Hi folks, I am a longtime Solaris user and Mac user, but was interested in experimenting with some more modular and minimalist operating systems. FreeBSD looks very interesting, and I would like to get a fully functional FreeBSD vm working in Parallels. I am asking for some tips from FreeBSD experts out there who have already completed working installs. Specifically, I am having problems on step 4 below. I know how to use ifconfig generally, but I am not sure what I should be setting up on the (en3) network interface via my FreeBSD OS. Any help is appreciated. Once I get through this setup, I'll blog this somewhere and post to this thread. Thanks in advance. FreeBSD 5.5 Newbie Setup Steps 1. Create a FreeBSD 5.5 VM instance. Configure to use ethernet bridge. 2. Using FreeBSD 5.5 install discs, install complete distro. Create root account. 3. Boot FreeBSD into console mode 4. Configure NIC. <I NEED HELP HERE. I AM NOT UP ON HOW TO CONFIGURE THE IP ADDRESS TO EITHER USE THE BRIDGED IP. I WANT TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE SAME NETWORK AS MY MAC HOST>. 5. Configure X11 and fonts: See http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html <I GET STUCK SETTING UP THE FONTS BECAUSE MY NETWORK INTERFACE ISN'T WORKING AND CAN'T GRAB THE BITS TO BUILD THE FONTS I NEED.> 6. Configure Printers 7. Install 3rd party apps 8. Add new users 9. Other setup configuration
I have FreeBSD 6.1 currently running under Parallels 1970 (3036 can't boot 6.1 but should work for prior versions - the next beta should regain FreeBSD 6.1 boot support). I have bridged mode setup under Parallels. All the machines on my LAN are 10.0.0.x (easy to type). So, my FreeBSD VM's /etc/rc.conf has the following: defaultrouter="10.0.0.1" #ifconfig_ed0="DHCP" ifconfig_ed0="inet 10.0.0.5 netmask 255.255.255.0" Statically set for now, or I can uncomment and switch to DHCP. So, with that set up I can ping from/to the mac - each on their own IP address. You can setup X so that you have a GUI - however I found that since there are no parallels tools for FreeBSD (not sure if the Linux tools when released will be generic enough to work on FreeBSD too) I got better use out of connecting via the NoMachine client from the mac to FreeBSD. That way I can cut&paste text and it's easy to connect to it at various resolutions. You'll probably first want to set up X and maybe stuff like KDE and then the /usr/ports/net/freenx port. It takes a second to get this straight in your head but basically you fire up your VM in Parallels, minimize it, then connect to it via the mac NoMachine client. So, you are remotely connecting back to your mac so to speak. Printers I didn't have to mess with much as I have a postscript capable network printer that I access via the network so it's easy. The rest is normal FreeBSD stuff and there's tons of other resources out there - the handbook is a good start: http://www.freebsd.org/docs.html I'm not an X.org config wizard but I did get mine to work somewhat - if you get stuck let us know.
Thanks for the fast response. I tried your suggestions on the networking and this worked fantastically. And yes, the FreeBSD docs are already pretty useful. I was initially a little put off by the configurability and lack of an easy "out-of-the box" experience. But I was really impressed by the simplicity of building and installing modules, compared with my experiences on Linux and Solaris. I like that the "make install clean" handles the dependency checking and grabs the stuff you need instead of leaving this as an exercise for the user. I am working through getting my wide-screen display working, but I do have enlightenment starting up. Very happy so far. I'll try to follow up with a blog on anything specific to getting this all setup nicely in Parallels.
