From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 23 08:16:54 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4170D106564A for ; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:16:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from vinny-mail-01+f.questions20081120@palaceofretention.ca) Received: from www.giovannetti.ca (www.giovannetti.ca [206.248.136.48]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 039028FC08 for ; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:16:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from vinny-mail-01+f.questions20081120@palaceofretention.ca) Received: from the.palaceofretention.ca (intgateway.palaceofretention.ca [10.10.10.42]) by www.giovannetti.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id E272911438 for ; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:48:21 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <492909FD.2030004@palaceofretention.ca> Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:45:01 -0500 From: Vinny User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (X11/20080513) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: FreeBSD Questions References: <4926015A.3010803@palaceofretention.ca> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: Suggestions for PII 400 boot failure 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: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:16:54 -0000 Chris Pratt wrote: > > On Nov 20, 2008, at 4:31 PM, Vinny wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> A friend of mine is trying out FreeBSD and ran into >> a booting problem. Here is his message: >> >> "Well, that's discouraging. >> >> I have put together an old PII 400 with three 20GB drives and a CDROM >> that I'd like to run BSD on. Half a GB of RAM I figured would be >> respectable. >> >> Downloaded the ISO files, burned CDs of them and when I try to run >> them it starts to boot and then freezes tighter than a muskrat's arse. >> >> Three lines coming on the screen and it ends with "Starting the_" and >> just hangs. >> > He might want to try downloading the floppy set and booting > from there. I think that is what I did on an old Dell 200 I'm > using as a bridging firewall at home. This is a pathetically old > machine and won't boot the ISO (I found it when cleaning out > my rental, left to throw away by the renter), but it works great > once you finally get the system on it. It's on 6.2 but I imagine > 7.0 will be fine. > Thanks everyone for your help, Here is a message from my friend: "Well, it's been a long day but I've had some success on the BSD front. I went to a couple of used/recycling/salvage places today looking for a PIII or low-end P4 motherboard and processor. I didn't see anything that was very interesting so toodled on home and had a cup of tea. I decided since the system was essentially running fine (without an OS) that I'd give the floppy disk install a bit of a run. So I downloaded all the floppy disk image files and fdimage.exe (the utility to convert them) and created all the necessary floppy disks. I did a simple install, paritioned the drives and created a user and administrator account along with some basic network settings. It seemed to connect to the internet just fine during boot up and when I ran ping against google.ca I was receiving back valid addressing information so it appears that that is all working fine. So I ran /usr/sbin/sysinstall from the root directory to try to customize the installation a bit better. I adjusted the "media type" to an ftp server as opposed to CDROM and POOF... Bob Shurunkel... BSD is now downloading an X-Windows interface from the internet as we (or I in this case) speak. I suspect there's going to be a bit of a learning curve here but I'm looking forward to it. It could have been much simpler if I would have been able to install from CD to being with but there definitely is a workaround which, in itself, pleases me. Will keep you posted." Vinny