Debian kfreeDSB

[mishmich]

I have been trying to install freeBSD &/or pcBSD in either a VirtualBox or multi-boot laptop, both 32-bit, but without much success. I can install freeBSD on laptop as the sole OS, but if I try to do it alongside Arch, Scientific Linux, Vector, etc., Grub2 will not recognise freeBSD (or pcBSD) as a bootable OS on its own partition.

So, when I found Debian have their own install CD for freeBSD, I thought I would give that go. Slightly more success, in that it will install to a VirtualBox VM, but then when it gets to the GDM login screen, I type in the username I added during the install, and password, and then the system just hangs there with the little circle spinning that replaces the mouse pointer to say it is busy. The only option in Grub2 is into the graphical interface, so I'm not clear how to investigate the issue, as the only resolution is to reset the virtual machine. I've left it for a couple of hours, so it doesn't appear to be doing anything behind the scenes.

I also tried on the laptop I have set up for this kind of thing. It installed fine, except it wouldn't let me skip the bootloader, which I wanted to do as it didn't detect any of the installations on the 4 linux partitions I had on there, so in the end replaced grub2, and ended up with only the Debian/GNU-kfreeBSD listed on grub. I booted that, and exactly the same thing happens as in the VirtualMachine. It just hangs with the spinning disk instead of a mouse pointer, and nothing I try to do gets me any further.

Any ideas where this is going wrong? I looked around, but couldn't see any similar posts that were relevant.

Thanks.

[nadir]

First of all: It is not the FreeBSD operating system.
It is the Gnu operating system with a FreeBSD Kernel by the debian distribution, hence with the debian package management (and all the other goodies).
If you want to check FreeBSD you need to install FreeBSD.

Second:
When gdm hangs use ctrl+alt+F2 to get a tty login and check what is wrong from the commandline.

[mishmich]

Thanks nadir, yes, I gathered that reading about it before I installed it. Debian GNU/freeBSD, as opposed to Debian GNU/linux. I could install freeBSD, or pcBSD, both of which use Gnome 2.x as their desktop environment, and I have - but had problems getting GRUB2 to boot them from the partition I put them on, mainly because there are several versions of what 'works', but none of them seem to work for me. I had more success getting Debian's distribution booting, with Debian Lenny in sda1 (primary), GNU/kfreeBSD in sda3 (primary), Vector 7 on sda6 (logical), Arch on sda8 (logical) and Scientific Linux on sda9 (logical), with swaps on various in between.

So, thanks for your suggestion, this certainly helped me drop down to the console, and have a look around, although I am not much the wiser. I did have a look at the logs for gdm3, and they seem to be full of errors, but I am not really that technically savvy to understand what is wrong, although clearly something is wrong!

The :0.slave.log has one line -

** (ck-get-x11-display-device:714): WARNING **: Socket credentials not supported on this OS

The :0-greeter.log has loads of messages:

** (<unknown>:768): DEBUG: Client registered with session manager: /org/gnome/SessionManager/Client1
Window manager warning: Failed to read saved session file /var/lib/gdm3/.config/metacity/sessions/109cdb61dc38c6d172134913101899422100000007410005.ms: Failed to open file '/var/lib/gdm3/.config/metacity/sessions/109cdb61dc38c6d172134913101899422100000007410005.ms': No such file or directory
** (process:804): DEBUG: Greeter session pid=804 display=:0.0 xauthority=/var/run/gdm3/auth-for-Debian-gdm-Y2aMqh/database

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:806): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `_PolkitError'

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:806): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
gdm-simple-greeter[804]: Gtk-WARNING: /build/buildd-gtk+2.0_2.20.1-2-kfreebsd-i386-7CXsTk/gtk+2.0-2.20.1/gtk/gtkwidget.c:5628: widget not within a GtkWindow
kvm_open: kvm_nlist: No such file or directory
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x120002b (Login Wind)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x120002b (Login Wind)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.

** (gnome-power-backlight-helper:904): WARNING **: failed to find any devices: Error opening directory '/sys/class/backlight': No such file or directory

(gnome-power-manager:805): libupower-glib-WARNING **: Couldn't enumerate devices: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
*** ERROR ***
TI:11:38:42 TH:0x8074320 FI:gpm-engine.c FN:gpm_engine_coldplug_idle_cb,834
- failed to get device list: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Traceback:
gnome-power-manager() [0x806291b]
gnome-power-manager() [0x8061b98]
/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x393e1) [0x288363e1]
/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_dispatch+0x1d5) [0x28838415]
/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x3f018) [0x2883c018]
/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_loop_run+0x187) [0x2883c557]
gnome-power-manager() [0x8056b9a]
/lib/libc.so.0.1(__libc_start_main+0xab) [0x2890337b]
gnome-power-manager() [0x804e851]
Window manager warning: CurrentTime used to choose focus window; focus window may not be correct.
Window manager warning: Got a request to focus the no_focus_window with a timestamp of 0. This shouldn't happen!
Window manager warning: Log level 16: Failed to send buffer
Window manager warning: Log level 16: Failed to send buffer
gdm-simple-greeter[804]: WARNING: Failed to send buffer
LibGTop-Server: pid 862 received eof.

(gnome-settings-daemon:769): atk-bridge-WARNING **: AT_SPI_REGISTRY was not started at session startup.

(gnome-settings-daemon:769): atk-bridge-WARNING **: IOR not set.

and ends up like this:

(gnome-settings-daemon:769): atk-bridge-WARNING **: IOR not set.

(gnome-settings-daemon:769): atk-bridge-WARNING **: AT_SPI_REGISTRY was not started at session startup.

(gnome-settings-daemon:769): atk-bridge-WARNING **: IOR not set.
polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1: Fatal IO error 35 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.0.
polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1: Fatal IO error 2 (No such file or directory) on X server :0.0.
gnome-settings-daemon: Fatal IO error 0 (Success) on X server :0.0.

The :0.log has a lot messages, and starts out like this:

X.Org X Server 1.7.7
Release Date: 2010-05-04
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: GNU/kFreeBSD 8.1-1-686-smp i686 Debian
Current Operating System: GNU/kFreeBSD debian-freeBSD 8.1-1-686 #0 Sat Jul 21 17:02:04 UTC 2012 i686
Build Date: 30 October 2011 10:22:36PM
xorg-server 2:1.7.7-14 (Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>)
Current version of pixman: 0.16.4
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Tue Oct 2 11:36:54 2012
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
(==) No Layout section. Using the first Screen section.
(==) No screen section available. Using defaults.
(**) |-->Screen "Default Screen Section" (0)
(**) | |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
(==) No monitor specified for screen "Default Screen Section".
Using a default monitor configuration.
(==) Automatically adding devices
(==) Automatically enabling devices
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
Entry deleted from font path.
(==) FontPath set to:
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,
/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType,
built-ins
(==) ModulePath set to "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
(II) The server relies on HAL to provide the list of input devices.
If no devices become available, reconfigure HAL or disable AutoAddDevices.
(--) Using syscons driver with X support (version 2.0)
(++) using VT number 7

(--) PCI:*(0:0:2:0) 8086103c:30a5 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller rev 3, Mem @ 0xd0200000/524288, 0xc0000000/268435456, 0xd0300000/262144, I/O @ 0x00001800/8, BIOS @ 0x????????/65536
(--) PCI: (0:0:2:1) 8086103c:30a5 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller rev 3, Mem @ 0xd0280000/524288
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libextmod.so
(II) Module extmod: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.0.0
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdbe.so
(II) Module dbe: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.0.0
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
(II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.0.0
(==) AIGLX enabled
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/librecord.so
(II) Module record: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.13.0
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so
(II) Module dri: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.0.0
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri2.so
(II) Module dri2: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.1.0
(==) Matched intel as autoconfigured driver 0
(==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 1
(==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 2
(==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module intel
(EE) Failed to load module "intel" (module does not exist, 0)
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
(II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 2.3.0
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module fbdev
(EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)
(II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
(WW) VGA arbiter: cannot open kernel arbiter, no multi-card support
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libvbe.so
(II) Module vbe: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.1.0
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libint10.so
(II) Module int10: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.7.7, module version = 1.0.0
(II) VESA(0): initializing int10
(==) VESA(0): Write-combining range (0xa0000,0x20000) was already clear
(==) VESA(0): Write-combining range (0xc0000,0x40000) was already clear
(II) VESA(0): Bad V_BIOS checksum
(II) VESA(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000
(==) VESA(0): Write-combining range (0x0,0x1000) was already clear
(==) VESA(0): Write-combining range (0x0,0x1000) was already clear
(==) VESA(0): Write-combining range (0x0,0x1000) was already clear
(II) VESA(0): VESA BIOS detected

So, maybe it's a hardware problem on my old laptop? It's a Compaq c300, with 160GB HDD broken down into 2 * 30GB primary partitions, & 3 * 30GB logical partitions, (the rest is assigned as SWAP partitions). I was expecting trouble with the Broadcom 4311 on GNU/freeBSD (although I have got it working with all 4 linuxes), but haven't had any problems with the graphics on any other installation, including when I tried freeBSD. Screenshot relates to the environment I am now in, obviously (am liking the look of Wheezy, booted into Gnome Classic/Fallback):

Laptop details

c300system.jpg (26.25 KiB) Viewed 2325 times

I seem to have got past this issue in the VirtualBox installation; I had to rebuild the kernel modules following an update in Debian Squeeze, and it worked after that - although the Guest Additions seem not to work, and being a Virtual Machine, Ctrl+Alt+F2 wouldn't work, obviously. I've not been able to install/re-install the guest additions, so I have manage to get the mouse working in the VM installation, by disabling mouse integration, and letting the VM take control of the mouse & keyboard, and then releasing it using Right-Ctrl after. It 'looks' like the VirtualBox Guest Additions are part of the Debian GNU/freeBSD distribution, but they don't seem to work very well.

Thanks, Mish

[mishmich]

I built a new system, using a Gigabyte ga-z77x-d3h mobo and i7 3770 cpu (although Gigabyte board is intended for overclocking, and the 3770 not, from what I could find online, this combination allows both VTx & VTd), 16GB RAM. Installed Debian Wheezy. Slight problems, which entailed me needing to install the latest kernel, as the Wheezy kernel is older than support for the chipset, and then download and build the latest wireless drivers to get the atheros ethernet driver working: Although all the online comments pointed to this working out of the box, Gigabyte have actually changed the ethernet, it seems, to a more recent version, not yet supported in kernel 3.6.5. The only way to get wired ethernet working was by building and updating to the latest wireless drivers (which includes support for the ethernet as well).

Once the system was up and running, with hardware virtualisation enabled in the bios, VirtualBox installed and showing VTx/VTd as being enabled, I found that pcBSD still would not work, whereas Debian kfreeBSD did seem to install; however, it seems hit-and-miss. Some times the VM boots to a gnome login-manager login prompt, but when the credentials are input just hangs there, other times it logs in normally to GUI. So, I tried installing freeBSD itself, which works fine, and then installed Gnome (2) on top from the CLI. I've not had time to get any deeper than this, as I needed to check that XP, W7 & W8 worked OK (they did). Then I had a small heart attack, so I've had to put this stuff on hold for a while.

I'll leave the Debian kfreeBSD in place, in case anybody wants me to check anything there, but if there's no interest I'll wipe it and play with freeBSD itself instead, as that does seem to work fine when the hardware virtualisation is available.