Hi, I have RiscBSD beta 1.2, running kernel sa110-4713, on a 42 MB
StrongARM machine. I have a large X on the wall.

I've installed the following beta 1.2 sets: base, etc, misc, text,
config, tcsh, man, local, X11R6, X11R6man, X11R6fonts, Xarm27.

The machine runs OK in unix multi-user command-line mode with the only
errors coming from the missing /netbsd directory (that one is in the
FAQ - no problem). If I am root and change my 'path' variable to
include the X11R6.1 binaries, I can use the command 'xstart' to start
the X system. It runs OK but I don't really have any experience with
X, only OpenWindows on a Sun Sparc. I'll experiment before asking
any specific questions about using X.

A few questions...

1. If a set is unavailable for (say) beta 1.2, will the beta 1.1 set
be the next best thing? Or will it not work at all? In this case I'm
talking about 'kern' which is nominally one of the 'required' sets
but I can't find it in beta 1.2. Also I would like emacs.

2. Although I installed the X man set, the man pages are unavailable
because the entry in /etc/man.conf refers to /usr/X11R6 rather than
/usr/X11R6.1. To fix this temporarily I renamed the X directory to
X11R6 because I haven't learnt how to use 'vi' yet! When I did that, I
could get help on X using man. Was this error due to some mistake I
made in the set installation?

3. Generally, how useful are unix system administration books when it
comes to maintaining RiscBSD? I need something but I can't quite see
how much of RiscBSD is really like vanilla unix (if such a thing
exists). If anyone has bought/borrowed/stolen one and found it to be
very useful, please tell me the details!

4. Is it dangerous to do system admin via unixfs in the RISC OS
desktop? I only have experience of emacs as a unix editor and vi
scares the willies out of me. I would like to install emacs but it's
not in the beta 1.2 sets (yet?). Unixfs was a real bonus when
installing sets which I had downloaded since I could avoid using
floppies.

Many thanks for any advice.    - Ian.

-- 
Ian Giblin                             mailto:giblin@dm.unipi.it
Dipartimento di Matematica              faxto:+39 50 599524 (shared)
Universita di Pisa                    voiceto:+39 50 599573 (direct)
via Buonarroti 2
I-56127 PISA,  Italy.               http://adams.dm.unipi.it/~giblin/