bsd.b3ta.org
Yet another *nix admin blog

Beta2 version of Hex LiveCD which integrated bsdinstaller is on the way. ISO build was completed. However, it is currently being tested intensively. We will release it when all tests are completed probably within this week. So stay tuned.

BTW, you probably have seen similar post on Hex LiveCD cover design on geek00l’s blog. There are another 2 designs by Vickson which were not used. But I think they are kinda cute (I like the monkey!). Typo on “FreeBSD” though…
1) Colourful design

2) Purple design

3) Devilish design

Awesome design by Vickson.

Yup, after all the hard work, we finally released a 1.0 beta of Hex LiveCD. There are still lot of shortcomings on the build especially bootup time. 1.2GB of goodies are compressed into a single 475MB iso image. I guess it worths the bootup wait (Don’t worry. We are not talking abt 30mins bootup time here. It might take 3-10mins).

For more information on the LiveCD, please visit Hex LiveCD official site.

(more…)

Geek00l and I were spending our free time for FreeSBIE 2 based live CD loaded with network analysis tools. Here is the snapshot build of raWPacket LiveCD (427MB). More tools and fix for fluxbox theme will be added.

In my previous post on FreeBSD : Compaq Presario V3010AU, the Ricoh SD/MMC card reader attached to my laptop was not functioning on FreeBSD 6.2R. Following the post by Hajimu UMEMOTO on freebsd-mobile mailing list, I’ve tested his driver and able to write on Kingston SD card.

Update :
New driver at http://www.agt.ne.jp/~a-gota/programs/driver/FBSD6.2R/memcard/sdmmc-20070627.tar.gz

Writing speed

coeus# mount_msdosfs /dev/sd0s1 /mnt/card
coeus# cd /mnt/card
coeus# dd if=/dev/zero of=test.img bs=1k count=10k
10240+0 records in
10240+0 records out
10485760 bytes transferred in 10.765308 secs (974033 bytes/sec)

(more…)

GEEK00L was wondering whether I have messed around with software based RAID5 under FreeBSD. He needs to set up the same on FreeBSD at work. Since I have not touched anything on RAID5, I gave it a shot and it turned out to be relatively easy. More or less the setup concept is similar to gmirror configuration.

(more…)

If you own an older nvidia graphics card (Probablly Geforce2 MX and below), running FreeBSD and did a portupgrade recently, you probably noticed your X failed to start. /var/log/Xorg.0.log revealed that your nvidia card was not detected.

(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver  1.0-9746  Tue Jan 23 11:32:45 MYT 2007
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 01:00:0
(WW) NVIDIA(0): The NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 GPU installed in this system is
(WW) NVIDIA(0):     supported through the NVIDIA 1.0-96xx Legacy drivers.
(WW) NVIDIA(0):     Please visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html for
(WW) NVIDIA(0):     more information.  The 1.0-9746 NVIDIA driver will ignore
(WW) NVIDIA(0):     this GPU.  Continuing probe...
(EE) No devices detected.

UPDATE:

/usr/ports/UPDATING states:-

20070209:
  AFFECTS: users of x11/nvidia-driver
  AUTHOR: danfe@FreeBSD.org

  nVidia continues to drop support for old ("legacy") GPUs.  To deal with
  this fact, the port now allows to specify correct NVVERSION in order to
  build driver that supports your graphics card.  Currently, supported
  "legacy" values are 7184 and 9631.  Consult nVidia's README (Appendix A)
  to find out whether you need to use legacy driver version, and exactly
  which one.  Alternatively, you can install one of the corresponding
  `x11/nvidia-driver-XXXX' slave ports, where XXXX == needed NVVERSION.

(more…)

Just a note for my own reference on dump/restore over ssh. It is fun to dump/restore for remote backup.

(more…)

Got myself a Compaq Presario V3010AU notebook 2 months ago and installed FreeBSD. And finally got time to drop down some notes on setup of this laptop. I’m not keen to get it run on amd64, so i386 is the option to go.

Compaq V3000 series come with a layer lamination, subtle looking pinstripe patterns on the chassis, which ensures greater protection from scratches. The v3000 series truly looks and feels impressive.

In addition, I don’t pay for M$ Windows licence as the unit comes with FreeDOS preinstalled.

(more…)