Daemon News Publishing FreeBSD CDs

LordGibson writes: "DaemonNews.org is taking up some of the slack following Wind River's massive layoffs of FreeBSD developers. 'Daemon News has been a BSD organization from day one. We are now happy to announce that we will be publishing our own FreeBSD CD sets, beginning with the next release, 4.5, scheduled for January 2002. We offer CD subscriptions, and our subscription plans can be for any desired combination of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Darwin. Since the FreeBSD Mall isn't offering subscriptions any more, you can get your BSD fix from us--at a better price, too.' You can read all about it here or jump for joy and go directly to the subscriptions page."

Nice to see the community coming together

[General_Corto]

Now that direct corporate support for open source projects in general appears to be waning (what with this and other cutbacks taking place), it's good to have the community take up the slack.

At least we as a group can remember our roots, and return to them, rather than doing the human equivalent of exploding in a blaze of chapter 11.

off topic?

[Laplace]

Ok, I think that FreeBSD is cool. I like the notion of a predictable OS layout. However, I can't get my PCI modem (it is not a winmodem) to work. All of the documentation for setting the kernel up is old, and not applicable to the most recent releases of FreeBSD. The main reason I keep SuSE on my PC at home is because it works right out of the box. Any FreeBSD advocates out there who could help a BSD newbie out?

Congrats on finding a new publisher!

Re:off topic?

[Arandir]

The best place for these kinds of questions is [e-mail]. Warning: this is a high traffic mailing list. Archives are also available.

Re:off topic?

[akharon]

I can't say about the modem, the list archives are the best place for that. About the kernel though, go to the freebsd handbook [freebsd.org] and you'll find the latest instructions on kernel compilation.

Re:off topic?

[CentrX]

Since when is FreeBSD the only OS with a predictable layout, and since when is that a novel notion?

The problem is

[Laplace]

Go to the bsd newsgroups and mailing lists. Search for pci modem. You get the same response every time. "Is it a winmodem? Non-winmodems should work fine." Then there is no indication as to what the hell one should do to get a modem (like the 3Com 5610) to work. Same song and dance with no new info.

The handbook has something to say about the kernel configuration, but it is out of date.

Oh well.

Re:The problem is

[elbuddha]

The handbook has something to say about the kernel configuration, but it is out of date.

I don't currently see anything out of date regarding kernel configuration in the handbook. What specifically are you referring to?

As for your modem, it should "work" just like any other serial device.

Make sure you have sio0 through sio3 in your kernel. Since you haven't been successful in configuring a new kernel, you are probably still using GENERIC, which by default disables sio2 and sio3. Enable them and build a new kernel.

If your modem is on sio3, be sure to set the irq of the modem to 2.

Then check to make sure it is being found during boot: Set verbose_loading="YES" in /boot/loader.conf, reboot, then do a grep sio /var/run/dmesg.boot

If it is being found, can you connect to the modem via command line (man tip) and isssue commands to it?

These steps should give you help you gather more information on what, exactly, isn't "working" about your modem. With that information, you should be able to ask more specific questions to newsgroups/lists, and probably get more helpful responses.

Re:off topic?

[jasonrfink]

step one, recompile the kernel (that documentation is still up to date :) and enable everything related to it.

You should find the exact driver you need (hopefully :))

WinDriver?

[rsimmons]

This is great news. They are a much better organization than WinDriver (division of Microsoft).

hope that they can keep up

[johnjones]

I hope that they can keep up and dont go burning CD until they are ordered (JIT inventry)

I think they should screen print some CD with just their logo on it (no version numbers so they can use it for whatever) so that it would look pro as well

throw in a book on unix programing and hey presto a Real product !

john 'what about mips distro' jones

The All Important Question

[helixblue]

Do the CD's from Daemonnews come with the FreeBSD stickers?

Re:The All Important Question

[Arandir]

There was to be a second run of stickers under BSDi, but they never got around to it before they split up. So the existing stickers are all that are left, and there aren't that many of them. An inside source told me that they won't be included in the 4.4 Wimpriver set, so unless DN prints some new ones, they won't have them either.

Re:The All Important Question

[Ded Bob]

So the existing stickers are all that are left, and there aren't that many of them.

Maybe they can make a bit of money auctioning those stickers off?

Re:The All Important Question

[Arandir]

I've got one unused set of stickers from 4.3. The bidding starts at $50.

Re:The All Important Question

[kkenn]

I got two FreeBSD CD sets delivered today from DN and they each came with a 'BSD' car sticker similar to the country-of-registration stickers you see in europe. Kinda cool :)