trying to get some command working. find . -type f -exec cat {} ; except it shouldn't cat bin type files. anyone know how?

best wifi card by far is an android phone usb tethered

hi all. i got this old text terminal. crt, serial port. im trying to use it to log in to my freebsd server

getty works and i found one compatible termcap, but linux has a more compatible one (allows for inverse video and underlining and so on)

is there a way to import linux's terminal entry for this machine into freebsd's termcap?

it's an ADDS 1010 model. it suppors 3A+ mode. freebsd's version doesnt display reverse video etc. it's noticeable in nano's bottom bar for example

hjf: i don't remember the default but there's an ncurses command to print a termcap entry that you could addto /etc/termcap

s/default/details/

what i did was install terminfo. it comes with some tool, infocmp, which i used to generate the termcap profile

ivy: is that what youre talking about?

yes, except i think infocmp prints terminfo definitions, not termcap

i think it was -C to make it termcap

so, did you try that in termcap?

ok i have a different problem now. i changed it to this new definition and getty just seems to crash

i get the login prompt and then i get an error in auth.log that getty is repeating to quick

sigh.

the problem is the USB extender

it works fine with the usb-serial adapter connecetd directly

I wonder how polyex decides if a file is a "bin" file or not? If that criteria were known then a test could be developed for it.

related tom7.org/abc

What is it related to? The first thing I see is a 1.44MB 3 1/2 inch floppy drive.

The ASCII artwork of a printer is quite nice.

well, it is a c compiler, so you probably don't want to print files created by it, when filtering "bin" files, but as it only uses bytes that are printable ascii chars so you probaly need some heuristic that excludes files with "unreasonable" amounts of special chars

bah, `file --mime-type $foo` -> yeet that sucker to stdout if it's text/*

Using that as criteria then this find will do what polyex asked, using "ls -ld" in place of "cat" for purposes of development, illustration, and safe demonstration.

find . -type f -exec sh -c 'file --mime-type "$1" | grep -q text/' sh {} \; -exec ls -ld {} +

I feel compelled to mention that in a security conscious situation it is possible for a malicious agent on the system with write access to these directories to potentially game the directory trees in a fast directory switching around attack. This situation is one where it is possible to directly substitute -execdir for -exec and everything works exactly the same. If it is all my files then I don't think it is of concern.

would there be any problem using bsd as a router, and connecting it to the switch via usb ethernet instead of pci ethernet?

with switch you mean some network card that has multiple interfaces?

hey all I have a gateway/router with mpd5 that has re0: local lan 172.31.5.0/24 em0: backup 4G network, igb0/fib1: PPPoE connection, igb1/fib2: PPPoE connection, is anyone able to provide me with a link to a basic nat setup for just dealing with twe two pppoe links fib1/2 for packet filter?

they both have the same gateway ip hence the different fibs

> with switch you mean some network card that has multiple interfaces?

no

i mean a network switch

i'm worried about the usb ethernet interfaces being somehow inferior to real ethernet

sfox: USB ethernet adapters are inferior, however they still work (just slower). First check that drivers exist for the adapter.

slower?

it's gige

USB3?

Using a USB-to-ethernet adapter on a FBSD router/firewall (provided it's supported and working) is perfectly fine.

yes

you should get close to 1Gb then. There is more overhead over USB which can lower the effective bandwidth a little

usually they do about 85% of 1Gb

how many people here are using freebsd as their daily desktop driver?

I do

I run freebsd everyday but as a support os, routing jails etc not primary desktop

is that a cpu limitation? I want to use it to route between some vlans and gateway route

LapsangS, i'm running it on my laptop right now

USB-to-ethernet adapters definitely have overhead, but one would think that someone using something like that isn't really shooting for max Tx/Rx speeds. Just usability.

I do

I also use FBSD as a desktop.

yeah i have a very old celeron laptop in which everything, including sleep actually works

i cant run any modern windows in that junk computer but freebsd runs fine

i have a better thinkpad t420 and sleep doesn't work

yeah i think most things work but the sleep is the main issue

in many systems

thanks for the explanation nimaje

how to dual boot windows 11 and freebsd

of couse via the bios

Hi, if I would like to be able to work with FreeBSD 14 for the next 10 years, that means, being able to install the distribution and use any package using pkg install, is that actually possible? Can you manually install binary packages for no longer supported releases? thanks

uskerine: "manually installing packages for no longer supported releases" depends if the package meets the ABI and lotsa other things.

But of course you can always port stuff, but sometimes you must modify the code and make tremendously large changes.

maybe I am missing something, but my understanding is that pkg install downloads a package from a repo and installs it via a script. Of course that package is prepared for release x.y

is it possible to download that package for release x.y in the future?

I am not talking about porting the current package to older versions

uskerine: you can just set up your own repo

i wouldn't expect package mirrors to keep packages for branches 5 years after eol

just build the packages you need with poudriere

hello friend, my FreeBSD journey started well, i noticed there is no terminal emulator so is there a way to fire up a terminal so that I can scroll up and down with my commands, in current state I cant scroll

uskerine: pkubaj_ is right, and you can indeed always set up a personal repo (if you don't want to build the software over and over on new setups.)

Bushmaster: you mean, in a desktop-like env? Or in console??

In console you don't need a separate terminal emulator, but to scroll you could use a binding I don't remember ATM.

Lemme check.

kfv its console yes no desktop in freebsd

Well, I remember it was FN + something... Scroll Lock, maybe... I don't know. But you can, I just don't remember the binding.

But if you couldn't, just use a tmux session and do Ctrl+b+] and do page down / page up as a workaround.

i can always use fgreebsd by ssh from my debian server that way I see and scroll

Right

It was scroll lock.

And on machines with no scroll lock, I guess it was shift + page up / page down.

i got tmux running, excellent, kfv so that is CTR+b

Yeah, but it's just a workaround I said ;-)

Scrolling is absolutely possible in console.

But anyways.

tumux is good i see page up and page down working

Do you have page up page down buttons?

If so, you could use them with shift button in console as well, I guess.

IIRC

page up and page down working in tmux yes

but CTR+B dont do anything

what is IIRC

another package?

CTR +B allow you to Page Up and Page Down, problem is I cant get back to typing in Command Prompt now hehehe

pkay got it, CTR + b is for scrolling with page up and page down with tmux and then CTR+[ to start typing command again

Bushmaster: IIRC -> If I Recall Correctly

okay thanks kfv

Anytime.

tmux is good, its CTR+B for Page UP and DOwn and then CTR+[ to retirn to command prompt, good enough

hostname -I command in Linux put out the local IP but that command does not work in UNIX, any similar command there other than ifconfig

hello again, just wondering is there any information available to put out a desktop environment in my FreeBSD?

Bushmaster, check the handbook

thanks yes I got it jbo its hard work, it has two chapters, one of X window and then Wayland, I guess X window need to be done before moving to Wayland

no, you pick one or the other.

okay thanks

if you are new to all of this. have a look at installing something that is mostly complete such as XFCE or KDE

could be good learning curve, i will go with X window

you'll still need either X or wayland tho. so yeah. set that up first

could not find any BSD with DE though

once you got X working, you can install a desktop environment like KDE or XFCE or whatever you like

Bushmaster, if you look for an out-of-the-box experience, check out GhostBSD, NomadBSD and HelloSystem

the handbook did not mention much how to install xfce

or kde

I disagree

excellent, GhostBSD i tried and it cant detect mouse pointer in my Proxmox

thanks

you'll run into the same issue with just stock FreeBSD. AFAIK, GhostBSD is "just" FreeBSD with a lot of things setup for you.

so if GhostBSD is otherwise suitable for you, might be worth figuring out how to get the mouse working :)

GhostBSD unfortunately does not work in my Proxmox

May be try NomadBSD

GhostBSD is "just" FreeBSD+MATE with stuff pre-configured. if your mouse cursor does not work in the proxmox VM, you'll likely find the same issue on FreeBSD. It's usually trivial to fix.

like the name for sure, like Nomadic tribes of Tibet hanging dead body in Tibet Hill and let eagle eat it

Yeah just have a good look first. Nomad is primarly designed to move between systems (hence the name). most people install it on a USB drive or whatever. GhostBSD might be more suitable if you just want a FreeBSD desktop without setting it up yourself.

FreeBSD works fine and Proxmox with Debian Cinnamon DE works as well fine, Windows 10 works fine with mice as well, hence may be try NomadBSD

GhostBSD mice does not work, I have OpenIndiana working with mice nicely

I'll not repeat myself again. Good luck :)

thanks

overall I like BSD

welcome to the gang

I wanna run a Apache server in BSD for media, I do it in Debian at the moment but I wanna run dedicated Media Server by utilizing Apache in BSD

GhostBSD is that much nicer UI-wise?

Out of the box.

it's "just" FreeBSD+MATE+config

Bushmaster: what's behind this decision ? any issues with Debian ?

jbo but it's setup out of the box yes?

pinPoint, yes

Good. I dislike setting up UI on freebsd... it takes a bit of work for a noobie like me.

that's okay. but the 2nd and 3rd time around it will feel easy & natural.

these days it takes me less than 20 minutes to go from "here's a new machine" to "Here's a fully configured FreeBSD with GUI"

I could keep at it I supposed. I'm running it on a VM so I can scrub and start over quite easily.

s/supposed/suppose*

indeed

but there's also nothing wrong with using something like GhostBSD

after all, stuff like pfSense is what got me into "just use FreeBSD" all these years ago.

eventually you'll realize that you can just run stock FreeBSD and configure it for whatever you need/want yourself, essentially getting rid of half your overhead :)

jbo I use opnsense in my house and have for more than 2yrs I think. I am influenced by BSD a bit.

just use whatever is the right tool for the job. and if it's a DIY/hobby environment, then the right tool for the job is often just what you like at that moment.

don't listen to regligious evangelists who tell you that you should do things differently

as long as it's not a commercial/industrial/whatever environment where consequences are real.

It is a DIY/hobby that I do enjoy actually.

8.013819444444444

How many hours it took my VPS to buildworld.

hah

CrtxReavr ?? buildworld?

I got an upgrade recently (half a year ago) replacing my 6 years old machine at work. it does buildworld in 404 seconds

Dang! Xeon Processors?

threadripper

7960X

Firebreather!

yäh

just steep learning curve ... mzar part of my home lab practice

mul on joo dual xeon

thank you reddit for making everybody with more than one computing device at home refer to it as their "homelab"

hehehe

then just install random linux stuff with admin web panel

"yeah my hobby is homelab"

-__-

"clicks snapshot button"

You guys have something like a C2960-s POE+ cisco switch?

why would it matter? just ask your questions. It's a switch.

How much power does this thing really drink per hour/day?

I feel sad Dennis Ritchie passed away without leaving any off spring ...

And it sounds like a jet engine

UNIX nerds are destined to die alone.

its sad though, he was genius, because of him, computer science came this far ... and no girls most likely enjoyed his company ...

Maybe he was happy.

You don't know.

yes I think he was happy

developing a C language is not joke, and he developed the language and re-write UNIX in C

pinPoint: there's many different sizes, ranging from 100W to a kW or so. Why not measure it?

Wasn't UNIX always written in C?

Bushmaster Maybe he didn't want children? Was he married?

If only there was some technology that would tell us.

CrtxReavr Just thinking about how hardcore BSD is I'd say it's a hard YES.

he died in 2011.

CrtxReavr: no, it was not

pinPoint, dont think he was married ... he died at his home on his own just a week after Steve Jobs died, media di dnto pay him too much attention cos they were busy with Job's death

Bushmaster It's ironic. Apple's core is running BSD which has largely C all over it. Too bad.

STarting with OSX v10.3 it switched from a BSD kernel to a Mach kernel, derived from NeXTstep, which is the OS Jobs worked one between tenures with Apple.

pinPoint, lot of things in life is Ironic and sad I guess. These days we have gay Senior Citizen, Trans Gender leading the mainstream life, yet Mr. Ritchie passed away alone with no children ...

Doing a mergemaster here. . .

anyone else having trouble hitting the freebsd website right now? Looks like I am getting re-directed to an instance in chicago area (173.228.147.99) but it's not responding via my primary ISP

Have we dispensed with the ``# $FreeBSD$`` top line in the files?

i tried a second connection and it's up. so my local ISP (usi) cannot reach, but centurylink can reach the web site. fascinating.

CrtxReavr: I think a while ago.

but no one has removed them

traceroute may reveal peoblem

Hi, I'm quiet new here, joining from openbsd. ;-) how do I upgrade 14.1 to 15-current ?

there's a very good section in the handbook that describes exactly how to do that - docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge

Most of the $FreeBSD$ tags have been removed in 14 but a few still persist. In 13 and earlier they were still everywhere.

I know, I tried that, I end up here

root@X1:~ # freebsd-update -r 15-current upgrade

Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.

The earlier Unix was written in assembly language not C. If you want to learn about the early days read en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Commentary_on_the_UNIX_Operating_System which is an excellent coverage of the earliest implementation.

Fetching metadata signature for 14.1-RELEASE from update1.freebsd.org... done.

Fetching metadata index... done.

Inspecting system... done.

The following components of FreeBSD seem to be installed:

kernel/generic kernel/generic-dbg src/src world/base world/lib32

The following components of FreeBSD do not seem to be installed:

world/base-dbg world/lib32-dbg

Does this look reasonable (y/n)? y

Fetching metadata signature for 15-current from update1.freebsd.org... failed.

Fetching metadata signature for 15-current from update2.freebsd.org... failed.

Fetching metadata signature for 15-current from dualstack.aws.update.freebsd.org... failed.

No mirrors remaining, giving up.

CrtxReavr: apparently these headers became useless and only adding some burden on FreeBSD devs

Yeah, prolly old cvs stuff.

runkkaaat

pojan runkkaus

Houkutteletko meitä?

pkubaj_ kfv can you point me in the right direction? Maybe I am oversimplifiying but would downloading everything from pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:14:amd64 suffice? Is that even possible?

and as related question, so if I want to install FreeBSD 8 for historical reasons that software is forever lost?

I see this for example: ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive where there are packages for FreeBSD 9, so above that the way that software was installed changed I presume?

Those version control headers started with RCS (I don't recall SCCS or CSSC having them) and then persisted for a long time. But they always create merge conflicts when branching and merging. When git arrived and became preferred and branching and merging became typical then the version tags became a burden because they always produce a conflict.

Which changes a simple patch application from something that can happen totally automatically into something where for every file patched one must edit and fix the patch conflict. PITA!

uskerine, AFAIK the older versions existed at a time before pkgs were as popular and if one wants to install a historical system then one would AFAIK need to build it from source. However all of the source for those versions exist in the version control and any older version can be rebuilt and run even today.

I could imagine that trying to reconstruct a much older version might require walking backwards through the releases in order to avoid compiler changes which have become more strict in recent years but were quite lax in older years.

I would probably use a jail to build the previous release and use it to make a previous release as a jail and then repeat that process walking backwards through time.

rwp so, if you want to install FreeBSD 9.2 in a 64 bits box, would this not suffice? ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD…ve/ports/amd64/packages-9.2-release ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD…hive/old-releases/amd64/9.2-RELEASE

uskerine, Saying would be knowing, not knowing I cannot say. I say try it and then you will know.

For example I look down the packages-9.2-release directory and it looks like it includes all of the source. I see many .tbz files there. Those would need to be compiled.

Certainly the 9.2-RELEASE directory appears complete however. Everything I expect is there for 9.

rwp there is also an ISO folder around that

An older ISO?

As I look there I see everything that is needed to install the base FreeBSD for 9 and then one could use it to compile the archived sources for the ports from that same release. Looks good! :-)

but could not you just install using the iso ? here-> ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD…e/old-releases/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/9.2

and then install any package you might want from here? -> ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD…releases/amd64/9.2-RELEASE/packages

and by doing that you would avoid compiling anything?

You should be able to boot that on a bare metal system or virtual machine. I don't see any reason why not.

Wait... Are the pkgs on the ISO?

no, they are in a different folder

see the last two links, first are ISOs , second seems packages

which I understand are binary packages like the ones you use when you do pkg install mystuff

It looks like it would take an hour or so to download the DVD ISO in order to inspect what is in it. I need to do other things though so I won't do it now.

I was just asking out of curiosity to understand how this works

When I browse down that second link I only see source files. The .tbz files are tar.bz2 files of the source of the ports. But perhaps I am not looking in the same directory you are looking in.

I asked a LLM about storing a local copy of all the packages for say FreeBSD 14 lcoally, and it says it is possible and appears to be even a simple command and changing the config file, but maybe it is hallucinating, wondering if that is possible

With the source to the ports though it means simply compiling them up using the associated system base compiler.

rwp: no, I am looking into the .tbz files, so those are sources and require to be compiled, right?

Correct. Sources which need compilation.

understood, I thought they were binaries

If you fetch one down and then look at the contents I expect to see a source snapshot there.

I understand now

And then in my thinking the 9.2-RELEASE archive with the base.txz and other files there is much easier to use to set up a jail container than using the ISO-IMAGES/9.2/ ISO files in a boot up and install situation.

this is what a popular LLM says about having a local repo (I read that I shall use poudriere but the LLM seems not to require that): bpa.st/57Q56 I would be happy to hear anyone more knowleadge's opinion on how feasible is this

Both are basically equivalent. But I have a running FreeBSD 14-Release system which I can then use to unpack the base.txz upon in order to create the legacy jail container almost trivially. With the ISO I can of course mount it and extract that same file. Or I can create a virtual machine and boot it up. Or I could use it to boot a bare metal system. Not my preference for convenience.

rwp I see what you mean with being easier to deploy in a jail

I skimmed the LLM answer and it seems plausible for creating a local mirror of the *current* pkgs mirror. But AFAIK the older pkgs are not retained anywhere. (I don't think they are but maybe someone will point to an archive and I will learn about it at the same time that you do! :-)

I know that, those were two questions/thoughts in parallel. I just want to understand what does really mean to do pkg install. I am also pretty concerned of not being able to install packages for say 14 in 5 or 6 years easily with pkg install

the reason is that some of the stuff I do works on a controlled environment not exposed to internet and it is intended to last for years, you want something static

the older version are out of historical curiosity and also to understand better how this works

There is a partial answer to the problem. The /var/cache/pkg/ directory contains all of the previously installed binary pkg files. Keep that and you can always install those again. You would be your own archive for any pkg that you install.

rwp by current you mean recent, right?

Oops. Yes. I meant recent when I said current. Sorry for confusing it with CURRENT. My bad.

got it

I say it is a partial answer because that only helps for things you have installed. If you find later that you need something you have not installed then it won't be there and by then will be gone from the repositories too.

yes but the point of storing just /var/cache/pkg is that there is the day where you need a small side package and it is not there, hence the idea of doing a snapshot of the entire repo

exactly

So you would need to do a routine mirror of the recent repositories in order to get everything that was available in the event that you needed something new in the future.

well I might give it a try to that LLM solution

my doubt is, how big can that be!

?

would it be like massive as do not even think about it or big as in just a few GBs?

I do not know how large it might be. I do know that most things will not be that large but a few things will be very large. It's not linearly distributed.

I see

it seems 76Gb for FreeBSD11, right

?

The general problem is one of the reasons people who go down this path most often use poudriere to build the package set locally and keep a local archive of all of the source. Then they are completely self-contained and self-hosted able to operate completely air-gapped. And then they can build what they need and avoid building large things that they do not need. Plus in the future if they need to patch something they are able to do

that too.

but that has the expense of having to go with poudriere and compile, vs the comfort of just doing pkg install.

s/has/is at/

When I look today it says 131GB of binary packages. "Number of packages to be fetched: 34437" "The process will require 131 GiB more space." Try: pkg fetch -a

why?

In order to create a local long-term-support system beyond the lifetime supported by FreeBSD. For an air-gapped offline system.

130Gb is a lot of space but definitively doable

thanks for the explanations rwp, it helped me to better understand how this works

It's been a good discussion. Glad I could help! :-)

What desktop environments do you guys use most? I've looked at XFCE but it's just meh.

I use Enlightenment

desktop environments are waste of time, use wm

hi all. i have a problem thats driving me mad. i have this old serial text terminal, connected as console to freebsd. on bash, backspace works but not on irssi. in bash i have mappings for the keys to map to ^H but this doesnt seem to apply to irssi? or gnu nano for the matter

Does irssi rely on stty settings? I would start by looking at those.

jauntyd: E?! i haven't used that in a while

Demosthenex: it is quite artistic! but not overly imo

terminology goes well with it i might add

jauntyd: i used to use e ages ago... like early 2000's

and i used scripts to open terminal in a tiling layout to simulate tiling. it was great that it allowed keyboard focus and keys to change desktops

that's stayed with me... i'm now on StumpWM and i use virtual screens and desktops like crazy

but i have a soft spot for E ;]

Ok, what's a decent looking WM out there?

hjf, bash hard codes that it will use either ^H or DEL for a backspace key but that's a special. Other programs look at the stty erase setting. Some know about the erase2 setting too. Determine if the terminal uses ^H or DEL then set "stty erase" and erase2 appropriately. My experience is that DEL is a better key than ^H but the terminal vendor already decided this for you.

pinPoint: this is highly subjective, i.e. some people favor functionality over aesthetics

broadly speaking they come in two types: tiling or stacking (aka floating), some can be pretty minimalistic, yet quite powerful

rwp: i'm looking at the termcap entry for this. it says: :kb=^H:kd=\n:kh=^^:kl=^H:kr=^L:ku=^K:le=^H:mb=\E0B\E):me=\E(:\

kb (key backspace?) ^H, but also, kl (key left?) ^H

but i don't understand how that part works. does that mean it's the terminal that sends these codes? or i can change those codes?

because why would the terminal send the same code for two keys?

oprs ok.

sorry I can't really be more specific :-) It quickly becomes a matter of personal preference. It's probably best to try out a few for yourself tbh

can i learn more about terminals and terminfo by looking at the c code?

or are there man pages about it

the terminal in question

hjf, What TERM type is that ADDS terminal? I am not familiar. (I used a lot of HP terminals and DEC and Wyse and Hazeltine but never an ADDS)

so, the menu settings mention a mode called "3A+"

i found a termcap entry called viewpoint3a+

and another called adm3a+

both work, but viewpoint3a+ looks better. it supports reverse video and dim text

and i think this line of terminals was called "viewpoint". so it's either this, or it's a compatible one

i used to use a Wyse one back in the day. at the same company that was throwing this one away

johnjaye, terminfo(5)

What a classic! I would be interested in seeing a photo of your keyboard too. I am curious if it has the arrows on hjkl and if it has Home and ~ like on the ADM-3A too.

it doesnt.

some photos of the keyboard

it doesn't have an alt key either, or [ and ]

one problem with this terminal is that it doesn't seem to do partial scrolling

so if you have a status bar at the bottom, it redraws the whole screen for each line scrolled

There were a lot of features of "modern" terminals which the early hardware did not support. I vaguely recall that some terminals could scroll lock lines of a terminal such as the bottom mode line allowing for efficient status lines but others could not.

You have distracted me with a little bit of fun reading and refreshing my memory on these when I should be doing other things. But this is fun and life is short so I am going to enjoy being distracted for a moment longer. :-)

You said no [ and ] but the photo you posted shows them on the keyboard. They don't produce those characters?

You might be interested in running "toe -s | grep -i adds" to get a list of TERM settings available to use. But I think your TERM=viewpoint3a+ setting is probably the best match.

rwp: not in my keyboard, it has the spanish layout with Ñ . but it's set to english anyways so it does produce [ and ]

there was a command to print the raw key codes but i can't find it. Ctrl-V - backspace produces ^H

I will say unfortunately here that the terminal uses ^H (HP terminals I used when working for HP are also the same) and therefore you just have to use ^H for the erase character.

Since the 1990s the use of DEL for erase has become almost universal due to that being the default for GNU/Linux distributions with xterm. It's so pervasive that many things will hard code it thinking that's just the way everything is and that's going to cause some problems at times.

IBM terminals also used ^H too. As an emacs user myself it's annoying to have to swap the keys and remember it. But vim users will probably not run into any problems.

originally DEL meant all holes on a punchcard punched. and NULL meant all clear.

not sure exactly how that changed over time

With papertape and punchcards you can't actually unpunch the holes. So 0x7F punches all of the holes in the papertape. Upon read back any DEL characters were ignored in the stream.

rwp: but why does left arrow also produce ^H ?

So actually one had to use both BS BackSpace and DEL both with paper paper tape. If a mistake was made one needed to BS until back to the character to delete then DEL to punch them out then type in the corrected characters moving forward.

hjf, Your terminal produces ^H with left arrow? There may or may not be a DIP switch setting to make some configuration changes for it. But it would be inconvenient now to have both the left arrow and the Backspace key both produce ^H now. But at the time I am sure that was simply back space moving the cursor to the left.

hjf, I am not familiar with your ADDS terminal really at all. But talking about BS and DEL on the VT100 (I actually own two DEC VT102 terminals and a Wyse VT100 compatible terminal) there are both BS and DEL right next to each other within easy reach of either. DEC basically didn't choose and left it to the user to configure things as they needed. Because HP and IBM both forced ^H upon us. But DEC had both and one could choose.

The main escape sequence that always caught me the worst though was in vi typing something then, then wanting to tap ESC and then h, h, h, to move left. On HP terminals ESC-h is the escape sequence for Home which would then zing me to the first character of the file! So annoying. Fortunately `` would return back to where I accidentally zing'd from.

yeah the manuals for this thing are unobtanium

it doesn't have any dip switches either

it has this menu

The VT100 escape sequences are always ESC-[-otherstuff and one never accidentally hits ESC-[ quickly in succession and so that's one thing that makes the VT100 escape sequences the better choice.

well actually the other day, with another termcap, i was getting ESC[ sequences

well terminfo because it was on linux

Looking at the config screen I wonder what is down the "3A Mode CTRL-Z" and "Spc Adv" menus but ya otherwise I don't see any configuration for it either. No ideas.

Pretty fun though! At some time we might have to play "mtrek" on the classic terminals. Good times!

the termcap entry also states it's 80x24 but this one can be 25 lines

i wanna shuffle things around the shop/lab and have this terminal as a dedicated irssi machine hehe

pinPoint: forums.freebsd.org/threads/cde-users-unite.85143

You should be able to set TERMCAP in your environment with an updated capabilities string and then customize it for your own use.

johnjaye: there is an old 1991 booklet about termcap and terminfo. I found a good way to understand a bit better how that worked, but it is pretty complex though

uskerine, I think most people using CDE are using it because they had previously used CDE. XFCE has a very similar workflow usage but is a recent (I avoid saying current) Desktop Environment. I think anyone happy with CDE would also like XFCE and be happier because XFCE is more polished up now.

rwp I like the simplicity of MWM, but need several desktops, so I still use CDE. It is a very niche thing now but I know I am not the only one using it

rwp: I have used XFCE in the past, did not like it. Another lightweight I like is FVWM, that can be customised to whatever look and feel you want and it is lightweight

WMs and desktops are very subjective things anyway

I used fvwm for years and years. Love fvwm! It's such a nice window manager. (I am using i3 tiling these days. But tiling is not for everyone.)

I like tiling but never really used on everyday

the first tiling WM ever: youtube.com/watch?v=IOxIUeroIVQ

funny to see all this character encoding stuff. i am just dealing with tmux swallowing control+tab and getting into those weeds

uskerine: ah do you have it by chance? or the name

johnjaye archive.org/details/termcapterminfo0000stra

it is not lightweight stuff

thanks

I enjoy those historic videos capturing the way computers were treated back at the dawn of the computer age. Some things they got perfect! Some things they missed on and things worked out differently.

this one is pretty rare, as far as I know the source code of that WM was lost

there is also another interesting short video about when they introduced motif: youtube.com/watch?v=neSdF_JVVB4

I am queueing those up for watching on the big screen with some popcorn later during the time when I can watch videos. (I love the big PC board poster framed on the wall behind that last one.)

fvwm3 is quite usable

For me the most endearing feature is the active thumbnail of the fvwm window pager.

I also love the 3D look

which gpu brands are best supported on freebsd? i recall intel pulling driver support last year that breaks plex hardware transcoding. any particular brand stand out in the "just works" category?

(or conversely, any to avoid due to known issues?)

markmcb: nvidia has an official freebsd driver

new amd i think are supported via open source drivers

HER: thanks

intel is supported, 12th generation works.. but im not sure about newer ones

markmcb: if its a laptop, i would go with intel gpu or amd. nvidia on laptops are really noisy

and heavy =p

it's a server. i'm currently passing through the igpu on a Xeon E-2388G to Ubuntu on bhyve to get driver support for transcoding video. would far prefer to have everything in FreeBSD.

(though this setup isn't bad, i'm just being a purist, lol)

I don't think there was a change to intels support (which AFAIK is mostly nonexistent, FBSD just gets their foss drivers from Linux), just a change on plex's side where they were not willing to keep holding back features from their ffmpeg fork to wait for FreeBSD to update it's intel drivers

I'm not sure if plex freebsd would work with nvidia or not. tbh! I thought their website said only intel a couple years ago, but currently it doesn't really have any information

duskmoss: thanks for the clarification. yeah, i don't think it's officially supported, but i've seen lots of people saying it works fine for them.

nice!

it'd be nice to stay on an igpu. the power consumption is so small.

anyone have any experience with AMD igpus? like the Radeon 780M that's on their Ryzen 7 cpu?

Hi

Any idea when ports switched from /usr/local/man to /usr/local/share/man as default location?

my ecperience is they're terrible at transcoding. But also plex doesn't officially support amd gpus either

on any platform

since amd gpus are also done with the linux DRM system, their drivers may be similarly behind where plex would need them.

Dereckson, Has there been an actual official switch? What I see is that both locations are in use by ports. And man 7 hier still documents the /usr/local/man/ location.

Found a proposal by bapt in March 2017 - lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/2017-March/107584.html

Yup for hier

even in FreeBSD 14.1

But on a new FreeBSD 14.1 installation with 739 ports, /usr/local/man doesn't exist

everything is in /usr/local/share/man

That's how I actually spotted the thing, I've run a configuration as code who wanted to provision man pages to /usr/local/man/man1

I have 44 files in /usr/local/man/* on my 14.1R desktop. Most of them related to pkg* but at least one gpt.1.gz file.

Yeah mine is a devserver

so the only desktop-oriented packages would be CLI

Can you give me one or two names of packages installing things there?

Curious to see if they override MANPATH or if they just run install commands there

My desktop has been upgraded. You are correct. If I look on a system installed only as 14 fresh then /usr/local/man does not exist. All of the files on my desktop must be lint left behind.

Dereckson, paste.debian.net/plain/1331244

thanks

"manpath" still reports "/usr/local/share/man:/usr/local/man:..."

I think I need to do some lint cleaning of /usr/local/man as none of those files are in the pkg database. And there is that core dump file from 2023 too.

Dereckson: only within the last couple of years did the switch get serious

hmm, maybe I'm misrememberin

I ran this and pkg didn't know about any of the files there and spot checking said they were all duplicated in share/man so I rm -rf'd the directory: find /usr/local/man/ -type f -exec pkg which {} \;

On a 13.2-RELEASE machine, I've a mix of those two directories, so you're perhaps right it needed time to get in traction.

rwp: i figured it out! this terminal support macros for these keys. i just need to map ANSI escape sequences for these macros!

Dereckson: bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=277603 is what I was thinking of

so I must not be completely crazy, it only finalized at the beginning of the year

hjf, I don't know what feature you just described but I am very happy you have a way to make it work better for you.

rwp: literal macros. Ctrl-F2-somekey, then you can program in a string to be sent when you hit that key

i just need to map it to Esc[D or something

but i can't figure out how to map esc here hehe

I am so used to xterm using ESC-O-D for keypad left-arrow that ESC-[-D looks odd but I assume that matches the termcap for that terminal.

esc[D is ansi iirc

but i can map it to anything i want and redo the termcap

ansi is based on xterm which is based on vt100/vt220 so I feel certain left-arrow would be ESC-O-D on all of them. But I don't have time to look at the moment.

rwp hjk I recently used .xmodmap and .xbindkeysrc to unify copy/paste and assign them to F11 and F12

I think you can bind any key combination to any action by doing that, but will only work in X11

uskerine, Your comment caused me to chuckle. Please take a peak at the terminal hjf's is working with here. imgur.com/eZqPwuw

.oO(X terminal station)

I actually worked on an actual xterm (with a 21" monitor) in uni, running CDE off a HP-UX server.

beautiful thing

hjf's terminal is very cool

hjk rather :)