digital-homeopath.ca wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I'm quite new to the UNIX environment and would like some direction.
>  I've successfully installed NetBSD 2.0 on my Qube2 by following the 
> software guide on rushmere.net.  The first part of the software guide
>  is great even for newbies like me, but I'm stuck at the Software 
> Packages section - 2.1.  My ultimate goal is to setup apache, samba, 
> and Webmin (to make my life easier, I'm hoping) but I don't know much
>  about getting these installed.  Here are my questions:
> 
> Are apache, perl, and samba already included in NetBSD or do I need
> to get these packages separately?  Is there a default path for the 
> package directory?
> 
> Is this what I need to do next (from 
> http://www.aironaut.ch/content/view/18/53/) ? :
> 
> setenv PKG_PATH 
> ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/2.0/cobalt/All pkg_add -v
> the_package
> 
> pkg_add -v bash; usermod -c "" -s /usr/pkg/bin/bash root; 
> /usr/pkg/bin/bash export 
> PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/2.0/cobalt/All 
> pkg_add -v apache
> 
> 
> I used the most recent iso for 2.0 that I could find -> July 14 
> available here: 
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-cobalt/2005/07/14/0000.html
> 
> Also, the lcd panel displays what it should but the menu buttons
> don't seem to do anything (whereas they worked with the old OS).  Is
> that 'normal' behaviour?
> 
> I apologize if this is not the right place to be asking these types
> of questions.  I don't know where else to go.  I have very simple
> needs though I can't bring myself to stick with the old Cobalt Linux
> OS. I'm a doctor and am using the Qube to serve web & mail for my 
> practice... so for me that mostly means apache, perl, samba, and 
> webmin.
> 
> 
> Thank you to all involved in getting me this far.  I sincerely 
> appreciate your help.
> 
> John
> 

Greetings,

You can install applications in binary form (like the procedure you
describe above) or by compiling from source (via pkgsrc).

In both cases it would probably provide some good background for you to
read about The NetBSD Packages Collection:

http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/packages.html

and The pkgsrc guide:

http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/pkgsrc/

Apache, Samba and Webmin are not part of NetBSD i.e. they are not
installed on a fresh system.  You can either install them as binary
packages (if available) or compile them yourself from source.

The up-side to installing binary packages is often a smaller download
and no need to compile anything.  The down-side is that not all packages
are necessarily available in binary form, and they version may be out of
date.  The converse is true for installing from source - takes longer to
install due to compilation, but you tend to be able to get the most
recent version of each package.

The LCD panel on my Qube 2 displays startup messages, the IP address
once it has finished booting, and shutdown messages.  AFAIK the buttons
do not do anything, although I tend to stop paneld as it does use up a
lot of resources.  Maintenance I perform by SSHing into the Qube.

The old Cobalt Linux worked, but is now very out of date and probably
full of unpatched vulnerabilities.  It is good to have an up-to-date
alternative like NetBSD :)  Provided you have more than 16M RAM (64M
seems to be a good amount, 128M even better - my 16M Qube 2 takes hours
to compile anything) you should have no problems installing the packages
(even compiling from source), and running the applications you indicated
above.

Rowdy