Unix noob adventures

[flip-mode]

Just did my first successful install ever! Pine was what I installed. I am just a little happy about it. This is on the home machine by the way. I came home and added a defaultrouter line in rc.conf also and I saw things getting downloaded during the Pine install so I am glad I got a connection to the internet working. Yay!

Now with Pine installed I'll try to get some SMTP action going on so I can start emailing info from the FreeBSD system such as configuration files or output from stuff like dmesg or ifconf to my Windows machine and then be able to post it when asking questions.

You have all been helpful and patient and I do appreciate it and just wanted to say it.

[titan]

You have all been helpful and patient and I do appreciate it and just wanted to say it.

We all remember how frustrating *nix was for us when we first started using it. And *nix will never replace Windows as the primary desktop of choice unless we're helpful. So, really, we're not doing it to be nice, but, rather, we're doing it to bring our evil plan to fruition!







Ehm, I mean...you're welcome.

[flip-mode]

Here are the first fruits of being able to send mail: the output of dmesg

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Copyright (c) 1992-2008 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE #0: Sun Feb 24 19:59:52 UTC 2008
     root@logan.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz (1794.56-MHz 686-class CPU)
   Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0xf12  Stepping = 2
   Features=0x3febfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM>
real memory  = 536309760 (511 MB)
avail memory = 510898176 (487 MB)
ACPI APIC Table: <DELL   8200   >
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 1
ioapic0 <Version 2.0> irqs 0-23 on motherboard
kbd1 at kbdmux0
ath_hal: 0.9.20.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
hptrr: HPT RocketRAID controller driver v1.1 (Feb 24 2008 19:59:27)
acpi0: <DELL 8200   > on motherboard
acpi0: [ITHREAD]
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
acpi0: reservation of 0, a0000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 100000, f00000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 1000000, 1ef77000 (3) failed
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x808-0x80b on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
p4tcc0: <CPU Frequency Thermal Control> on cpu0
acpi_button0: <Power Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
agp0: <Intel 82850 host to AGP bridge> on hostb0
pcib1: <PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <PCI bus> on pcib1
vgapci0: <VGA-compatible display> mem 0xfc000000-0xfcffffff,0xf0000000-0xf7ffffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
pcib2: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 30.0 on pci0
pci2: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib2
dc0: <Davicom DM9102A 10/100BaseTX> port 0xec00-0xecff mem 0xfe1ffc00-0xfe1ffcff irq 18 at device 9.0 on pci2
miibus0: <MII bus> on dc0
amphy0: <DM9102 10/100 media interface> PHY 1 on miibus0
amphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
dc0: Ethernet address: 00:08:a1:10:9a:5b
dc0: [ITHREAD]
rl0: <D-Link DFE-530TX+ 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem 0xfe1ff800-0xfe1ff8ff irq 19 at device 10.0 on pci2
miibus1: <MII bus> on rl0
rlphy0: <RealTek internal media interface> PHY 0 on miibus1
rlphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
rl0: Ethernet address: 00:05:5d:d0:5a:57
rl0: [ITHREAD]
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 31.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <Intel ICH2 UDMA100 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xffa0-0xffaf at device 31.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata0: [ITHREAD]
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
ata1: [ITHREAD]
uhci0: <Intel 82801BA/BAM (ICH2) USB controller USB-A> port 0xff80-0xff9f irq 19 at device 31.2 on pci0
uhci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
uhci0: [ITHREAD]
usb0: <Intel 82801BA/BAM (ICH2) USB controller USB-A> on uhci0
usb0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0: <Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usb0
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
pci0: <serial bus, SMBus> at device 31.3 (no driver attached)
uhci1: <Intel 82801BA/BAM (ICH2) USB controller USB-B> port 0xff60-0xff7f irq 23 at device 31.4 on pci0
uhci1: [GIANT-LOCKED]
uhci1: [ITHREAD]
usb1: <Intel 82801BA/BAM (ICH2) USB controller USB-B> on uhci1
usb1: USB revision 1.0
uhub1: <Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usb1
uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
pci0: <multimedia, audio> at device 31.5 (no driver attached)
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: [FILTER]
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
atkbd0: [ITHREAD]
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
sio0: [FILTER]
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xc0000-0xcf7ff,0xcf800-0xcffff pnpid ORM0000 on isa0
ppc0: <Parallel port> at port 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa0
ppc0: SMC-like chipset (ECP/EPP/PS2/NIBBLE) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppc0: FIFO with 16/16/8 bytes threshold
ppbus0: <Parallel port bus> on ppc0
ppbus0: [ITHREAD]
plip0: <PLIP network interface> on ppbus0
lpt0: <Printer> on ppbus0
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0: <Parallel I/O> on ppbus0
ppc0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ppc0: [ITHREAD]
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio1: port may not be enabled
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
ums0: <Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse, class 0/0, rev 2.00/20.00, addr 2> on uhub0
ums0: 3 buttons and Z dir.
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 1794555784 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
hptrr: no controller detected.
ad0: 76345MB <MAXTOR 6L080J4 A93.0500> at ata0-master UDMA100
acd0: CDRW <LG CD-RW CED-8080B/1.04> at ata1-master PIO4
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
arp: 192.168.1.142 is on dc0 but got reply from 00:15:af:57:f8:0d on rl0
arp: 192.168.1.142 is on dc0 but got reply from 00:15:af:57:f8:0d on rl0


[bitvector]

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ums0: <Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse, class 0/0, rev 2.00/20.00, addr 2> on uhub0
ums0: 3 buttons and Z dir.

Well, if you hadn't already noticed, there's your mouse device to use in your X (or moused) config: /dev/ums0.

[flip-mode]

Thank you BV. I had not noticed that.

I am having strange issues with SMTP in Pine but I have not really had any time to look very far into it. It may have to do with authentication, but I dunno. I have set the following option: smpt-server=hostname.domainname.com/novalidate-cert since the server at work does not have a valid certificate. Now that will let me send smtp messages to my own account, but not to external accounts. So I don't know if that is a problem with the mailserver at work or if it is a problem with the way that I have Pine configured.

[flip-mode]

Ok, so I just reinstalled X11 - reinstalled it since doing a portsnap.

And now I am installing KDE and I just have to say...... Wow it is taking a long time to compile. It would be interesting to compare the time it takes on the dell dimension (2.0 p4) to the time it takes on the Athlon X2 @ 2.8.

I chose KDE just out of respect for the FreeBSD devs - apparently many people that code for FreeBSD also code for KDE.

Hopefully once this is done and I configure .xinitrc to default to KDE, typing "startx" will result in a perfectly functioning desktop environment. What are the chances?

[flip-mode]

Um, bummer. Looks like make did not complete:

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cc -shared  .libs/libgiofam_la-fam-helper.o .libs/libgiofam_la-fam-module.o .libs/libgiofam_la-gfamdirectorymonitor.o .libs/libgiofam_la-gfamfilemonitor.o  -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/local/lib -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/lib /usr/local/lib/libintl.so -lgio-2.0 /usr/local/lib/libgobject-2.0.so /usr/local/lib/libglib-2.0.so /usr/local/lib/libfam.so  -Wl,-soname -Wl,libgiofam.so -Wl,-retain-symbols-file -Wl,.libs/libgiofam.exp -o .libs/libgiofam.so
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgio-2.0
gmake: *** [libgiofam.la] Error 1
*** Error code 2

Stop in /usr/ports/devel/gio-fam-backend.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/x11/libxklavier.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/x11/kdebase4-runtime.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/x11/kde4.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/x11/kde4.
dimension#

Maybe I'll just look into installing a package.

EDIT: another bummer: pkg_add -r kde4 tells me it is unable to fetch the package!

DAMMIT

[notfred]

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgio-2.0

You need libgio-2.0.so on your system.

[flip-mode]

Yeah, I figured as much, but I thought I'd give the package system a try.

[Forge]

Not trying to derail or otherwise interfere, but if at any point you find you like FreeBSD but want a Linux kernel, Gentoo isn't too far off that idea.

Back on-topic: Yeah, KDE and X are both pigs to compile, though the recent releases have gotten modular and thus a lot lighter. GCC and glibc are pretty heavy too, but you're less likely to run into those compiles on FBSD. For a real show-stopping WTF of a compile, try Openoffice, particularly the older versions. Compile times in DAYS on FAST machines were not unheard of, and multiple GB of memory usage. Very very big and highly interlocked compile. Nasty as hell.

[flip-mode]

Wow, I did not know that compiling was such a big deal. Shows what I know.

And, since you mentioned it, I am considering Linux just because it is so popular. But what is there to gain? I had considered Gentoo.

At some point, when I am sufficiently comfortable, I would like to start with a minimal install of Linux, BSD, whatever, and then add all the software myself.

[just brew it!]

For a real show-stopping WTF of a compile, try Openoffice, particularly the older versions. Compile times in DAYS on FAST machines were not unheard of, and multiple GB of memory usage. Very very big and highly interlocked compile. Nasty as hell.

Wow, I did not know that compiling was such a big deal. Shows what I know.

I think it is more an indication of poorly structured code and/or an overly baroque build system than of compiling in general. It really shouldn't be that way IMO.

And, since you mentioned it, I am considering Linux just because it is so popular. But what is there to gain? I had considered Gentoo.

It depends on what your goals are. I don't think BSD will ever have a significant presence outside of Macs (OS X is BSD based). I doubt Linux will ever topple Microsoft's dominance either, but I think it will be a significant player in the server space, and probably on the (non-Apple) desktop as well, for the foreseeable future. If you're doing this purely for personal education/curiosity sake, go with whatever floats your boat; but in terms of potentially useful job skills, Linux may be a better bet.

(A lot of what you'll learn with either one will be applicable to both though, so perhaps it's a moot point. In a sense, "knowing" UNIX is more a way of thinking/working than being familiar with any particular version of it.)

At some point, when I am sufficiently comfortable, I would like to start with a minimal install of Linux, BSD, whatever, and then add all the software myself.

Heh... I've thought about doing this as well, but so far I've stuck to the (relatively) tame practice of using mostly pre-built packages on Fedora and Ubuntu.

[Forge]

(A lot of what you'll learn with either one will be applicable to both though, so perhaps it's a moot point. In a sense, "knowing" UNIX is more a way of thinking/working than being familiar with any particular version of it.)

At some point, when I am sufficiently comfortable, I would like to start with a minimal install of Linux, BSD, whatever, and then add all the software myself.

Heh... I've thought about doing this as well, but so far I've stuck to the (relatively) tame practice of using mostly pre-built packages on Fedora and Ubuntu.

Agreed +1 on the 'both applicable' comment. I've found that a few years in primarily Linux machines has made me capable of sitting down at a box running Solaris, HPUX, the BSDs, etc and manage to be useful, even if I am slow for a while (lots of similar-function commands have different syntax/options/etc, similar adjustments). It's nice to be able to bring the large shared base of common concepts. It's a lot like Windows in that knowing one version gets you close to functional with most of the others.

Minimal installs: Yeah, Gentoo is a pretty minimal install. By default you get kernel + glibc + compiler + shell and not a whole lot else. Personally I banged my head on that rock for years, but these days I start from a Ubuntu Server install (no GUI, different defaults than Ubuntu desktop), and add from there.

There's lots of options. If you start thinking about tossing the works and starting over, post some pro/con sets or some goals and we can suggest better fits.

Personally, if what you want is job-relevant marketable knkowledge, I'm a big fan of CentOS. Lots of businesses like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the support contracts and crap. CentOS is RHEL compiled from sources and with all the RH-trademarked graphics replaced. It's great because if I'm proficient with CentOS 5.X, I can walk into work and say 'I'm good on RHEL 5.x' and not need to worry about differences.

[flip-mode]

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgio-2.0

You need libgio-2.0.so on your system.

OK, maybe I am a moron, and if that is the case then so be it, but I have done a fair amount of searching and cannot get a good bearing on libgio

Where do I get it? A ports search turns up nothing. A general web search turns up nothing that I perceive as useful. Someone please help me overcome my noobishness...

[bitvector]

When you update ports and build newer versions of stuff, you need to read /usr/ports/UPDATING:

Affects: users of devel/glib20 and future users of devel/gio-fam-backend

Author: gnome@FreeBSD.org

Reason:
In order to update to glib 2.16 or higher, you must first update the
glib20 port on its own or you will get a failure trying to install
devel/gio-fam-backend saying it cannot find -lgio-2.0. Portmaster users
can do:

portmaster glib-2\*

or, if you're using portupgrade:

portupgrade glib-2\*

[flip-mode]

Thank you BV.

[flip-mode]

2nd try of make for kde4 failed. Here is the error:

Code: Select all

checking for pixman... no
configure: error: pixman >= 0.10.0 is required
(http://cairographics.org/releases/)
===>  Script "configure" failed unexpectedly.
Please run the gnomelogalyzer, available from
"http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/gnomelogalyzer.sh", which will diagnose the
problem and suggest a solution.


I have not run the gnomelogalyzer yet.

I am going give the kde4 package a try.

I gave it a shot with pkg_add -r kde4 and I get:

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$ sudo pkg_add -r kde4
Password:
Error: FTP Unable to get ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.0-release/Latest/kde4.tbz: File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)
pkg_add: unable to fetch 'ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.0-release/Latest/kde4.tbz' by URL
$


Maybe I am typing in the wrong file name "kde4" ?

Dunno, but I thought I'd go get the package manually with ftp, but once I connect to ftp2.freebsd.org/pub I cannot ls or dir the remote directory, which kind of sucks:

Code: Select all

$ ftp -a ftp2.freebsd.org
Connected to ftp2.us.freebsd.org.
220 Verio FreeBSD mirror
230 Hi. No need to log in; I'm an anonymous ftp server.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls /pub
502 Sorry, I don't understand that command.
227 =130,94,149,162,202,82
150 Waiting for transfer connection...
+i101.9397248,m1204103572,/,    /pub
226 Success.
ftp> dir /pub
227 =130,94,149,162,219,88
150 Waiting for transfer connection...
+i101.9397248,m1204103572,/,    /pub
226 Success.
ftp> cd /pub
250 "/pub"
ftp> dir
227 =130,94,149,162,210,51
150 Waiting for transfer connection...
+i101.102969344,m1230097911,/,  FreeBSD
226 Success.
ftp> ls
227 =130,94,149,162,242,88
150 Waiting for transfer connection...
+i101.102969344,m1230097911,/,  FreeBSD
226 Success.
ftp> cd freebsd
250 "/pub/freebsd"
ftp> ls
227 =130,94,149,162,218,168
550 Sorry, I can't open that file: file does not exist.
ftp> dir
227 =130,94,149,162,217,249
550 Sorry, I can't open that file: file does not exist.
ftp> dir /pub/freebsd
227 =130,94,149,162,199,4
550 Sorry, I can't open that file: file does not exist.
ftp> ls /pub/freebsd
227 =130,94,149,162,197,200
550 Sorry, I can't open that file: file does not exist.
ftp>


Is that normal?

[flip-mode]

F.U.N.A. Chapter 2

So, I decided to install Ubuntu on a spare drive in my main machine. I am quite thoroughly amazed - amazed by how different the experience is from when I gave a few versions of Linux a try five or so years ago.

Seriously, I am drooling right now. I am very impressed.

I think I might like to make this my primary OS, dropping into Vista only as required.

[flip-mode]

Hm... I can say already that one nice thing about FreeBSD is that the man pages are extensive. There is a man page for just about every default fine or every config file. It seems like Ubuntu's man pages, at least the default installed ones, are more limited.

Despite the beauty of Ubuntu's GUI, I do want to continue to develop my CLI skills and knowledge. I'll have to study up on the major differences between FreeBSD and GNU/Linux with respect to the command line.

[just brew it!]

The most commonly used command line tools should be very similar -- if not identical -- between FreeBSD and Linux.

Regarding installation of stuff outside of the default Ubuntu packages... first make sure you've got all the software sources (main, universe, restricted, and multiverse) enabled. You can do this either through the Administration -> Software Sources GUI, or by manually editing your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Then (since you really seem to want to learn the CLI way of doing things) read up on apt-cache and apt-get -- these tools provide a command line interface to the package management system used by all Debian-derived Linux distros. There's also aptitude (a terminal-based menu driven package manager which seems to be very popular among seasoned Debian users), and synaptic (the GUI-based package manager which is installed on Ubuntu by default).

The apt-cache command will allow you to easily find software packages by searching the repository indices; you can pipe the output of apt-cache through grep to narrow things down if you want. The apt-get command will install a specified package (plus any required dependencies), along with any associated documentation (which typically consists of man pages and/or other documentation files which get deposited somewhere under /usr/share/doc).

After fighting with Redhat/Fedora's "yum" package management system, apt was a real breath of fresh air. The Debian people really seem to know what they're doing when it comes to managing software installation and dependencies.

Edit: If -- like me -- you find yourself experimenting a lot, you may even want to maintain your own local mirror of some subset of the Ubuntu repositories so that you don't need to download lots of additional packages from the Internet every time you set up a new system (or new VM). The apt-mirror package provides the means to do this. I've got an apt-mirror cron job that runs at work every day at 3:00 AM; this automatically grabs any updated packages for the versions of Ubuntu we use (8.04 and 8.10), at a time of day when nobody is using the Internet connection. All Ubuntu machines I set up at work are then configured to point at the local mirror instead of Ubuntu's main servers; installation of additional packages is lightning-fast.

I also maintain my own Ubuntu mirror at home, and sneakernet the repository updates from work every few days on an external USB hard drive. (A couple of simple rsync scripts make it easy to copy only the stuff that has changed, making this about as quick and painless as you could possibly hope for.)

[Buub]

Man pages and accurate, up-to-date easily accessible documentation has always been an asset for *BSD, or a liability for Linux, depending on your perspective. Linux is a lot better than it used to be, but *BSD is the next closest thing to a commercial Unix in this regard (and sometimes better, since they don't pedantically stick to the legacy modes of the utilities).

[notfred]

One thing to add to JBI's great post about the apt system is that when things are installed, entries are made in to the /var/lib/dpkg/info directory. That means that if you already have something working on one machine and want to find out what to install to get it working on another, you can just grep through /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list for the required file. apt-cache search would do something similar, but it often comes up with multiple hits.

[bthylafh]

For historical reasons, some Linux utilities have most of their documentation in the info system instead of man. This is particularly true of stuff from the GNU project. On Debian-derived distros like Ubuntu, documentation in various formats can also be found in /usr/share/doc/, but in many cases the documentation is split out into a package-doc package.

Also you can get out to a plain console in Ubuntu by pressing ctrl-alt-F1. There are six of these virtual consoles, F1 through F6, and X usually lives in F7. By fiddling with your init levels, you can make Ubuntu start up in console mode by default. Easiest way IMO is to type "sudo mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/rc2.d/K30gdm", and when you want to switch to graphical mode type "sudo init 3".

[flip-mode]

Excellent posts!

I would like to keep a *BSD machine running too. So I'd have Vista 32 on my laptop, Ubuntu on my main desktop with a Vista bootload option, a FreeBSD machine, and possibly another spare machine whose OS is undecided.

[flip-mode]

Just an update of sorts:

I have not had much free time to poke around Ubuntu. I have spent the last 90 minute doing that though. I ran the "hier" command and took some notes. I browsed through /usr/bin up to "m" and noted anything interesting in there, I peeked into ~/.bashrc and enabled those handy "ls" aliases, and I have been using "nano" since "ee" was not installed by default and I think I like it better than "ee". I need to get Samba going on this machine. I do not really like the color in the CLI so I will probably turn that off, but I am leaving it for now. Hey, is there a way to make xterms have a black background? I bet there is, just to tired to look it up at the moment.

In the FreeBSD world, I still have a machine running that at work. Actually two, and today I was able to share files between those, but I forget how at the moment, and I mean I completely forget - something to do with NFS? But I really do like FreeBSD, especially for the fact that I can "man" just about anything. So I will definitely be keeping both a FreeBSD machine and an Ubuntu machine going.

[Buub]

I think FreeBSD (or OpenBSD) is definitely your best choice for moving network packets, especially sophisticated firewalling and routing.

Linux has more "stuff" and is more popular. If you want to buy commercial applications, you're going to find a lot more for Linux than *BSD. But you can't beat the BSD's for a solid network server.

[just brew it!]

Just an update of sorts:
...
I need to get Samba going on this machine.

Just install the package samba.

The Samba config file can be a bit of a bitch to maintain manually; I know you are trying to do everything CLI, but I suggest that you use one of the Samba configuration tools. For a full-featured Samba admin interface (lets you configure pretty much everything), you need to install xinetd (if it isn't installed already), and swat. Swat is a web-based Samba admin tool; to access it just point your web browser at port 901 (e.g. http://localhost:901 if you are running on the local machine).

For a more minimalist GUI based Samba configuration tool, you can install system-config-samba; it will show up in your System -> Administration menu. It lets you do basic tasks like adding Samba users and creating shares, but not much else.

I do not really like the color in the CLI so I will probably turn that off, but I am leaving it for now. Hey, is there a way to make xterms have a black background? I bet there is, just to tired to look it up at the moment.

Well... real xterms do have a black background by default. You're probably using the Gnome terminal application. You can configure the colors in the Gnome terminal via Edit -> Profile Preferences.

In the FreeBSD world, I still have a machine running that at work. Actually two, and today I was able to share files between those, but I forget how at the moment, and I mean I completely forget - something to do with NFS? But I really do like FreeBSD, especially for the fact that I can "man" just about anything. So I will definitely be keeping both a FreeBSD machine and an Ubuntu machine going.

Just a FYI... in a mixed environment (*NIX and Windows) it may be easier to share everything via Samba (even between *NIX machines). That way you don't need to maintain both NFS and Samba shares.

[flip-mode]

Good stuff JBI. I checked the system last night as my eyes were getting blurry and it looked like Samba was installed by default. I just have to configure it. But I need to check again when I am a little bit more awake.

[just brew it!]

Mmm... one other quick comment on Samba. For historical reasons, Samba-style network shares are often referred to using the acronym CIFS (Common Internet File System). Knowing this may help avoid confusion as you wind your way through the man pages and other documentation.

[mattsteg]

Mmm... one other quick comment on Samba. For historical reasons, Samba-style network shares are often referred to using the acronym CIFS (Common Internet File System). Knowing this may help avoid confusion as you wind your way through the man pages and other documentation.

heh, that reminds me of the old days when smb shares were routinely open to the world. I remember one p2p website that operated by linking people to SMB shares that was big for a while back when I started college.