Think about this, $125 isn't really that much when it comes to computer and its peripherals. A descend pair of noise-cancellation headphones probably costs a good portion of that (I have seen some nice Bose ones costing $600), and so does a branded wireless broadband router.
Well, one day after work I was on my way to MSY (I work around the city) and went passed this second hand computer store. I found a second-hand Compaq and it would have been at least 3/4 years old, look at its specifications.
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz (2392.04-MHz 686-class CPU)
real memory = 537395200 (512 MB)
fxp0: Intel 82801DB (ICH4) Pro/100 VM Ethernet
... and a 32G HD (ide cable) and a DVD rom.
While there maybe nothing impressive, it was exactly what I was after as I needed a "known-to-work" hardware for my FreeBSD server (text-based, not X Windows). I was not looking for performance so I didn't even bother checking the graphics card.
Why FreeBSD? Previous work experience. It is a lesser known, not-so-well hardware driver support, open source operating system but it is simply stable and secure.
Why Compaq? Also previous work experience... The Compaq/BSD combination is stable speaking from experiences and I wanted something that "works" - no more spending hours on downloading/testing different drivers. Also worth mentioning are the Dell PCs. The Dell/BSD also works quite well - I once converted a second hand Dell PC into a FreeBSD/Asterisk machine for interest and had it in comparison to a "Shuttle X" box. Let's say it was also why a phpBB/MySQL Trial Forum "mini" FreeBSD (7.0) server at work is on Dell.
It was around the same time when FreeBSD 8.0 was released. I read that there is a new routing architecture written by Bluecoat's developers which certainly sounds exciting. It was my OS of choice.
I chose standard installation and the steps have been captured as follows (Note you can also invoke the same menu using "sysinstall" after installation).
Filesystem Size Mounted on
/dev/ad0s1a 989M /
/dev/ad0s1b 2048MB SWAP
/dev/ad0s1d 989M /tmp
/dev/ad0s1e 17G /usr
/dev/ad0s1f 15G /var
I always start with the "/" partition because the installation begins at the out-most "ring" of the hard-drive and works its way inwards. The out-most rim is also where the boot-loader looks for the OS. BSD simply won't start up if it cannot be found. (From memory, it was the case with 6.0 and I am not sure whether this applies to 8.0). Also note SWAP is placed next for faster r/w.
Also speaking from experience, I originally allocated only 8G to /var and /usr respectively. This was proven to be insufficient soon as I added more applications onto the system. Both /var and /usr partitions consumed their 8GB within months so for this round I gave allocated the majority of HD space to these two partitions... right now, my gateway has been running Asterisk, PPPoE client, DHCP server etc for a couple of months. The /ussr consumption is stable around 6GB (/var is less than 200MB).
Standard boot-manager and select all packages so that the source code is included for kernel tuning. Also, ports collection is extremely important. The only post installation options I configured were enabling system as a gateway and setting the time.
There you go, herewith my FreeBSD installation steps. FreeBSD is actually very well documented, please take a look at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/install.html for more information.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge my former colleagues in HK who brought me into the wonderful/technical world of this relatively unknown giant of an OS.
No comments:
Post a Comment