5.3

[John Murphy]

John Seago wrote:

>Todays results:
>I re-installed 4.10, and following that 5.2.1, and these confirmed what I 
>had found; that following the menu for configuring the mouse, 5.3 is not 
>offering ME, ( I'm not suggesting that this is anything other than my 
>incompetence), the menu that offers a choice of configuring methods for X, 
>(this being 5.3, XOrg) or the menu for choosing the Desktop.

Ah, the mysteries of /stand/sysinstall.  I guess that part has been
removed from the installation process for 5.3, as was the configurator
for 'legacy?' (pre plug & play) cards recently.  The rest of the install
should be easy, now you're this far.

>This being the case I installed 5.3 from the CD and once installed did 
>'xorgconfig' at the command line, I then got the usual dialogue, WITHOUT, 
>the choice of keyboard. 

Kde will let you configure the keyboard so no need to worry about the
xorg.conf, unless you want to try other GUIs which may rely on it.
You will need to edit it if the screen/pointer defaults don't suit your
needs though.  The xorg.conf man page has the details, or if you've used
Linux on the hardware you could try the xorg.conf from that.

An XF86Config would probably work without much editing.  Hopefully
xorgconfig will have got it right though.

I followed this page, which you may like to try if necessary:
http://www.uk.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html

>My problem once again is that I do not have either the experience or 
>knowledge to know what I'm doing wrong, I did this time leave the install 
>with the auto choice of partitioning.  

The partitions should work out ok.  Best to work as an unprivileged
user, which will stop you filling /root.

All you need to do now is install the kde package and set up .xinitrc.

(With disk1 in the drive)
#/stand/sysinstall
Configure -> Packages -> Select the CD media -> kde then select the
parts you want, or try Gnome even.

You can install it from the command line instead, if you're not too
keen on sysinstall.  Something like:

#mount /cdrom
#cd /cdrom
#pkg_add kde

I think that would work but it would be better to set PKG_PATH rather
than cd-ing into a cdrom.  man pkg_add of course.
(FreeBSD was/is quite witty if the media you're 'in' gets removed.)

If you haven't changed the shell (you shouldn't change root's anyway)
you may need the magic 'rehash' command else commands wont be recognised
until you next log in.  Log out and then in as a user before you use kde.

Award yourself a relaxing game of kde Patience or FreeCell.  The
animation is just right IMHO :)

-- 
John.