New user tips

by Jonathon McKitrick

So, you finally decided to give FreeBSD a try, eh? Well, there are probably three possibilities. In order of likelihood, you are either:

1. a relatively experienced Linux or Unix user and have decided to try or switch to FreeBSD for any number of reasons;

2. are a new Linux user and for whatever reason decided to try FreeBSD; or

3. you just decided to give FreeBSD a try because of all the good things you have heard!

Whatever the case may be, switching to a new OS is exciting and sometimes a little intimidating. We may proceed tentatively, afraid to ``break'' something or unsure if what worked in some other OS will work on this one. In this article, as a new FreeBSD user myself, I would like to share some of the little tips that helped me learn faster and more fearlessly. To any seasoned veterans who may be reading this, all of these tips are trivial and rudimentary. But all together, they helped me build my own little world where I wasn't afraid to try new things and where I learned faster then I ever did on Linux.

The first cardinal rule is to not be afraid of breaking anything. Backup your important data often, especially if you tinker with important settings often, but the best way to learn is by doing. However, some old-school die-hards insist that this means using only the most basic of tools and learning them by RTFM'ing, trial and error, and experience. While this may have its merits, there may be a better way for users with less Unix experience, like myself. I started out using Midnight Commander exclusively. I used it for everything from learning my way around the filesystems to editing files. I learned from MC about chmod and chown, and other important commands. Then, when I felt ready, I was able to try them at my own pace. Now, I only use MC for mass file relocation and other bulk tasks. Eventually, when I master pattern matching, I expect to give it up almost completely. Is it an expert's tool? No. Did it serve its purpose? I believe so. It helped me learn the more powerful tools in a carefully controlled way at my own pace.

This brings me to my next point: choose a GOOD Unix editor and master it. Whether that be vi, emacs, joe, or some other editor, learn it well. There is a reason why these editors are so popular. It is worth the time to find out why. These tools reward a modest investment of time with a great deal of power and efficiency. Such editors are universal, and will help you configure your system much more quickly than easier but less powerful or less available tools.

Another valuable tool:
Learn aliases and use them copiously. I use aliases for everything. I have an alias that loads vim with my current .profile, and one that loads vim with my current kernel configuration. I even have an alias for displaying all my aliases. One good idea for newbies is to alias rm to mean 'rm -i' to really make sure you want to remove all those files. The same concept applies to mv. Use aliases for your ppp commands and for your cvsup commands. Unix rewards effort with getting more done with less keystrokes and work.

As I mentioned at the outset, and any veteran BSD user will tell you, FreeBSD is a very robust system. It is difficult to break anything beyond repair, though it can be done. Part of the reason for this is because the FreeBSD filesystem is cohesive and logically arranged. To help build a newbie friendly system, we should follow the same model in our own personal file organization, as this will help us find things easier and backup our data and system configuration more efficiently.

I decided to follow a basic rule I learned on the mailing lists, and that was to leave the root directory and settings untouched, and use my user account along with su -m to perform necessary administration tasks. I set up an 'admin' directory, where I store a symlink to my kernel configuration for easy editing. I also keep my cvsup configuration files here. Of course, I also keep my user account data in my home directory as well. But I found that by keeping the administrative data in a separate directory, I am able to perform backups more easily. All I need to do is backup /etc, /home, and /usr/local/sbin, where I keep some administration scripts.

Another simple trick that has taken the fear out of re-installing for me is to regularly generate a list of all installed packages. I output the result of pkg_info to a text file that I include when I make my regular backups.

Does all of this work? Yes, it does. When I decided to re-install my system from scratch, this is the procedure I followed, and it worked like a charm. None of these ideas are earth shattering or revolutionary, but all together, hopefully they can help some new users to be a little more fearless in learning the wonderful OS we call BSD.