Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 06:14:16 +0200 From: Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl To: Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl, jkh@time.cdrom.com Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org, questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: installation fails Message-ID: <9607200414.AA09748=aeb@zeus-184.cwi.nl>
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From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.throck.com>
> I just tried to install 2.1.5-RELEASE.
> At the point where the actual installation is to begin
> (I suspect: the first moment the ethernet card is actually used)
> I get the text (I tried twice)
> Fatal signal 11 caught! I'm dead ..
> and indeed, FreeBSD is dead.
Can you tell me the very last thing it did successfully?
I used novice install, got twice in an fdisk-like program -
maybe once to cut a partition into slices and once to select
mount points - I just took the defaults - got a menu to tell
about IP-number and hostname, and maybe that was the last.
[But don't trust my bad memory.]
Maybe I can ask a question:
In the meantime I tried a different approach and wrote
2.1.5-RELEASE to a SCSI tape and installed from there.
The installation process was more or less successful;
it complained `couldn't extract compat1x compat20 commerce xperimnt'
even while this release did contain subdirectories
commerce and xperimnt (and compat21).
I also got a `unable to fetch samba-1.9.15p8' (or sth very similar).
One very funny point was that at the point where I had to give my
local time the digit 7 did not work (but 6 and 8 did) - very strange.
One point in the installation procedure consisted of the question
whether a boot manager should be installed. I have a rather
delicate setup with 3 IDE and 3 SCSI disks, and as far as I can
see there is no information at all about the precise properties
or configuration of this boot manager, so I answered No.
But now I find that I have no means to boot this installed system!
The fixit floppy is not a boot floppy - booting from it leads to
an attempt at destroying my floppy reader - instead of halting,
the system gets into an infinite boot cycle.
And the install floppy, which is a boot floppy, doesn't seem to
offer the opportunity to start the just installed system.
So my present question is: is there a way to let the installation
procedure make a boot floppy that boots a given partition?
Or can I ftp somewhere a working boot floppy?
Or can I escape from the install procedure of the install floppy?
[Under Linux I have a root filesystems on the fourth and fifth
disks but kernel images on the first or second disk so that
LILO or OS/2 BM can find it, and the kernel is booted with
parameter root=/dev/sdb3, for example. I hope that it is not
required that FreeBSD lives on the first or second disk.]
All the best - Andries
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