FreeBSD 4

Carrying on from my previous post. I am now turning my attention to configuring the twm desktop [1]

twm is set as the default window manager in:-

/usr/local/etc/X11/xinit/ file : xinitrc

After finding some information on how to configure the twm desktop [2]. This document seems to be from around 1989.

I tried to find the configuration files in my local home directory structure on bsd but was unable to. However there is one

/usr/local/share/X11/twm/system.twmrc

Which, I think is more of a global configuration. Given the only two users are myself and root is fine.

I used this to add a second icon manager to the desktop.

I have also found some other documentation [3] which explains how add items to the menu.

So to add menu entry to menu for vulture-nethack

edit /usr/local/share/X11/twm/system.twmrc

“Nethack” f.exec “exec vulture-nethack &”

the & is important

If you need more help you may want to ask on IRC: * #freebsd which is hosted freenode. [4] I am on IRC as zleap but also frequent a few other channels.

References

1. twm Desktop
2. An Overview of twm (Tom’s Window Manager)
3. Customizing twm
4. Freenode IRC

#bsd, #config, #desktop, #settings, #configuration, #tool, #freebsd, #twm, #window, #icoms.

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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Licenced under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

FreeBSD 3

Following on from my previous post which discussed changing the X11 keyboard layout. I had to also change the console layout.

This can be undertaken through editing the appropriate configuration files or with a tool called bsdconfig which needs to be run as root.

The online man page can be found here

This is a menu driven / text based interface. I can't, as yet provide a screen shot, but the man page is comprehensive enough so a screenshot isn't really needed.

To change the keyboard map you will need to find the appropriate section and make the changes.

#bsd, #config, #menu, #settings, #configuration, #tool, #freebsd, #keyboard, #layout, #gb.

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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Licenced under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

FreeBSD 2

Following on from my previous post. I have been working on fixing the keyboard mapping issue.

Again, after asking for some help on this from IRC, I was given an example configuration file to work from.

/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf

From this I have created a new X11 keyboard configuration file for the UK / GB keyboard layout. This now works, so at least pressing shift 2 gives “ and not @ which would happen on a US keyboard and was happening previously.

Now this is working, it is a little easier to play nethack as @ turns auto pickups off, which is very helpful when you don't want to pick up everything you come across.

#freebsd, #x11, #keyboard, #layout, #configuration, #irc, #nethack

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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Licenced under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

FreeBSD 1

Further to my post on Vultures-eye earlier . I spent some time last night installing FreeBSD with the view to getting the game working. The page on freshports.

I also joined #freebsd on irc.freenode.net to ask for any help.

Once I had downloaded the ISO file and created an install DVD. I set about installing it. Text based installer is easy to use. Very similar to Slackware.

Once installed, I set about installing nethack with the package manager. (pkg install <packagename ) Once installed I realised that I probably need to run this through X.

I then set about installing X11 on the target netbook. This was painless, once installed started X11 with startx then ran the vulture-nethack game

Worth noting the config file can be found in /usr/home/user/.vulture as: vulture.conf

You may want to: Change the game window size Turn off music if you want to play the game and :-

• watch a video
• listen to other music.

The game worked fine, so I can get back to playing again.

The only issue I did seem to have was setting up a normal user account, this failed during the install process, not quite sure why, but I just added a new user with adduser from the root prompt. One thing to note about BSD is the user home director is in a different place. But that much different to under Linux.

I also installed prboom which is a free Doom game.

Given that I have never actually touched BSD at all. The ease of use is down to the great work of the developer team(s).

FreeBSD Handbook

#freebsd, #unix, #nethack, #technology, #computing, #irc, #freenode, #support, #install, #configure, #x11, #setup, #netbook

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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Licenced under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nethack vultures eye 1

For some time I have been trying to find a port for the 3d isometric version of Nethack, called Nethack-Vultures-eye.

I was playing Falcons-eye a few years ago, this was maintained for a few years, development was then picked up by another maintainer and falcons-eye became vultures eye. The game is now on Steam.

• Nethack-vulture

I tried again yesterday ( 20/2/2020 ) and failed, I decided to have a look if the game works on FreeBSD.

According to Freshports it does seem to be supported, and from the page is still being maintained.

• Vultures-eye on FreeBSD

As of 21:12 on 20/2/2020 I am downloading the FreeBSD iso file and burning this to DVD-R.

Getting help

I decided to join #freebsd on irc.freenode.net, as I would probably need to be there to ask for help. this is new grounds having spent over 20 years running GNU/Linux.