Some advice to the FreeBSD novice

Zer4tul <zer4tul@cnfug.org>

As a bsder, the most on the Internet is the UNIX-related forum, in the process of contact with many novice, found that a large number of people from Windows turned over (almost "most"), in learning FreeBSD will encounter a lot of difficulties, Even think Unix class system is extremely difficult to use, here, I summed up my experience for your reference.

The first is how to get the problem, Windows is sold everywhere, even some Linux, such as Redhat,mandrake and so on are sold, but Freebsd,netbsd and other Unix does not seem to have seen the sale-at least in Chongqing. The best way to get BSD is to download it via the web, such as FreeBSD's official site ftp://ftp.freebsd.org,ftp://ftp.cnfug.org, or some sites that specialize in free software downloads, such as http:// Www.wormwang.net and so on can download related systems and applications. If you do not have the conditions to download online friends, you can often go to the forum to find friends with their own city to help carve a plate, usually we will be more willing to.

Second, install. Installing an operating system necessarily involves partitioning. However, zoning is a nightmare for many people ... Because partitioning means that data is lost and even the entire partition table is lost. BSD partitioning, in particular, is a headache for many, since BSD inherits Unix's traditional concept of disk Management, where PCs have not yet appeared, so the concept of "zoning" in a PC is not in the BSD traditional disk Management mechanism. It is divided into a slice to manage the disk (if the FreeBSD interested friends can refer to Wangbo's "FreeBSD Use Encyclopedia" or "FreeBSD Handbook"). The concept of slice is introduced because it is closely related to the concept of "mount point" later. Since there is no partitioning concept in Unix, BSD cannot understand the concept of extended partitioning, so it must be installed in the primary partition. Then divide the slice in them. and slice is transparent to programs and users in the file system and is not as visible as partitions. After you assign slice, you also assign "mount point" to it, which is equivalent to the work of the partition-allocation drive under Windows. Only slice that are assigned mount points can be mounted and available by the operating system. UNIX's file system composition is also completely different from windows, which is described in detail later. Of course, to be compatible with other operating systems, the FreeBSD installer also provides fdisk that supports the "zoning" concept. However, FreeBSD must be installed on the primary partition (but unlike Linux, which requires a separate swap partition, FreeBSD swap is only a slice of its partition), so FreeBSD does not support operations on logical partitions, it shows only extended partitions, and treat it as a primary partition, and you must be particularly careful about this. When the partition is complete, start the installation, there is nothing special about this step, the only special virtue is FreeBSD can not install GUI (Graphic user Interface, graphical user interface).