Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

View grahamperrin's full-sized avatar

Graham Perrin grahamperrin

56 followers · 5 following
View GitHub Profile
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / freebsd-packages-shortlist.md
Last active August 26, 2025 18:56
A shortlist of FreeBSD packages

A shortlist of FreeBSD packages

Packages that I often install on test systems.

pkg install --quiet drm-kmod firefox gitup htop hw-probe kde lsblk lynx nano pciutils plasma6-sddm-kcm roxterm sddm stressdisk uclcmd usbutils virtualbox-ose-additions xfce xorg

I omit:

  • drm-kmod when installing in a VirtualBox guest
  • kde and plasma6-sddm-kcm when I want Xfce alone
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / freebsd-installer-pkgbasify.md
Created August 17, 2025 00:21
Using pkgbasify to repair a broken installation of FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE

Using pkgbasify to repair a broken installation of FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE

Condensed steps

  1. Use a memstick.img file to write a FreeBSD installer to a memory stick
  2. boot in single user mode
  3. use gpart(8) to resize things
  4. exit
  5. shell
  6. growfs /
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / freebsd-ee.md
Last active July 28, 2025 15:19
FreeBSD: preferring ee (avoiding vi) for csh/tcsh and sh

FreeBSD: preferring ee (avoiding vi) for csh/tcsh and sh

Before exiting the installer

/etc/csh.cshrc

setenv EDITOR ee

/etc/profile

@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / freebsd-de-packages.md
Last active August 8, 2025 05:48
Desktop environments: FreeBSD Project-provided packages in the ports collection

Package availability

FreshPorts provides tables, and more.

Desktop environments, display managers, Sway, X.Org

It's not unusual for a Tier 1 platform to have no package for a wanted desktop environment. Two platforms are at this tier:

  • aarch64 – 64-bit ARMv8
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / 1500043-007-base-ports.txt
Created May 25, 2025 08:14
FreeBSD: fixed broken icons in Geany, GIMP, HandBrake, PDF Arranger, Remmina, and various other applications
root@mowa219-gjp4-zbook-freebsd:~ # bectl list -c creation | tail -n 6
1500043-002-base - - 1.71G 2025-05-16 12:34
1500043-003-base - - 1.74G 2025-05-20 11:00
1500043-004-base - - 1.66G 2025-05-21 05:50
1500043-005-base R /tmp/down 240G 2025-05-23 18:45
1500043-007-base-firefox N / 8.88G 2025-05-25 06:08
1500043-008-base - - 1.18G 2025-05-25 06:43
root@mowa219-gjp4-zbook-freebsd:~ # bectl umount 1500043-005-base
root@mowa219-gjp4-zbook-freebsd:~ # pkg iinfo gobject
gobject-introspection-1.84.0,1
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / somesystems.md
Last active August 14, 2025 11:16
FreeBSD, GhostBSD, NomadBSD, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, KDE Plasma

A concise comparison of operating systems. Some focus on root-on-ZFS, and on Plasma. Not intended to be comprehensive.

Describing availability is not necessarily a recommendation to install what's available.

The systems

@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / 2025-04-20-19-08-gg2.5pro-experimental.md
Last active April 22, 2025 11:24
General troubleshooting advice for FreeBSD

Seeking the best unofficial resources

I fed a forty-word paragraph to Google Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) on the evening of Sunday 20th April. Twenty of the forty:

Where can I find general troubleshooting advice for FreeBSD? Emphasis on: general. … I'm looking for the best unofficial resources. Thanks.

Gemini offered a 508-word response. I:

  1. reduced it to around 330 (not counting * or … as words)
  2. added a link to the third edition (2018) of Absolute FreeBSD
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / 2025-04-13-01-59-partial-typescript.txt
Created April 18, 2025 09:48
A FreeBSD pkg session, 2025-04-13 01:59 – GhostBSD 25.01-R14.2p2 (an incomplete record, copied from termbin.com)
This file has been truncated, but you can view the full file.
Script started on Sun Apr 13 01:59:44 2025
You have mail.
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # echo $SHELL
/bin/csh
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # date ; uptime
Sun Apr 13 01:59:52 BST 2025
1:59AM up 3 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.14, 0.24, 0.12
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # ghostbsd-version
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / 2025-04-12-20-16-typescript.txt
Last active April 18, 2025 09:40
A FreeBSD pkg session, 2025-04-12 20:16 – pkg 2.0.5 (locked), GhostBSD 24.10.1
Script started on Sat Apr 12 20:16:09 2025
You have mail.
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # echo $SHELL
/bin/csh
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # date ; uptime
Sat Apr 12 20:16:19 BST 2025
8:16PM up 14 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.34, 0.15, 0.08
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # ghostbsd-version
24.10.1
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # freebsd-version -kru
@grahamperrin
grahamperrin / 2025-04-13-12-15-typescript.txt
Last active April 18, 2025 09:03
A FreeBSD pkg session, 2025-04-13 12:15 – pkg 2.0.5 (locked), GhostBSD 25.01-R14.2p2
Script started on Sun Apr 13 12:15:30 2025
You have mail.
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # echo $SHELL
/bin/csh
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # date ; uptime
Sun Apr 13 12:15:40 BST 2025
12:15PM up 2 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.24, 0.16, 0.07
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # ghostbsd-version
25.01-R14.2p2
root@mowa219-gjp4-ghostbsd-14-vm:~ # freebsd-version -kru