Re: Unable to boot after update from within auto-admin

On Friday, May 8th, 2026 at 10:57 PM, Mark G. <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello and welcome to FreeBSD.

Hi Mark, thank you :)

> If you don't have any data to lose on your current failing to
> boot system, a re-install from scratch might be best going
> forward.

Based upon what you and the other kind soul have recommended, I suppose it's the best way to go. I was hoping to recover some html bookmarks, text/dot files but it looks like that's not happening. :)

> I had never heard of auto-admin, but if you want to learn
> and understand FreeBSD, I would ditch it and just use the
> tools FreebSD gives you for managing the system.  Like
> freebsd-update, pkg and so on, which are all very well
> documented in the FreeBSD Handbook.

I did a brief search on the web prior to running it as the popup was very strange. I had been updating my system using pkg prior to this and everything was fine.

My mistake, my big mistake, was installing FreeBSD so casually (as I would've installed a Linux distro I was familiar with), without backups, without installing a pretty small bare bones system and working with what I had until I was more confident in my abilities. I installed a *lot* of packages. Oh, and read more documentation, read, read, read.

> You should read the
> FreeBSD Handbook cover to cover if you haven't already.

Yes, that sounds like a good plan to me! :)

> Is auto-admin something that came with OpenBox?  It is not
> part of the FreeBSD base system and seems to originate
> from the sysutils/auto-admin port.

No, but thanks for asking. I'm not sure what pulled it in I had so many packages installed. Shame on me, I should've known better!

> Are you dedicated to Openbox as a desktop environment?
> If not too attached, you could try the handbook's examples
> on using XFCE as a light desktop environment.  I know it
> does not pull in auto-admin during installation.

Thank you. I installed XFCE first and was using that, but went to Openbox because it was really saving me on the RAM which I needed for Firefox. I'm going to keep it really bare bones this time with only Openbox, maaaaybe XFCE since I always seem to go back to it, it's so lovely. ;)

> Anyway, just some suggestions on how to get started that
> might allow a better understanding of managing a freebsd
> system.  It's really quite easy once you get the hang of
> it.

Thanks! It sure seemed like it was smooth sailing, well up until auto-admin popup. I just have to approach it carefully and skillfully the next time around.

Thank you so much for your help and the welcome!