From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 11 18:41:42 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 18C1D16A52D for ; Thu, 11 May 2006 18:41:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from reitz@eecs.cwru.edu) Received: from beta.eecs.cwru.edu (beta.EECS.CWRU.Edu [129.22.150.110]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0816D44872 for ; Thu, 11 May 2006 18:40:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from reitz@eecs.cwru.edu) Received: from bender ([::ffff:129.22.151.243]) (TLS: TLSv1/SSLv3,168bits,DES-CBC3-SHA) by beta.eecs.cwru.edu with esmtp; Thu, 11 May 2006 14:40:26 -0400 id 000ABE94.4463851A.00006C23 Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 14:39:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Andy Reitz X-X-Sender: reitz@bender To: Mike Hunter In-Reply-To: <20060511153720.GB42786@malcolm.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: References: <20060511153720.GB42786@malcolm.berkeley.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ftp install / base not found X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 18:41:44 -0000 On Thu, 11 May 2006, Mike Hunter wrote: > Dear FreeBSD Questions, > > I have a not-so-new laptop that I tried to install FBSD on yesterday. > This laptop can only be made to boot from floppies (usb boot doesn't work, > no cdrom) and I happen to have some 5.3-RELEASE boot floppies laying > around. > > I am successfully able to get into the installer, format the disk, create > new FS's, DHCP, select the "Minimal" distribution and try the FTP install. > But, no matter what I do, the ftp servers never have the distribution. I > tried several, including ftp.freebsd.org. > > I have had this problem repeatedly over the years, always with older > distributions. The error message says that I can go to the Options menu > and change my distribution to "any", but that never works either. > > What's the story? Do older bases get removed from the ftp servers, or is > there a different string I should be using in options (I tried > 5.3-STABLE), or am I missing something? Please don't make me create new > boot floopies! :) Dear Befuddled, If you FTP to 'ftp.freebsd.org' and poke around, you'll find this directory listing in the '/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/' directory: ncftp .../FreeBSD/releases/i386 > dir drwxr-xr-x 19 110 0 1024 Apr 2 00:40 2.2.9-RELEASE lrwxr-xr-x 1 110 0 10 Nov 25 18:36 4.11 moved to ftp-archive -> README.TXT drwxrwxr-x 2 110 0 512 Apr 11 2005 5.0-CURRENT lrwxr-xr-x 1 110 0 10 Dec 19 18:36 5.3 has moved to ftp-archive -> README.TXT drwxrwxr-x 19 110 0 1024 May 9 2005 5.4-RELEASE drwxrwxr-x 19 110 0 1024 Feb 4 09:17 5.5-BETA1 drwxrwxr-x 19 110 0 1024 Mar 14 18:58 5.5-BETA4 drwxrwxr-x 13 110 0 512 Nov 4 2005 6.0-RELEASE drwxrwxr-x 13 110 0 1024 Feb 4 09:18 6.1-BETA1 drwxrwxr-x 14 110 0 1024 May 8 00:52 6.1-RELEASE drwxrwxr-x 8 110 0 512 Apr 1 07:50 ISO-IMAGES -rw-rw-r-- 1 110 0 637 Nov 23 19:21 README.TXT As you can see, they have a nice symlink which states that FreeBSD 5.3 has been moved to the 'ftp-archive'. Here is the relevant section from README.TXT: NOTE: Old releases are available at: ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/ And if you go and poke around on that server, you will find all of the bits for 5.3-RELEASE. HTH, -Andy.