Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 15:03:14 -0800 (PST) From: ctodd@chrismiller.com To: Marshall Kiam-Laine <kamanism@ntlworld.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: v5.3-release-amd64 installation problems Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.58L.0501171443230.7358@vp4.netgate.net> In-Reply-To: <002101c4fcdd$13ea4a30$6401a8c0@atalanasus> References: <002101c4fcdd$13ea4a30$6401a8c0@atalanasus>
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Marshall, this question is more appropriately posted to freebsd-questions since this involves questions on how to use the OS, not to modify it or report something that is broken. But that said I'll take a stab at helping you. > (1) started with fdisk delete all on HD, then /mbr > but it still picked up bootloader from previous attempt. > how to wipe the HD totally clean first ? No sure what commands you ran with fdisk, or what version you used (dos/bsd/linux). I believe "fdisk /mbr" in dos fdisk just copies the backup mbr to sector zero which may have undone what you were intending on doing. BSD fdisk can reinitialize sector zero of the disk with the -B option. Adding/deleting partitions on the disk doesn't delete the data from the disk, you need to do newfs for that. It's possible you defined logical partitions (slices) within a dos partition on the disk using disklabel, and installed the boot loader in the slice rather than sector zero of the disk. In that case you may be using the bootloader on the partition rather than the actual mbr. Look at the man pages for fdisk, disklabel, and newfs. If you're new to BSD, I would rely on the installer for now, and be sure to thoroughly read the prompts. There's also a number of posts on this subject in the archives on this : http://www.freebsd.org/search/index.html http://www.google.com/bsd > (1) managed to get it installed, logged in, $startx, > jumped to xterm, then crashed : > "fatal server signal 11, failed to load fbdev" = ? Are you using a supported video card? Did you properly configure X with xf86config/xorgconfig? Make sure you look at the logs in /var/log/X* for the cause. > (2) instead of startx, what is command to start gnome ? It sounds like you'd be best off using xdm to start things for you. See the proceedure at : http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-xdm.html > (3) at no time did i see any option for 32/64bit install ? Which boot disk or iso did you use? If you're trying to install amd64 then you need to create disks from that distribution. It appears there aren't any floppies on the FTP server for amd64, but since you likely have a newer system I'll assume you have a CD burner. Download disk 1 from the closest mirror to you. Download disk 2 to use for "fixit" situcations if necessary. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html Example URL : ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/5.3/ Hope this helps. Chris
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