Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 16:06:12 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: leec@adam.adonai.net (Lee Crites) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD on Packard Bell? Message-ID: <199708032306.QAA02728@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95.970803165640.2665A-100000@adam.adonai.net> from "Lee Crites" at Aug 3, 97 05:01:51 pm
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> I asked about this a while ago and only got one reply from someone who > was (politely) questioning the mental state of anyone who would purchase > a pb machine. Okay, I was stupid. Now, has anyone put fbsd on a pb? I > tried just doing an install, without success. It just hangs at various > points (none of the 9 tries hung at the same spot) after all of the > setup screens and fs work, while copying blocks of data from the cd. This question really belongs on -questions; however, if you posted it there, you wouldn't have gotten me (a mixed blessing, I'm told). You are likely running a CMD640B or otherwise buggy IDE controller and using the primary for the hard disk and the secondary for the CDROM. If the machine has two IDE controllers, put the CDROM on one and the hard drive on the other. Otherwise, you will need to patch the controller bug in the POST routine, or in BIOS configuration. Intel has a nice set of test programs, plus a patcher that you might be able to use. The typical problem is that an HD write is not waiting while the second channel is busy... if you have an older FreeBSD, the protected mode driver won't work around this (but the BIOS POST patch does). Generally, boards with this problem that have flash BIOS can be updated using an update from the manufacturers WWW page; if the machine is new, not a ware-house sell-out, then you can probably fix the problem in the BIOS settings. I had exactly the same problem with a Micron Home MPC; it had two controllers, but the drives were both on the first controller instead of split between them. Alternately, you could download and run a more "bleeding edge" version of FreeBSD, since the current IDE driver will not issue requests on both channels for a buggy controller chip. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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