Configure FreeBSD on an Old Intel Machine with ATI Graphics

Steps

• Default install using Ventoy USB with FreeBSD install ISO
• update pkg by running to install any package ex. pkg install vim
• pkg install bash
• Install video drivers for ati - ref AMD section in https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/. This should take the screen to VGE mode with max resolution
• Make default shell bash: chsh and edit (vim editor runs) the tcsh out with bash
• install kde5, xorg, xfce, firefox-esr, mc, elinks, htop, libreoffice
• allow root to login as ssh: edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and set PermitRootLogin to yes; restart sshd

Tips

Make root writable in single user mode (if you cannot login as root because you messed up the shell or have some corruption:

Commands:

fsck -y
mount -u /
mount -a -t ufs
swapon -a

You can now edit files in /.

pkg breaks after upgrade (error - “ld-elf.so.1” … “not found”)

pkg-static -v
pkg-static install -f pkg
pkg upgrade -f

🔴

Last updated: 16 Jan 2026