113 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
113 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
+++
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title = "FreeBSD Tips and Tricks"
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date = 2025-06-12
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slug = "freebsd"
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+++
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# GPU Drivers
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On June 10, 2025, the new FreeBSD 14.3 was released and I decided to try it out. After installing the OS from a USB stick on my bare-metal box (very smooth installation process by the way) I was greeted with the TTY login prompt. Using the built-in `pkg` package manager, I installed my favorite window manager, sway, which unfortunately failed to launch with a cryptic error message "No displays found". After looking in the very helpful [FreeBSD Handbook](https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/), it turned out that the GPU drivers weren't preinstalled in the OS, so I had to install them manually and add the respective kernel module to automatically load during boot.
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```
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pkg install drm-kmods
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sysrc kld_list+=i915kms # replace by amdgpu if using an AMD GPU
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```
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Unfortunately this was not enough, the system still wasn't able to start the graphics. After looking at the logs for some time, I found out that the version of the kernel modules responsible for the GPU drivers wasn't updated for the latest kernel revision yet. Fortunately, FreeBSD developers have a separate repository called `FreeBSD-kmods` with updated drivers so that I didn't need to compile the ports (BSD lingo for source-based packages) manually. However, this repository wasn't enabled by default, so I had to force the package manager to update from it.
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```
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pkg upgrade -r FreeBSD-kmods
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```
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This was enough to make sway launch (by using `seatd-launch sway`, as the post-install message from the `seatd` package mentioned) and fully use it to the best of its abilities.
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# (Wired) 802.1x authentication
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My university uses an `802.1x` authenticated network (both wired and wireless) on campus, in order to connect to it, I had to use `wpa_supplicant` with the following configuration (`/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf`)
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```
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network={
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key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
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eap=PEAP
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phase1="peaplabel=0"
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phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
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identity="user@school.edu"
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password="password"
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}
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```
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After that it was enough to make sure that the wired interface (in my case `em0`) used the supplicant (`/etc/rc.conf`) and restart the network configuration service `netif`:
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```
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sysrc ifconfig_em0="WPA SYNCDHCP" # replace em0 by your interface name
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service netif restart
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```
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TODO: In the current state of things, certificates aren't checked during the connection process. It is a good idea to check them, especially if connecting to eduroam at a location you don't fully trust.
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# `i3status` not using colors
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This was merely a quality-of-life issue that for some reason `i3status` fails to detect that it should format its output for `swaybar` to parse it, therefore I had to force it in the config (`~/.config/i3status/config`)
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```
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general {
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colors = true
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interval = 5
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output_format = "i3bar"
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}
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```
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# Wireguard
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Since FreeBSD 14, FreeBSD has excellent support for Wireguard VPNs. I just had to install the `wireguard-tools` package (`pkg install wireguard-tools`), copy my config to `/usr/local/etc/wireguard/` and add the following two lines to `/etc/rc.conf` to automatically configure the connection at boot:
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```
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wireguard_enable="YES"
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wireguard_interfaces="wg0"
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```
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# Locales
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In order to use the correct locale info for your area (e.g. if you want your computer to speak a different language than English), it is necessary to change the system locale in `/etc/login.conf` (or, alternatively, it can be set on per-user basis in `~/.login_conf`, the syntax is the same). In the `default` section (`me` in case of user settings, make sure it is uncommented first), change the `lang` variable to your preferred locale, for example `en_US.UTF-8` for American English or `de_DE.UTF-8` for German. You can see all available locales by running `locale -a`.
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```
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default:\
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...
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:lang=en_US.UTF-8:
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```
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After that don't forget to activate the changes by running the following command:
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```
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cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf # for system-wide setup
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cap_mkdb ~/.login_conf # for per-user setup
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```
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# `pkg` package manager
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During my adventures I stumbled upon some useful commands for the builtin `pkg` package manager that I feel like could be useful to others.
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Reinstall all packages from the repository (in case you want to sync your system state to the repositories, including downgrading packages if needed, similar to Arch's `pacman -Suu`):
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```
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pkg upgrade -f
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```
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Show packages that depend on the given package (reverse dependencies):
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```
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pkg info -r PACKAGE
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```
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Show dependencies of a given package:
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```
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pkg info -d PACKAGE
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```
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Install a package from a given repository:
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```
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pkg install -r REPOSITORY PACKAGE
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```
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Update the system from a given repository:
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```
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pkg upgrade -r REPOSTIORY
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```
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