A couple questions...

I'm sorry if these were asked and answered before, but I searched and couldn't find anything, so...

I am completely new to UNIX. I have been slowly but surely learning, for it is much different from what I'm used to. It's the reverse of DOS, and clumps everything together... I'm like... Trying.

Anyway, how would you go about removing a user on a FreeBSD 5.2 machine?

Next, how would you get to the files on your HDD when you're in the fixit console booted from the CD? I've had to reinstall FreeBSD multiple times just because I couldn't fix the boot files I borked, amoung multiple other things. This also applies to browsing files on a CD from the HDD. I know there's mount labels and points, or something, but how the heck do I use them? I searched the FreeBSD site for helpfiles on that, but I still couldn't figure it out. =/

My head is about to explode, heh.

The FreeBSD handbook (www.freebsd.org/handbook/ or /usr/share/docs/books/handbook/en/ ) has a chapter "Unix Basics". You should read it (and after this, read the parts of the handbook that you think are interesting to you).

Managing removable media (CDs) is also described there in detail.

To access the hard disk from the recovery console, you have to mount it.

To remove a user, type "vipw" and delete the line containing his login. After this (or before, doesn't matter), you should also delete his home directory (login as root, type "rm -rf /usr/home/<username>" and be careful not to delete the wrong one )

hth,
M.

Yes, but how would you go about mounting it properly? I searched through the handbook and got a brain tumor.

And even after you "mount" it properly, which I am half-clueless on, how would you switch to it without getting an access denied error?

Well, agreed. The chapter about mounting / unmounting is a little short...

I could write a book to answer your questions because they are not very specific. Let's start with some hints:
- when you are logged in as root, you won't ever get "permission denied". If you do, you accessed something non-existent because root can access anything. The only special case I know of is extended filesystem attributes, but until you encounter them, you'll probably have to learn a lot of other things first.

- Mounting:
# mount /dev/ad0s1e /mnt
This will mount the "e" slice on the first primary partition of your first IDE hard disk. You can use "fdisk" to see all partitions and "disklabel -r /dev/ad0s1" to see all the "slices" on a specific partition. This example here would list those of your first IDE hard disk, first partition.

- "switching" to a partition
What do you mean "switch to it"? Partitions are mounted to folders (they are called "mount-points" then). So you can simply use "cd" to change to that folder:
# cd /mnt

After booting the rescue system, you probably want to make some folders for mounting several partitions eg. like this:
# mkdir /mnt/usr
# mkdir /mnt/home
And then you can mount your partitions similar to this:
# mount /dev/ad0s1e /mnt/usr
# mount /dev/ad0s1f /mnt/home

All these commands depend on your specific setup, so unless you have a specific problem and tell us the details about it, it is really hard to give you further hints...

Since you are new to unix, you might want to try out some linux distributions first. They are usually more newbie-friendly. You won't have much fun with BSD unless you got the basics first. BSD is for the more experienced users who can't get what they want from linux anymore. Just my personal POV on the BSDs...

hth,
M.

Somewhere mid-reading in your explanation I realized that the purpose of the /dev directory is! Those files matched my partition labels, but I didn't take the hint...

That really helped, thanks a lot... Maybe you should submit that tutorial, because it was small and to the point.

About going through Linux first, I'm a glutton for pain. I'm thinking that forcing myself in this enviroment will help me greatly in learning it. Besides, I have heard so many good things of FreeBSD, then later learned the history behind it.

Then I learned of all the different projects that sprouted off of BSD, like DragonflyBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. There's probably a lot more, but I find the concept fascinating.

Also, I'm completely ready and willing to extend my knowledge beyond DOS and all the OS's based off it, (*cough* Windows *cough*) because it's just a smart thing to do, in my opinion.

Anyway, thanks a bunch!

EDIT:

Really sorry, but does the same apply to removable discs, or is there a different way to go about that?

The same rules apply to all disks, except different medians have different device names.