Trying out PC-BSD 9.2: First login, Networking, Crash

First part: Trying out PC-BSD 9.2: Intro 

So I logged, looking for way how to make a screenshot. People wanna see stuff. But first about boot: feels swift, not much longer than my Debian. Login took a bit longer, it took about 2 minutes to finish, but I am running from live USB so no problem. Can't really compare. 

Screenshot. Can't find any screenshot utility in menu, so I google. I shall do it later, they all recommend to install some software to do it.

First login. Live USB has LXDE. You can see "Welcome to PC-BSD" window, telling you some basics of PC-BSD. For example it says that if "computer is connected via network cable it will be auto-configured via DHCP". In my case, that is not true. I am on cable, but there is no icon in tray and no Internet connection. Then it explains icon on Desktop: AppCafe to install software, Control Panel to config, some more stuff from Icon tray and How to get involved. I guess for some newbie that's enough to see. Can't really say about newbie coming from Windows, but for someone coming from Linux, that's enough.

As I mentioned, there are AppCafe and Control panel icons on Desktop. Plus Handbook. In my case, it's unfortunately not working. It says that the file is damaged. I have to admit that I never checked downloaded img so it might be my mistake. If you tried live USB please share your experience. 

Hardware. Not sure what PC-BSD support? Try Hardware compatibility from Control Panel. (I wanted to put screenshot here, but as you will see later, I was not successful. Anyway, PC-BSD says it supports all my hardware.)

As I mentioned Network was not working correctly. I mean not working. I head to Control Panel - Networking. System finds wireless ath0 and asks me whether I wanna enable device now. Sure I do. 

I can't see it in devices thought. I only see my bge0 ethernet. It's disabled, so I enable it. The same I set to Display icon in tray. After clicking save, networking restarts itself. Restarting network does one funny thing: bge0 is disabled again. So I close it and try to find another way how to enable the device. I managed to do it by left clicking on tray icon and unchecking "Disable this networking device". It again restarts networking, but pinging google works now. (I use ping, as there is no browser installed (i consider this minus))

Great, I managed to get internet working. By the time I do this all (~10 minutes, I'm also writing) systems recognizes my wireless card. So I am trying to configure it. I only set password and systems says that I didn't set what IP to use. Bad thing is that it does not let me do it, but I have to go to config again and set everything once again.

Can't figure out how to connect to internet thought (via wifi). Everything is set up, but in tray there doesn't seems to be any way to configure wireless like I am used from any other OS (pick network). Network manager shows that wifi card had the IP from my network, status associated, but ping is not working. 

I go back to cable and try to install scrot from AppCafe so I can make screenshots. Works well, made a screenshot. So I want to copy picture to my another USB, so I can add it here. That seems to crash a system a lot. File manager crashes, desktop icons disappears. Running pcmanfm from console gives: 

/: create /symlink failed, no inodes free

So I am trying to install firefox from AppCafe and add screen from there.  That is not successful, as it says there is no space left on device. df is actually saying something different:

filesystem                      1k-blocks   Used         Avail         Capacity Mounted on
/dev/ufs/PCBSDUSB    5980094     4787071  714616     87%         /
devvfs                            1                 1              0              100%       /dev
/dev/ada0s1                   83886044   66822800  17063244   80%    /media/ada0s1

But this is something I am pretty much lost in. Don't know what my USB did to PC-BSD, but it creshed it pretty nice. I know it because when I tried to install some other software on the same live USB image and same pendrive, I was able to install more that firefox. Restart will probably fix this, but knowing that inserting USB drive breaks the system is bad enough itself. 

Result? So far it seems a bit unstable (or how to put it?), a bit unpolished (stuff with networking), and confusing in some parts (again networking).

I shall see after reboot. 

//small edit: my usb probably crashed lxde - can't logout from menu, need to hard-reset. 

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JH

software developer - guitar player - poetry lover