Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 13:21:21 +1000 From: "Doug Young" <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au> To: <bastill@sa.apana.org.au>, "newbies" <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: install from floppy Message-ID: <02b201c09fa3$3b39c020$847e03cb@apana.org.au> References: <0102261151010E.00803@PhD_1.testname.com.au>
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Well yes installing from floppies IS troublesome at times, but I had to do it with a bunch of prehistoric 386 Wangs that wouldn't look at a CD-ROM. Brian is totally correct when he says floppies cark it at a critical moment, however if you have (like I did at the time) such a pile of systemslying around that a kangaroo dog couldn't jump over its not particularly difficult to kick one into life to create replacement bin floppies on the fly :) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Astill" <bastill@sa.apana.org.au> To: "newbies" <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 10:42 AM Subject: install from floppy > If you have a CD-absent laptop and want to install from floppy disk (eg using > Doug Young's super "Pedantic FreeBSD" guide - DON'T! > Doug's guide is excellent, but the person who wrote the floppy installation > routine is another matter. That clown should have been subject to God's error > handling and never been born. > Why do I say this? > > Installing from floppy is no small matter. You are looking at re-formatting 25 > DOS disks, then preparing them for use (which also involves copying six files > at a time to each of 23 disks), then using the first two to boot to the FreeBSD > sysinstall and the remaining 23 to copy six files at a time onto your new > system. I found that it took roughly 10 minutes per disk to do that final > copying. > Overall time you should allow - five hours! > I got almost to the end of this process but disk 21 of the 23 had some fault > and sysinstall could not read one of the files on that disk. > "Would I like to try again" said the error message. Of course I would - so the > $##@*&% idiot system started again - from disk 1. "Thanks", I said (among > other things). > Obviously noone would want to go through the four-hour process of inserting 23 > disks at 10-minute intervals, knowing that the slightest error at any point > would result in a compulsory re-start. > Even a newbie knows that the error handling routine should (a) preferably > produce a more specific message (eg "cannot read file bin.eu" would be helpful) > and (b) allow recovery from the point of the error (eg "please correct this > disk and reinsert when ready"). > > So, like I said, if you want to install from floppy disks - DON'T. > Of course, if you can get hold of the source and can insert a SENSIBLE > error-handling routine, that would be NICE! > > I am going to have a go at installing using PLIP. Will let you know how that > goes. > > -- > Regards, > Brian > > ******************************************************** > Dr Brian Astill Visiting Research Fellow > Flinders University Institute of International Education > Bus 8201 3480 FAX 8449 9199 > bastill@sa.apana.org.au > ******************************************************** > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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