BSD newbie - a few package problems

[intx13]

Here's the rundown.

The install went perfectly, everything looks good.
Opera: installs fine, runs fine.
GAIM: installs fine, runs fine.
Thunderbird: installs fine, runs fine.
GIMP: installs fine, runs fine.

Firefox: installs fine, segfaults on run
VLC player: installs fine, segfaults on run

OOo1: won't install (says it can't find .pbstart in the current director)
OOo2: won't install (says it can't find .pbstart in the home directory of the running user - this is after entering the root password)

The PC is not new, but shouldn't matter (Athlon 900Mhz, 256MB ram). As I said, I'm a newbie to BSD (I had an extra machine and I have enough Linux boxes already) and I thought I'd start with PCBSD because of the package system and easy install/setup.

Are problems like this common? Or am I missing some crucial component?

Thanks,
Nate

[Charles]

Hello, for the pbistart issue, I have also experienced it. Restart PC-BSD, it should install fine then

[intx13]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I did another install on my laptop, and again, it installs just fine (i did not expect BSD, of all systems, to go so nicely onto a laptop, but i guess that just shows my inexperience with it!). This time firefox, the only package I've tried so far, runs just fine... so maybe it was the other computer. I'm going to try OpenOffice next... if rebooting solves all my woes I'll post back.

[intx13]

Ok... everything so far seems to work fine on my laptop. I'm willing to attribute my earlier problems to the PC... it's never taken any "desktop" install of Linux nicely (lots of odd problems occur). The best I've done with it was a console-only base debian install, and that one took a while to coerce it to work. I was lulled into complacency by how easily BSD installed.. i guess I should have been more wary

Rebooting the PC actually allowed Firefox to start, but as soon as you do anything... click a menu, type an address... it segfaults. Go figure. And the other packages still wouldn't install. But like I said, I'm willing to blame it on the PC.

Well, thanks for the help. I'm sure I'll have more newbie questions soon enough

-Nate