Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 08:21:00 -0800 From: "Sean Noonan" <snoonan@snoonan.com> To: <questions@freebsd.org> Cc: <snoonan@snoonan.com> Subject: Install Probs - Sony VAIO PCG-GR250P notebook - Intel PRO 100 /VE NIC Message-ID: <KIEPJNLEBFIFHLFBELKMAEKDEHAA.snoonan@snoonan.com>
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Hi Everyone, I'm the semi-proud owner of a new Sony VAIO notebook, model PCG-GR250P. This is a 1GHz P3 box, 256MB RAM, ATI Radeon Mobile graphics card with 16MB RAM, combo CD-RW/DVD drive, built-in Intel PRO 100/VE NIC, and a 20GB ATA HD. Since it doesn't have a floppy drive I got a USB 1.44 floppy, too. The first thing I did was contemplate blowing away Windows XP Pro completely, but then I decided I had better keep it for those apps I need for work. Plus, Sony doesn't actually give you XP installation disks. The best you get is "restore CDs", which I understand restores the box to it's factory condition. Oh well. I *was* able to use Partition Magic to make XP occupy only half of the 20GB HD, leaving the other half for FreeBSD. I then immediately began to install 4.4-RELEASE on the second half of the drive :-) I decided to install FreeBSD via the 2 floppies and then FTP the rest of the installation. That process went very weird; The floppies loaded the boot disks extremely slowly, like 15 minutes per disk. But it did work. Sort of. The installation process froze just as the installation routine began to mount the root partition. I chalked this up to the USB floppy installation and decided to download the ISO CD and give that a try instead. As I was waiting for the ISO to download, I realized I had a 4.3-RELEASE CD nearby. I grabbed it, and things went almost perfect--except for the recognition of the built-in Intel PRO 100/VE NIC. No go. I searched the archives and found one instance of someone asking about the Intel PRO 100/VE NIC. The responder said to turn of PNP in the BIOS. The original poster responded backing saying "thanks", that turning off PNP in the BIOS did the trick. I started to really get my hopes up. I turned off PNP too, but the box still didn't recognize the PRO 100/VE adapter. So I decided to wait until the 4.4-RELEASE CD was downloaded and burned, thinking that maybe code for the adapter was added after 4.3-RELEASE. To my surprise, the 4.4-RELEASE CD hung at the exact same point as the 4.4-RELEASE install via floppies. Damn. So, here's the situation: I can install 4.3-RELEASE, but it doesn't detect the PRO 100/VE. I can't install 4.4-RELEASE at all. Can anyone provide any suggestions on how to proceed? I really want FreeBSD on this box!! Thanks in advance, Sean Noonan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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