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FreeBSD 11 Development Desktop on Dell XPS13

Utility Applications

The operating system is ready to go, but without applications its utility remains low. Start by installing some basic utilities to make the user setup and operating environment more pleasant.

MKSH - Shell

MKSH is a Korn Khell by MirBSD. It is small, fast and covers all the functions needed.

Make mksh the default shell for new users by editing the default .profile file and adding a .mkshrc file to /usr/share/skel.

Change the file content as follows.

EDITOR=vi;	export EDITOR
# Changing PAGER to less from the default more for correct output from git.
# Also less is more
PAGER=less;	export PAGER
	
# Change default shell rc file to .mkshrc.
ENV=$HOME/.mkshrc; export ENV

Create the .mkshrc file for shell setup.

Add the following lines.

# file permissions: rwxr-xr-x
#
umask	022
	
# Enable the builtin emacs command line editor in sh
set -o emacs
	
# some useful aliases
alias h='fc -l'
alias j=jobs
alias m=$PAGER
alias ll='ls -lFohG'
alias la='ls -laFohG'
alias l='ls -lG'
alias g='egrep -i'
	
# set prompt: ``username@hostname:path $ '' with colours.
PS1=$'\E[44;0;34m$(whoami)@$(hostname -s):\E[46;0;36m\$(pwd | sed "s,^\${HOME},~,") $\E[0m '

TMUX - Terminal Multiplexer

Tmux is a terminal multiplexer by the OpenBSD project, it allows you to run several virtual terminals from a single connection.

SUDO - Priviledge Escalation

Sudo allows a user to run a command as a user with more priviledges, typically root.

Configure sudo to allow members of the wheel group to run commands as root.

Locate the following lines.

## Uncomment to allow members of group wheel to execute any command
# %wheel ALL=(ALL)

Uncomment the second line so the text looks like the following.

## Uncomment to allow members of group wheel to execute any command
%wheel ALL=(ALL)

GIT - Version Control

Git is a distributed versioning control system. It allows you to keep distributed repositories of accumulated changes to files.

To configure a shared git repository called Development in /data/git.

To create a backup of the repository.

To configure crontab to keep the mirror synchronized.

Add the line.

*	*/1	*	*	*	(cd /data/git/Development.git; git remote update)

Smartmontools - S.M.A.R.T Disk Monitor

Smartmontools is a S.M.A.R.T. hard drive monitoring daemon. Install it and use the default configuration example as the actual configuration.

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