Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 01:22:43 +0800 From: Andrew Shugg <andrew@guinness.it.net.au> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Installing FreeBSD on an AMD 386 Message-ID: <19981005012243.U15425@guinness.it.net.au>
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Hello,
As per the directions on the FreeBSD website, I am sending a message to a
mailing list which I'm not on, and I have no idea what goes on here ... :)
I have been trying hard to install FreeBSD on a machine I picked up a few
days ago. Until now I have only been running Linux as my 'alternative'
operating system at home and am really keen to run FreeBSD on this 'new'
machine.
I have tried both the 2.2.7 and the 3.0-19980804-SNAP install disks
(boot.flp, written to clean error-free floppies with dd in linux). On this
new system, which is an AMD 386DX clone, both disks will boot, and come to
the kernel config screen. I remove nearly all the devices from the list
(this is a very minimal system) and then proceed. The system continues,
correctly finding the ethernet card, the serial and parallel ports, and the
hard disk. The blue screen then comes up with "Probing for devices" and
then it just sits there. I found that alt-F2 shows the debug screen, which
showed that the aforementioned devices were found. Going back to alt-F1,
the blue screen is still just sitting there - the longest I've left it is
fifty minutes, with no progress. I know the machine hasn't actually
crashed, because I can still press ^C and abort.
I tried the 3.0-19980804-SNAP disk on a genuine Intel 386, and it went past
that blue screen with no problems, and went straight on to the next part of
the installation procedure.
I have tried a different network card in the problem machine, and tried
removing the network card altogether; no difference. The only unusual
thing about this system is that it is an AMD CPU, not Intel.
Is there some known problem with AMD chips and FreeBSD? Is there some way
to get this dang thing to install? It doesn't really need to probe for
hardware, because apart from the network card it's a bare system.
I've installed linux on it in the meantime, which went on fine. I'd like
to be able to get FreeBSD onto it though (somehow).
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. My email address is
'andrew@guinness.it.net.au' - thanks.
Regards,
Andrew
--
Andrew Shugg <andrew@guinness.it.net.au>
"Just remember Basil, there's always someone worse off than yourself."
"Oh, really? I'd like to meet him ... I could do with a good laugh."
[ Sybil and Basil Fawlty - "Fawlty Towers" ]
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