I've just found dvdrip in the ports and I'm installing it so I'll have a little play...

I was wondering if you could help me with my USB drive though. After booting up my system, if I insert the USB pen drive it reads ok. If I take it out, and re-insert it again, I get an error message:

"The mount point '/media/USBpen' is already occupied"

Does this mean that when I take out the USB drive the first time round it's not dismounting? How can I sort this out so I don't get the message and can access the contents?

My /etc/fstab looks like this:

# Device Mountpoint FStype Options Dump Pass#
/dev/ad0s1b none swap sw 0 0
/dev/ad0s1a / ufs rw 1 1

you have to unmount the usb storage device then unplug it.
When you try to unmount it close every file or folder that you have opened from the storage device.

I sent you the fstab file copy and paste all the rest of the lines that you don't have in your fstab.

then create a disk device on the desktop where you will choose da0s1
as your device.
da0s1 is the usb storage device usually called in freebsd.

Do not mess about with the two lines you already have in your fstab because your system will not boot.

dvdrip is quite a good software. Does things that many commercial software can't do.

Thanks for that. I didn't realise I had to mount/unmount every time. I now have the thing working the way I want. Thank you for your help. I copied the dev0s1 line from your fstab.

Guess what. Here's a couple more questions (note they are getting more sophisticated - I'm improving!)

1. I'm running a Windows VM under QEMU. Everything is fine except I can't get WinXP to read DVDs or the USB stick. Have you ever tried this? I would also like to be able to copy/paste between host and guest. I've read that you can use VMWare Server to run a windows VM, but VMWare is made for Linux and I don't know how to install it/use it. Could you help?

2. Smaller but similar issue: I'm trying out WINE with lots of different bits of software. Some work, some don't. But even in the ones that work fine, I can't copy/paste images or text from inside WINE to an external editor, for example. Is there a way around that?

Thanks for you help and patience. As I hope you can see, I'm more or less on track. I have a functioning BSD running, and it's mostly thanks to you!

Cheers.

Don't know how to help you with the emulators because never been interested on them.
I do everything I need from my computer through freebsd/unix software the only emulation I use is the linux flash player.

But I don't understand why do you need to run windows on unix,
or why would you want to run windows programs on unix through wine.

For every software in windows there is a similar or better software version native of unix which does more things than the windows software.

But anyway keep on experimenting it's part of the fun, you will realise these things in time when your unix knowledge gets better.

Here's why I need to run some Windows software:

I'm a research chemist. I need software to interpret spectroscopic data generated by lab equipment. Also, I need a program to draw chemical structures. The BSD ports contain Chemtool and XDrawChem but if I showed these to any other chemists they'd fall over laughing. I need to emulate ChemDraw or ChemSketch, which are both on Windows, sadly. Chemsketch 5.0 is available for linux, but I don't know how to run linux programs on bsd. Do you know?

Also, I've found that OpenOffice's Impress isn't as impressive and smooth as MS Powerpoint. I really like what MacOS can do in this respect, but I don't know what software mac people use to make presentations, or if I could bring it over to PCBSD.

As for Flash, I have a question. I've installed Flash 7 under BSD, but in Opera I see no video when I go to YouTube, only sound. Other websites also fail to show it, when a flash plugin is required. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Well, you are right about it, when it comes to proprietary software you can't do much but run it on the os that it was made for.

As for the linux programs just install this port:
/usr/ports/www/linux-firefox

If it is not already there make sure to add these line to
/boot/loader.conf

linux_load="YES"

and to the file /etc/rc.conf add the following
linux_enable="YES"


That will draw in all the software you need in order to run linux software on your freebsd box.

As for the flash player you need opera 9.10 native of freebsd installed which runs flash player version 7 for linux.
/usr/ports/www/opera

The version 9 of flash is still buggy and don't waste your time with it yet but they say that in the other version of opera that will be covered too.

Anyway,
check this link and there it is explained how to make the opera freebsd browser to run flash.
It does work, sound and video so if you can't get it running means you are missing a step.
Just install opera do not download it as it says on the link and then do the rest.

http://www.opera.com/support/search/view/850/

Luke one more thing openoffice impress is quite good maybe a bit different
from ms powerpoint.
My girlfriend before used ms office, for 5 months she's been usin openofice. Now she finds it as normal to work with as ms office.

Your question about Mac, well, funny enough for you to know, the latest version Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD so it is unix-like os. Mac is good but if the money isn't an issue for you go for it.

Try to stick to open source software, and the programs which are proprietary run them in the os that they were made for.

Another problem with OpenOffice for my chemistry: under UNIX OO doesn't seem to support OLE for any of the freeware chemistry apps that you can get (e.g. xdrawchem, marvin, chemtool, etc). This is a major annoyance.

I know this sounds very specific, but for someone whose constantly concerned with drawing chemical structures, it's not good enough!

Shame, I think more scientists would use Linux/BSD if the software that was available actually DID what they needed. Of the 250+ people at the chemistry dept. I work in, virtually all use WinXP and a handful use Mac. That would change if OO and chemistry apps were better. Oh well...

I am considering getting an X56 to use with Linux.
A buying factor for me is whether the laptop supports "hardware virtualisation".
The CPU (T5600) supports virtualisation, but it requires a capable BIOS as well.
So, if you could post the results of

cat /proc/cpuinfo

it would be great.

Hi simosx. As you may have gathered from reading the other posts here, I have an x56 and have had a very bad timein getting Linux to run on it. Any Linux. To date, I've tried: Suse (10.1 and 10.2), Ubuntu (6.06 6.10), Feisty Desktop, Debian 3.1, Fedora 7, SimplyMepis 6.04, Mandriva 2006, Engarde Community Linux 3.0.12, PCLinuxOS. The problem is to do with something about how the wireless adaptor is hard-wired into the laptop. It prevents any of these Linuxes from installing.

To my knowledge the only work-arounds involve complicated stuff I never got my head around - no good for a Linux beginner.

Instead, I've discovered the BSD operating systems. The most widespread is FreeBSD. A user-friendly version of the same thing is PC-BSD, which is what I'm using on my x56 at the moment. I've had no problems so far. Getting everything set up just the way you want it takes a couple hours, but then it all runs fine. The posts on this forum relate to that.

I can't help you with Linux at all. If I were you, I'd read about PC-BSD to find out if it might be the UNIX-type system for you. My only problem with it is that it has crappy chemistry software, but that's very specific just to what I do. In any case, it's the same software linux has, so even if I'd had Linux going, it would be the same complaint.

If I could go back in time, before I spent my £600 on the x56, I'd have spent £750 on a Mac and be done with it all. As it is, PCBSD is a good alternative to MS Windows providing you're not a scientist.

I ran the command you suggested, but here's what came back:

pcbsd-1297# cat /proc/cpuinfo
cat: /proc/cpuinfo: No such file or directory

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any othe questions.

Thanks protonluke,

The issue with Linux hanging is quite weird and one way to sort it out is by making a bug report at the individual distribution.
For the case of Ubuntu that I am more familiar, you should download the most recent Beta version of Ubuntu 7.04 (I think Beta 3 is the current), try to install, and once it fails you record the output you get and post as a bug report at launchpad.net (the problem tracker of Ubuntu Linux). The guys there work on this issues.

In addition, since this is a Linux kernel issue (the "kernel" stops working before letting the installer take over), you can definitely post at the linux-kernel mailing list.

Skimming through the previous posts gave me the impression that the problem was with the ethernet (wired) driver. Maybe I was mistaken.
Normally, you can boot with a boot parameter to disable loading this driver (such as "mydriver=off").

If you can get in contact with your local LUG (Linux User Group), it would be good if you could get someone to extract the required information so that you can file the problem (bug) report, and get it fixed.

I just had a look at the Science repository of Ubuntu Linux. Quite a lot of software that one can install with a click of a button.

All problems have a solution,
Simos

cat /compat/linux/proc/cpuinfo

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz
stepping : 6
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz
stepping : 6
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 b19 b21 mmxext mmx fxsr xmm b26 b27 b28 b29 3dnow
cpu MHz : 1828.77
bogomips : 1828.77


A very powerful pc, graphics card not the best around but I'm not into games and 3d desktops so I'm pleased with it.

The cpuinfo comes from freebsd compatibility layer to run linux binaries as you know by now not worth installing linux
freebsd or pc-bsd runs fine.
It's nearly the same as using gentoo linux.

Hey x56unix,

Have you ever managed to get VMWare to work under BSD? The BSD people lament that it's not available under BSD, only linux. But isn't there a linux compatability layer?

I'm not sure how to go about it. I've tried QEMU and Win4BSD but they're not fast/stable enough on my system. All I need to do is have a couple of undemanding apps open - I'm not trying anything too extreme - and a lot of the time Win4BSD and QEMU just crash/reboot.

Thanks.

Luke

Hi there,

I have tried several distrib on this model of laptop, related to Ubuntu distrib, this one
which were able to be installed is the Version 5.10 so far, also Fedora 4.
OpenSuse 10 or 10.1 does not reach the install GUI.
OpenSuse 10.2, i've been able to get the install GUI (by disable the module 8139too Kernel argument:
brokenmodules=8139too) butduring the installation process the system needs to be restarted then ithangs again! i cannot even open termial session to look on which module hangs.....

Next row i wd need to make further test and try to install Ubuntu i wd update the output details if any!
for sure the Beta version of ubuntu 7 did not further !

AL

Luke
you can find vmware in ports.
if you have kports installed type vmware and you will find it under the emulators directory.

portupgrade -vRN vmware3
or you can install any other version of vmware you want.