2. Pre-Installation Tasks¶

2.2.1. Laptops¶

Many PC-BSD® users successfully run PC-BSD® on their laptops. However, depending upon the model of laptop, you may run across some issues. These typically deal with:

• Sleep/suspend: unfortunately, Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is not an exact science, meaning that you may have to experiment with various sysctl variables in order to achieve successful sleep and suspend states on your particular laptop model. If your laptop is a ThinkPad, ThinkWiki is an excellent source. For other types of laptops, try reading the “SYSCTL VARIABLES” section of man 4 acpi and check to see if there is an ACPI man page specific to your vendor by typing apropos acpi. The Tuning with sysctl(8) section of the FreeBSD Handbook demonstrates how to determine your current sysctl values, modify a value, and make a modified value persist after a reboot. If the battery reading is incorrect, try the workaround in this PR.
• Internal wireless: some chipsets do not have a FreeBSD driver yet.
• Synaptics: depending upon the hardware, you may or may not be able to disable the system’s touchpad. This forum post describes how to enable Synaptics and some of the sysctl options that this feature provides.
• Optimus graphics: the current workaround is to disable Optimus in the BIOS, set the onboard Intel video to be dominant, or to change the graphics mode to discrete.

If you wish to test your laptop’s hardware, use the “Hardware Compatibility” icon in the Language Selection Screen before continuing with the installation.

If you would like to install PC-BSD® onto an Asus Eee PC, read the FreeBSD Eee page first.

The FreeBSD Tuning Power Consumption page has some tips for reducing power consumption.

With regards to specific hardware, the ThinkPad T420 may panic during install. If it does, go into the BIOS and set the video mode to “discrete” which should allow you to complete an installation. Some Thinkpads have a BIOS bug that prevents them from booting from GPT labeled disks. If you are unable to boot into a new installation, restart the installer and go into “Advanced Mode” in the Disk Selection Screen. Make sure that the “Partition disk with GPT” box is unchecked. If it was checked previously, redo the installation with the box unchecked.

2.2.2. Touch Screens¶

PC-BSD® should automatically detect USB-based touch screen devices. If your display is USB and is not auto-detected, send the output of usbconfig and your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file using the Report a bug tool.

2.4.1. Data Integrity Check¶

After downloading the desired file, it is a good idea to check that the file is exactly the same as the one on the PC-BSD® server. While downloading, a portion of the file may get damaged or lost, making the installation file unusable. Each PC-BSD® installation file has an associated MD5 and SHA256 checksum. If a checksum of the file you downloaded matches, your download was successful. If a checksum does not match, try downloading the file again. In order to verify a checksum, you will need to use a checksum verification utility.

If you are currently using a Windows system, you can download and install the FastSum utility in order to verify the MD5 checksum. Once installed, launch the program and click the “Files” button, shown in Figure 2.4.1: Verifying a Checksum Using FastSum, to browse to the location of your downloaded file.

Once the file is selected, click the green arrow to calculate the checksum. Once calculated, it will be listed in the “ChecksumState” column, though FastSum will capitalize the letters.

On Linux and BSD systems you can use the built-in md5 or md5sum command line tool to check the MD5 checksum. In this example, the file is located in the Downloads subdirectory directory. You should substitute the name and location of the file that you downloaded:

md5 Downloads/PCBSD11.0-RELEASE-x64-DVD-USB.iso

2.5.1. Burning to DVD on Windows¶

Windows 7 has built-in support for writing ISO images to disc. Right-click on the .iso file in Windows Explorer and select “Burn disk image”. Select the DVD device in the “Disk Burner” drop-down menu and then click “Burn” to write the disc. See the Microsoft article Burn a CD or DVD from an ISO file for more detailed instructions.

Alternately, the InfraRecorder utility is an open source burning application for both CDs and DVDs. Once installed, open InfraRecorder and click on the “Write Image” button shown in Figure 2.5.1: Initial InfraRecorder Screen.

InfraRecorder will display a screen where you can browse to the location of the .iso file. Once selected, you will be presented with an options screen shown in Figure 2.5.2: Burn Options in InfraRecorder. You can accept the defaults and click “OK” to start the burn. When finished, the burner tray will open and a dialog box will appear indicating that the burning process has finished.

2.5.2. Burning to DVD on a BSD or Linux System¶

The K3B burner is an easy-to-use graphical burning application for Linux and BSD systems. This utility can be installed using AppCafe®. Once installed, it can be run from any desktop by typing k3b.

To burn your ISO, launch K3B, insert a blank DVD/CD media, browse to the location of the .iso file in the screen shown in Figure 2.5.3: Selecting the Burn Image Tool Within K3B, and click Tools ‣ Burn Image... to see the screen in Figure 2.5.4: K3B’s Burn Image Screen.

Click the “Start” button to burn the file. K3B will automatically eject the media once the burn is complete.

The Brasero burner provides an alternative, easy-to-use burning application included with the GNOME desktop. A stand-alone application is also available within AppCafe®. Once installed, Brasero can be launched by typing brasero from within any window manager. Figure 2.5.5: Brasero’s Initial Screen shows the initial Brasero screen.

Click “Burn image” to open the screen seen in Figure 2.5.6: Brasero Image Burning Setup. Use the “Click here to select a disk image” button to select your .iso file.

The name and size of your .iso file should appear and Brasero will indicate the size of the media. If you click on the “Properties” button, you can change some options, but it is fine to keep the default settings. When you are ready, click the “Burn” button and Brasero will burn your ISO.

If you are familiar with using the command line on a FreeBSD or PC-BSD® system, you can use the growisofs command line utility to burn the DVD. This utility is included with the dvd+rw-tools FreeBSD port which is installed by default on a PC-BSD® system. If that software is not yet installed on a FreeBSD system, issue this command as the superuser:

pkg install dvd+rw-tools

Depending upon the type of DVD burner hardware, you may have to configure the system to use it. If the device is ATAPI (i.e. not USB or SCSI), the ATAPI driver must be loaded. The superuser can issue this command:

kldload atapicam

If you just get your prompt back, the driver successfully loaded. If you get the message “kldload: can’t load atapicam: File exists”, this means that the driver was already loaded. If the device is USB or SCSI, no additional drivers need to be loaded if you are running the generic FreeBSD kernel. After inserting the DVD media into the device, you can start the burn using this command:

growisofs -Z /dev/cd0=PCBSD11.0-RELEASE-x64-DVD-USB.iso

If your device is not the first CD device, change the number 0 accordingly. If your ISO has a different name, substitute the correct name in the command shown above.

2.5.3. Burning to DVD on a Mac OS X System¶

To burn the ISO on a Mac OS X system, go to Finder ‣ Applications ‣ Utilities ‣ Disk Utility. With a blank media inserted into the burner, highlight the device representing the DVD writer and click the “Burn” button. This will open up a browser where you can select the ISO to burn.

Once the ISO is highlighted, click the “Burn” button. A pop-up message will indicate that the device is ready to burn. Click “Burn” once more and Disk Utility will write the ISO to the DVD media.

2.5.4. Writing to a USB Device¶

To write to a USB device, you will need the following:

• a utility that can write the image to a USB media; the utility that you use will depend upon your operating system
• a USB thumb drive or hard drive large enough to hold the image

Once the image is written, boot from the removable device and proceed with the PC-BSD® installation.

To write the .iso file to a flash card or removable USB drive on a BSD or Linux system, use the dd command line utility. On a FreeBSD system, the superuser can use this command to write the file to the first plugged in USB device:

dd if=PCBSD11.0-RELEASE-x64-DVD-USB.iso of=/dev/da0 bs=1M
3658+1 records in
3658+1 records out
3836317696 bytes transferred in 670.278574 secs (5723468 bytes/sec)

When using the dd command:

• if= refers to the input file to be written
• of= refers to the output file (the device name of the flash card or removable USB drive); increment the number in the name if it is not the first USB device
• bs= refers to the block size

To burn the image file on a Windows system, you can use win32-image-writer. When downloading win32-image-writer, download the latest version that ends in -binary.zip and use a utility such as Windows Explorer or 7zip to unzip the executable.

If you launch win32-image-writer.exe, it will start the Win32 Disk Imager utility, shown in Figure 2.5.7: Using Win32 Disk Imager to Write the Image. Use the “browse” button to browse to the location of the .iso file. Insert a USB thumb drive and select its drive letter (in this example, drive D). Click the “Write” button and the image will be written to the USB thumb drive.

To burn the .iso file on Mac OS X, insert a USB stick and open Terminal. Run the diskutil list command to find out the device name of the USB disk, unmount the USB disk, then use dd to write the image to the raw disk (rdisk). In the following example, an 8GB USB stick has a device name of /dev/disk1 and a raw device name of /dev/rdisk1.:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 499.2 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *8.0 GB disk1
1: DOS_FAT_32 UNTITLED 8.0 GB disk1s1

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
Unmount of all volumes on disk1 was successful

sudo dd if=/Users/dru/Downloads/ PCBSD11.0-RELEASE-x64-DVD-USB.iso of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=4m # 4M for older OS X
Password:
3658+1 records in
3658+1 records out
3836317696 bytes transferred in 670.278574 secs (5723468 bytes/sec)

2.6.1. Creating a Virtual Machine for an ISO File¶

Once you have downloaded the PC-BSD® ISO and installed VirtualBox on the current system, create a virtual machine and use the ISO to install PC-BSD® into the virtual machine. The virtual machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

• 1024 MB base memory size
• a virtual disk at least 20 GB in size for a TrueOS® installation or at least 50 GB in size for a PC-BSD® installation
• a bridged adapter

To create the virtual machine, start VirtualBox to see the screen shown in Figure 2.6.1: Initial VirtualBox Screen.

Click the “New” button to start the new virtual machine wizard. Click the “Next” button to see the screen in Figure 2.6.2: Type in a Name and Select the Operating System for the New Virtual Machine.

Enter a name for your virtual machine, which can be anything that makes sense to you. Click the “Operating System” drop-down menu and select “BSD”. In the “Version” drop-down menu, select “FreeBSD (64 bit)”. Click “Next” to see the screen in Figure 2.6.3: Select the Amount of Memory Reserved for the Virtual Machine.

The base memory size must be changed to at least 1024 MB. If your system has a lot of RAM, use more. Any number within the green area is considered a safe value by VirtualBox, meaning it should not slow down your computer too much. When finished, click Next to see the screen in Figure 2.6.4: Select Whether to Use an Existing or Create a New Virtual Hard Drive.

This screen is used to create the virtual hard drive, or the amount of disk space that will be available to the virtual machine. If this is your first virtual machine, keep the default of “Create a virtual hard drive now” and click “Create” to go to the screen shown in Figure 2.6.5: Select the Hard Drive Type. If you have created a virtual machine in the past and wish to reuse its disk space, select “Use an existing virtual hard drive file” from the drop-down menu. You can create as many virtual machines as you wish. However, if your computer is getting low on disk space, you should consider reusing existing virtual hard drives to prevent your physical hard drive from being used up by old virtual machines.

Select “VDI” and click the “Next” button to see the screen in Figure 2.6.6: Select the Storage Type.

You can now choose whether you want “Dynamically allocated” or “Fixed size” storage. The first option uses disk space as needed until it reaches the maximum size that you will set in the next screen. The second option creates a disk the same size as that specified amount of disk space, whether it is used or not. Choose the first option if you are worried about disk space; otherwise choose the second option as it allows VirtualBox to run slightly faster. Once you select “Next”, you will see the screen in Figure 2.6.7: Select the File Name and Size of the Virtual Disk.

This screen is used to set the size (or upper limit) of the virtual machine. If you plan to install PC-BSD® into the virtual machine, increase the size to at least 20 GB or you will receive an error during the PC-BSD® installation. If you plan to install KDE, GNOME, multiple desktop managers, or applications within the virtual machine, you will probably want to choose at least 50GB. Whatever size you set, make sure that your computer has enough free disk space to support it. Use the folder icon to browse to a directory on disk with sufficient space to hold your virtual machine.

Once you make your selection and press “Next”, you will see a summary of your choices. You can use the “Back” button to return to a previous screen if you wish to change any values. Otherwise, click “Create” to finish using the wizard. Your virtual machine should now show up in the left box, as seen in the example in Figure 2.6.8: The New Virtual Machine.

In order to use your network card, configure bridging on your virtual machine. To do this, go to Settings ‣ Network. In the “Attached to” drop-down menu select “Bridged Adapter” then select the name of the physical interface from the “Name” drop-down menu. In the example shown in Figure 2.6.9: Configuring a Bridged Adapter in VirtualBox, the Intel Pro/1000 Ethernet card is attached to the network and has a device name of re0.

Before starting your virtual machine, configure it to use your installation media. Click the “Storage” hyperlink in the right frame to access the storage screen seen in Figure 2.6.10: The Storage Settings of the Virtual Machine.

Double-click the word “Empty”, which represents your DVD reader. If you wish to access the PC-BSD® installer from your DVD reader, double-check that the “Slot” is pointing to the correct location (e.g. “IDE Secondary Master”) and use the drop-down menu to change it if the location is incorrect. Click the “CD/DVD Device” drop-down menu to change it from empty to the “Host Drive” value.

If you prefer to use an ISO that is stored on your hard disk, click the DVD icon then “Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file” to open a browser menu where you can navigate to the location of the ISO. Highlight the desired ISO and click “Open”. The name of the ISO will now appear in the “Storage Tree” section.

You are now ready to install PC-BSD® into your virtual machine. Simply highlight the virtual machine and click on the green “Start” icon. A window will open indicating that the virtual machine is starting. If you have a DVD inserted, you should hear it spin and it should start to boot into the installation program. If it does not or if you are using an ISO stored on the hard disk, press “F12” to select the boot device when you see the message to do so, then press “c” to boot from CD-ROM. You can then proceed through the installation as described in Installing PC-BSD®.

2.6.2. Using the Downloadable VirtualBox or VMWare Disk¶

PC-BSD® provides pre-built VirtualBox and VMWare disks which create a a pre-made virtual machine with PC-BSD® already installed. The VirtualBox file ends in a .vdi.xz extension and the VMWare disk file ends in a .vmdk.xz extension. The .xz means that the file needs to be unzipped first so that it just ends with a .vdi or .vmdk extension.

On a Linux or BSD system, use the xz command by giving it the name of the file which you downloaded:

xz -d PCBSD11.0-RELEASE-x64-consumer-desktop.vmdk.xz

Since this is a large file, the command will take a few minutes to extract the image. You will receive the prompt back when it has finished.

On a Windows system, you can use a utility such as 7-Zip. On a Mac OS X system, simply double-click the file in “Finder” to extract it.

Once the file is unzipped, open VirtualBox. When you get to Figure 2.6.4: Select Whether to Use an Existing or Create a New Virtual Hard Drive, select “Use an existing virtual hard drive file”.

Use the browse icon to browse to the location of the .vdi or .vmdk file then press “Next”. A message will indicate that the virtual machine will be created. Click the “Create” button to finish the wizard. You can then configure the network adapter and start the virtual machine.

The “consumer-desktop” virtual machine will boot into the post-installation configuration screens so that the system can be configured. Once the display wizard is finished and the login menu appears, input the username and password that you configured at the Create a User Screen.

When using the “trueos-server” edition, the virtual machine will boot into a password prompt. Enter root as the username and pcbsd as the password. It is recommended to immediately change the root password by typing passwd and following the prompts. It is also recommended to create a user account to login with. You can do so by typing adduser and following the prompts.

2.6.3. Using the Downloadable .ova File¶

A file that ends in a .ova extension is a tarball of a virtual machine that follows the Open Virtualization Format (OVF). This file can be used in any virtualization technology that supports OVF, such as VirtualBox or VMware.

If you double-click the .ova file on a Windows or Mac system, it will automatically open the image for you in the default virtualization application.

The first time you open an .ova file on a PC-BSD® system, right-click the file, select “Open With”, browse to the application to open it with, and check the box “Remember application association for this type of file”. The following example assumes the user has selected System ‣ Oracle VM VirtualBox as the application.

The first time a PC-BSD® .ova file is opened, a screen will open so that you can review the virtual machine’s settings that came with the file. An example is shown in Figure 2.6.11: Appliance Settings Screen. To edit a setting, double-click its name.

Depending upon the setting, you can either type in the desired value or select it from a drop-down menu. Once you are finished, click the “Import” button. It will take a few minutes for the import to complete and a status bar will indicate the status of the import. Once imported, the virtual machine will show in the left frame of VirtualBox. Highlight the virtual machine and click “Start” to boot into the image.

When using the “consumer-desktop” edition, the virtual machine will boot into Figure 4.2a so that you can perform the post-installation configuration for the desktop.

When using the “trueos-server” edition, the virtual machine will boot into a password prompt. Enter root as the username and pcbsd as the password. It is recommended to immediately change the root password by typing passwd and following the prompts. It is also recommended to create a user account to login with. You can do so by typing adduser and following the prompts.