FreeBSD probs

What is a nice way of essentially formatting my bsd partition to reinstall the operating system? I've done a bit of reading on 'mkfs', and I'm a bit weary of using it... and, I'm tempted to do a plain old 'rm -rf /*'. Ever since I upgraded to 4.4-RELEASE, X hasn't been working right and I've just about had it with trying to make it work (problems arise between KDE and libpng - I've tried everything from recompiling old versions of libpng [1.0.12, since this is the version KDE seems to whine about] to removing and re-adding KDE through sysinstall to no avail).

Any suggestions?

(by the way, this isn't for a server or anything, this is for my 'pissing around with bsd' partition on my local machine.)

You can just insert the floppy and reinstall it. You will be asked to wipe out all partiton or upgrading. You really don't need to do anything to your disk for a reinstall. If you are in any doubt, you can do a low format, but that's not necessary.

>> Ever since I upgraded to 4.4-RELEASE

From which version and branch?

>> X hasn't been working right

What was the version before and after?

>> this isn't for a server or anything

Doesn't matter. If you consider yourself a FreeBSD user, just don't run any -RELEASE branch.

>> re-adding KDE through sysinstall to no avail

Like RPM, any precompiled binary sucks. You really should install anything from the ports tree. Check this -> Setting up ports

Alright... I had the ports collection in /usr/ports updated when I installed the 4.4-RELEASE sources. I was upgrading from a prior 4.3-RELEASE, with a bit of 4.4 RC's in there. I've got files from all sorts of releases in the system. When I upgraded BSD, all I upgraded was the kernel, source (to recompile for PPPoE support) and ports collection. Didn't touch X, which I had previously upgraded to 4.1.0 with no problems.

I'll try installing KDE from the ports collection with libpng 1.2.0, hopefully it will work. Thanks for the prompt response.

>> I was upgrading from a prior 4.3-RELEASE, with a bit of 4.4 RC's in there

Never do binary upgrade, compile from src at all time. If you read my other post Setting up ports you should realized by now how unreliable binary upgrade could be.

>> I've got files from all sorts of releases in the system

Unlike Linux, in *BSDs, that shouldn't happen at all. When it comes to upgrading, *BSDs beat Linux in million times all the way.

>> which I had previously upgraded to 4.1.0 with no problems

Check and make sure this line -> XFREE86_VERSION=4 is in /etc/make.conf. If it's not already there, wipe out all installed ports and do a clean buildworld and go for 4.4-STABLE, then install X afterward. As I mentioned dozen times in other posts, there are at least 100 essential steps you must first do before installing X, if you don't take my suggestion, you are asking yourself for all these troubles.

>> When I upgraded BSD, all I upgraded was the kernel

When you upgrade, that's so-called buildworld in *BSDs. You need to build the entire system as every piece relies on the others.

>> I'll try installing KDE from the ports collection with libpng 1.2.0, hopefully it will work

Good luck. But I doubt that will be reliable and durable. More than likely, something is going to break again very soon.

BTW, have you ever cvsup'ed your ports tree?

Well after getting the KDE sources and compiling it from ports, I got it to work somewhat... aside from the odd freeze, it seems to do its job rather well. I'm not really running BSD and X as a primary system - I just like to boot into it every now and then to piss around with stuff, so I don't see a real need to cvsup the ports or source to -STABLE locally. RELEASE seems to work alright for what I need it for. But, thanks for the help.