers people just puff a smoke grenade at the door, camp it and shoot the stupidfied tangos through smoke (Generic player). Totally unrealistic and the moronic way to lame your way through the game.

Smoke grenades are obscurents, not cover or room clearing aids. You puff a smoke to break line of site with the target and you usually don’t want to cross right behind it. Any machine gunner with a brain is gonna lite you up if you do. Our boys in Vietnam learned you don’t just smoke the street and run accross a killing zone.

A Flashbang is a less then lethel room clearing aid, it’s a stun grenade. It blows up with a intense light and a series of sharp “bangs” stunning and or disorienting people. You then poor into the room, size control and get away from the fatal funnel (the doorway) and along the walls for cover and set up the lines of fire to cover the entire room. 

Some thing like this should work
____________________
|                <<|
|                  |
|                  |
|             b    |
|^      ^        <<|
|^______^______d___|
d = Door openning
b = Bang landed
^/< = Assualters

Basicly the idea is you cover the whole room, keeping to corners/walls and you _do not_ have any one standing in the line of fire of anothe teammate. As you can see in my little diagram 2 assualters have the 12 o’clock and the 4 o’clocks general directions covered, they are along the walls (but not touching) so they won’t get flanked and shot in the back.

Now of course in real life a flashbang will hurt you if it goes off to close, in Swat4 it’s able to setoff pipe bombs on a shelf if it hits but doesn’t really do any damage. In my work for a mod for the game a flashbang going off on you will hurt allot, but it won’t kill (generally) which adds a bit more realism. In our games as long as Me, Fury, and Glock are not tossing the grenade your safe enough. I guess it’s what I get for not liking base ball as a kid, my stingball grenades tend to bounce back at us. (even virtual ALSG101 stingers hurt).

I love our PC Games because it gives us a chance to use tactics, we don’t “Smoke and clear” we “Bang and Clear” as a standard entry in dynamic. We do of course use Breaching Charges, Frags, Gas and Shotgun breaches alone and in combination but getting it doen safly can be a challenge. In SWAT4, allot of times I see pub’s stack up and say “Oy, that one is probably gonna die when the door opens”. Oh well would be nice if they’d learn linear and Column stacks and how to safly stack up. As we always tell the recruits when their training to join the clan. “Stack on the side of the door that will not expose you to immediate return fire when the door is opened” we also use Linear stacks most times, every one in a single line. #1 goes in, #2 goes in, #3 goes in, #4 goes in e.t.c. The idea being you don’t get #1/#2 on the left, #3/#4 ont he right side of the door. And then have #1 going in the room with his pants down while #2 and #3 are jammed in the door, both trying to get in because of lag or one being to slow. You want to get in quickly and safly !!!

I’ve seen to many 5 man pile ups at the door with public players. Hahahha I remember once after me and a team mate we’re harping on not clogging the door. My teammate the point man went in, #3 jumped me (I was #2), and #4 was trying to push us through the darn door while #5 fiddled. #1 was alone in the room and got flanked & downed, I got in and moved out. My team mates did the same thing at the next door with me as #5 and I was the only one to survive and complete the mission. Now if only SWAT4 was like RvS where idiots get shot fast.

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I’m beginning to see how PHP and Javascript can have their uses…

I’m considering putting composer to work, I like vim for it’s speed and power, Kate for it’s omni-tasknisque nature (not so much for html in less you always use text browsers =P ). Composer and Nvu I like because I can quickly see things without having to alt-tab to my browser and refresh it. Yeah I can get lazy at times.

Been breaking in Seamonkey good and trying to get work done. I had very much fun joining my teammate Rasa in training with a few recruits. One or two people would hide in a room and play the part of X-Rays while the rest setup for entry. At first we used light clicks to simulate shooting but it was to hard to keep track of who shot at who and was to dark to see if any one surrendered. So I suggested we switch to gas masks and SA-200’s loaded up with Pavaballs. We really had allot of fun and I got to help Rasa. The two things the recruits seemed to have the most problem with was trying to get the flashbang in a sweet spot to cover their entry good and checking behind the door.

You see, #1 has to check behind the door if there is no imediate threat to the team because if theres a threat not clearly visable it might very well be behind the door waiting to kill your mates. Lazko was especially peppered for not checking behind doors. I hid near by the door in a crook between a freazer and a counter. They opened the door, chucked in a bang. Now of course being a simulation (SWAT 4) I wasn’t stunned with the door and a set of ear plugs between me and the NFD . I closed the door before they could get in, they popped it back open and rushed in not checking my hidy hole. I peppered the day lights out of them xD

Ahh, tomorrow I’m off well…. I’ve got training with Wiz, En4cer, and Blade but that should rock as long as my mom doesn’t crash it. So, theres no reason to get out of bed early other then to walk the dogs. I think I’ll hit the servers and start working on my room clearing (Swat4) or on toes tactical thinking (RvS).

note to self

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Some quick links I need to study later (mind joggers)

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_formatting.asp

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_tables.asp

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_lists.asp

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp

Top level

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I don’t know whats worse, having to go to work in 7 hours or not having enough time to finish my own work.

I’ve installed Samba on Vectra, but I expect she will still give me problems with the printer. I can deal with that later. I thought, for my needs I could setup anonmous ftp on the box and skip samba [and the printer :P]. But then, what fun would that be ? Hehe tooo easy. The last time I got to toy /w setting up Samba to share files to a Windows box I got as far as being able to find the server, but I never had the time to setup the authentication hahaha.

Working hard may be work but working out of love can be fun as all getout.

My work can be very stressful, some times even leg [or back] breaking but it’s only 4-5 days a week School, well I’m home schooled and have loads of it so theres no such thing as time off without a price [Weekends included]. Yet, I enjoy computers so much, sure it can be a pain in the royal hind quarters. Non-sensical problems especially – I still have no idea what happened with my router, but s’ok if it works, we figure out the mystery in time. At least, here I’m free to be me, a console doesn’t try to control you Unix lets you define yourself.

Windows, I leave behind tried of being confined. PC-BSD and FreeBSD I take up in joy, a new toy to tinker with maybe but it’s passionate. The more I learn and the more time I spend working with computers [and wishing some one would pay me to have such great fun:D]. I find my self enjoying it too much. If I have nothing to do, nothing to learn, and nothing to eat to boot I’m deffo in trouble. What point is their to life if you don’t get to enjoy the simple things in life?

Now if only that dream vacation was possible…..

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Well I think I’m doing it. I’m switching to Seamonkey. To me it’s no point to use a diffrent program(s) for the same thing(s) just because it’s a diffrent operating system. Good programs are portable programs in my book and play nicly.

For Windows I’ve been using Firefox, nice browser and much more fun the Internet Explorer 5~6 was, althouhg I’m interested in seeing the changes in IE7. The only catch is I prefer Opera. While Opera is very nice and has awesome tabbed browsing support, good enough that I don’t mind a few quirks in it. The windows version of Opera is not so hot, on my system it also chews CPU time but rocks for BSD. Soo, I’ve returned to my old consideration.

I’m very adapt to Firefox and I use Thunderbird. Mutt I was hoping to learn but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble for the win32 port of Mutt. Konqueror is very Firefox like, lacks some of the extensions e.t.c. but is a great browser but doesn’t runon Windows. Since it’s a KDE app, it’s also a bloody nice file manager compared to explorer on Windows XP.

Seamonkey is the successor to the Mozilla application suite, which was kinda like Netscape Communicator on steriods you could say. (Netscape was before my time, we only got inet access around 2000). When the kitchen sink got EoL’d [End of Life] so they could work more on Firefox and Thunderbird the community picked up the app and she was reborn as the SeaMonkey [which Mozilla suite was code named Seamonkey]. It provides a browser (navigator in a very netscape like feeling) which is basically firefox, Mail/newsgroups (thunderbird for all intents and purposes), Composer a WYSIWYG html editor which I like for testing pages quickly [Nvu is basically an extended version of this], Adressbook, Chatzilla IRC client (Mmm maybe I’ll lay off X-Chat), plus a DOM inspector and some JavaScript stuff.

The mbox is the same as thunderbird so I can just point mail & newsgroups at my thunderbird local folders on my Lexar, no need to import. Plus SeaMonkey has Roaming support that lets me keep bookmarks/addresses/cookies e.t.c. sync’d the support is expiremental so it’s not very good but it seems a good start. Load times not much a bother on my desktop thanks to fast CPU and 2GB of reasonably fast DDR2 memory but on my laptop it’s a little slow. My latops got 512mb DDR and I run so much crap along with KDE 3.5.x that I use most of it but the system is still more responsive then windows under lighter loads for me, on the same machines. The program works great on my laptop, it’s just a little slow to start up. I suspect it’s because it takes awhile to load all the dep’s.

Pros:

Very good intregation
Open source
“Modren” theme is nicer compared to “Classic” theme or the generic Firefox/Thunderbird ones (same thing).
Most Mozilla Suite addons should be compatible
No E-Mail import needed for thunderbird users
A nice editor for web design [at least for when I’m lazy]
If it had an AIM/MSN/Yahoo/X-Fire client and a sweet PIM in it it’d be a very full web application suite imho.
More standards complient then Microsofts I.E. but not as complient as Konqueror or Safari.
Roaming support

Cons:

Takes a while to start on older machines
Uses a fair amount of memory when using allot of tabs/componants e.t.c. [just like Firefox]
Not every one may need all the features
Roaming support is not finished
Can’t right click on bookmarks in menu [have to open manage bookmarks]
Support is in the hands of the community, updates may take longer then Firefox/Thunderbird/Misc

All in all a very nice system, I figure I use Thunderbird and fire fox works ok for me (I prefer Opera but not Win32 ver) so the thing fits me well. I commend Mozilla for having created a kitchen sink and then deploying parts of it independantly so people could just use the parts they like if they don’t want every thing. [Mixing Firefox and outlook express comes to mind].

Die Cupsd, Die !

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Well I tried every thing I could with cups-1.2.2 on the box with no luck. Hooked it up to my laptop running PC-BSD and cups 1.1.x and got a nice test page.

I tried to install cups 1.1.x with little luck, so I ripped every thing off the box (packages) and reinstalled cvsup-without-gui and fastest_cvsup (which added perl5) to sort later. I’m telling you I’d rather toy with arcahic UNIX printing, at least for that I’ve got enough books all ready about. Although most people dealing with lp/lpr tend to cringe I think hehe.

Comptemplating switching from firefox/opera + thunderbird to Seamonkey. I really like the F.F. UI, but Opera (not win32 version) has awesome tabbed browsing. My favorite browser is generally links for text but lynx dispite oh most no page layout is still the best in my book. Konqeror is by far a supurb program. I wish Internet/Windows Explorer was that good. Konqueror is also allot like fire fox in the UI so it’s easy to use, but why bother using Konqi on *nix and F.F on Windows? Any more then Opera/F.F.

Oh well, off to tinker for the night with browers. A good toy indeed, after all I sorta collect them.

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I was thinking today at work, besides a jab about bill gates, a zealot in a penguin suit, and a Gnuodle trying to mish mash a MS marketed distro of Linux kernel and Gnos [GNU-DOS], Gnos is Not an Operating System. While a pufferfish works on improving the worlds most secure OS [OpenBSD] and then they disiding to sell OpenMSD instead hahaha. Ok back to my point.

I figure, if we should break up a problem into smaller pieces when working on a program, why not read it the same way? Last night I started reading some of the source for the “cat” command used by *BSD. The main function basicly sets up the data and desides on how to cook it.

To night I work on breaking apart the next function and some homework for SAS.

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Well about 0320 UTC and whats possibly the 9th issue to warrient being dub’d a “WW” here seems to have gone to cold war status.

I’m alive, and I’m not worried about any one going silcian on me (tonight). Things seems to have calmed down, time to release some stress in the virtual shoot house.

Off to training.