Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:00:53 -0500 From: Andrew M McDermott <mcdermam@potsdam.edu> To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Installation form boot.flp Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19971210090053.008f6100@potsdam.edu>
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I have attempted to install FreeBSD via passive FTP approximately 20 times in order to understand the process and the OS as much as possible. I have encountered a number of problems which I have addressed from several directions and thought I would pass along my experience and conclusions for the benefit of others. I have an In686/180 processor on an Intel Venus motherboard. I am running NT 4.0 and LINUX Slackware (kernel 2.0.30) from a 2.5 GB HDD (Linux, NT, shared space on FAT, and small Linux swap as partitions 1-4) and until now have used lilo to boot. I have an AHA1542 compatible Tekram SCSI adapter running a Quantum 365S (348 MB formatted) SCSI drive which I have used for installing FreeBSD. My BIOS does not permit a boot from the SCSI drive, lilo does not recognize FreeBSD and so I have attempted to use EasyBoot as a boot manager. 1) the help included on my boot.flp disk (made from fdimage.exe from ftp.freebsd.org) says that to use the boot manager to boot from a second drive it is necessary to install BootEasy on the first IDE drive, but not on the second drive. This does not work in my configuration. I must have the manager on both drives for a successful access of FreeBSD on the SCSI. 2) I have noticed a discrepancy in the file systems on the various mirror sites, and my installations fail differently depending upon the site chosen for the same set on installation options. The only site at which I have ever succssfully installed XFree86 is the main site, and that only began succeeding recently. I get no error messages, the install proceeds very smoothly until after compat21 ( I think it's called) is added, then goes directly to the final configuration screen. The extra packages seem to differ from site to site, and even between visits to the same site. During my attempts it would have been very useful to have the option to only install the X system without reinstalling the Basic User files (/bin and others). In lieu of this a set of easily found and followed instructions for separate installation of the X system would be valuable. I did it the hard way once by copying the entire X directory to my local share space and unzipping and/or pkg_add'ing things from there. This was problematic and not completely satisfactory. This is a very nice install procedure for a first-time user, but the directions are not clear until one fouls up a few times. After all these efforts I have yet to successfully install the system on my SCSI, configure it, run it from BootEasy and set up X-windows to do anything useful in a single install (though various portions of this in combination always result). Without Midnight Commander (which I sometimes could only get by FTP to the site after install, depending upon the site chosen) it would have been much more painful finding my way around. I can always use the boot disk prompt to do the job, but then, what is the point of BootEasy? I had an excellent e-mail experience with one of the volunteers (dwhite somewhere in Oregon I think) on your Hard Dive set up help list. Overall I thank you for your OS and your help. I hope to use FreeBSD as a teaching tool as well as a work-horse for myself.
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