Does FreeBSD have an automatic kernel setup?
 

I've always tried to stay away from kernel setups, and was wondering does FreeBSD have an option to probe for hardware for you instead of doing it manually? Mandrake, Fedora, and even Gentoo has this option.

Huh? Nearly all the hardware is auto-detected. Pretty much the only thing you have to configure is the mouse.

Yep, the generic kernel has support for almost everything! You may need to add pcm for sound and a few other things if you have weirdness (like USER_LDT for nvidia cards) but for the most part everything is automagic.

On top of that... editing and making a new kernel isn't a real big involved process. Seriously, the docs will walk you through everything.

actually, you no longer need USER_LDT for nvidia cards in FreeBSD in your kernel config, it already uses this by default now.

It's very easy to build a kernel, just follow the handbook instructions.

And even configuring the mouse is a very easy task that doesn't require much work at all, so need to worry. ;)

alright, I'm planning on installing FreeBSD today or tomorrow, wish me luck!

hackers_, I am going to have to assume you are talking about the 5.x series. I know 4.9 does not have USER_LDT in the GENRIC kernel... It got bit by that recently because I screwed up a kernel and tried to boot with the GENERIC... xdm barfs because of it.