Mac OS X and FreeBSD

Sometimes I for get about the Mac OS x being a variant of BSD. I am working on getting my Soekris appliance updated from Debian 3 to FreeBSD 8.1.  In the process I was using a VMware Fusion FreeBSD virtual machine to build my image for my embedded network appliance.  When it came time to update the BIOS on the Soekris box I needed to work from the command line and not through the GUI serial terminal procram that I had been using called CoolTerm.



So I proceeded to install Lrzsz, which needed the Mac Ports which needed Mac Developer environment XCode. The hardest part about this step was registering as an Apple Developer to get the free download of XCode SDK. I am registered as a Safari Developer, Yooo Hooo!.



Mac Ports installed Lrzsz here:

/opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/lrzsz


/opt/local/var/macports/software/lrzsz


/opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/ports/comms/lrzsz


/opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/lrzsz/opt/local/var/macports/software/lrzsz/opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/ports/comms/lrzsz



It is taking me a while to get use to the Mac OS X file system from the command line interface compared to a FreeBSD or CentOS system. The concepts are similar, it is just that some Unixes put files in different locations.



So arter installing Lrzsz I could connect directly to my Soekris using a USB to Serial cable.



$ sudo cu -l /dev/tty.usbserial -s 19200



Next I needed to solve the keybpard problem.  CTRL+P was not working to put the Soekris in monitor mode during bootup.



My Debian 3 Soekris box has not been changed since 3/23/2003.



Well I had to give up on getting my Debian to boot into single mode.  I switched back to my Mac to get the MAC IDs from the Soekris Ethernet



eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xc4878000, 00:00:24:c0:a9:90, IRQ 11.



eth1: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xc487a000, 00:00:24:c0:a9:91, IRQ 5.

I will start to do a PXE boot install.


Man, I have not done this in a while.  I am not building a custom FreeBSD Kernel for my Soekris box.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Austin Friends and places

There is too much fun stuff to do in Austin. This weekend is my last one that I will spend in Texas for a while. I enjoyed spending some time this weekend with a three friends that I have had the pleasure to meet in the short time that I have lived here. I also wanted to visit a few of my favorite spots before I left.
Read more

PHP Web Store

Well finally I have made progress on one of my goals. I have been working on learning PHP and have created my first eCommerce web store. If you want to check it out it is located here . I am going to add artwork to this store and I hope to generate some income from it. One thing for sure is that I'm learning how to create dynamic web pages using PHP and a MySQL database.
Read more

Looking for another camera.

Looking for a compact digital camera. This is the spot for taking notes. I want a small camera with a decent lens that takes raw images. It must also have manual F-stop and aperture settings.  I take a lot of pictures from my bike like this one .  My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 takes good images, but I want better. I have an ancient Canon EOS 10D with a Cannon EF 20mm 1:28 lens.  I love taking still life and landscape photos with this camera and super sharp lens.  The dang thing is so heavy that I do not want to ride with it unless I am really on a camera taking picture ride. The The Fujifilm FinePix F900EXR This is another possibility. Generally I have always purchased Canon cameras, but I may have to change.
Read more