Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:15:17 -0500 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: "Colin Dick" <cdick@ocis.net>, freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 7 Install on an older Mac Mini Message-ID: <p06240802c5a43899e098@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <20090127000528.M4693@ocis.net> References: <20090105162138.M45881@ocis.net> <1231178414.24576.32.camel@horst-tla> <20090127000528.M4693@ocis.net>
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At 4:44 PM -0800 1/26/09, Colin Dick wrote: >Hello again, > Well, it has been a couple weeks and I had a couple positive >responses that if I can just get FreeBSD installed, the rest of >the maintenance should be quite similar to i386 based systems, >so I have tried again. > I saw a few posts from Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> that >seemed to have useful information, however, I still cannot seem >to get this system installed. Heh. It happens that I'm in the process of doing an install on a new-to-me PowerPC Mac-mini. Right now I'm doing that by copying things from my working mac-mini, so it's not quite the same as doing a clean install. But once I get that working exactly the way I want, then I'll probably do a clean install on my older Mac-mini. I'm not sure how much help I can be for your situation until I have tried the clean install. A lot has changed since the install where I wrote all those earlier notes! >I boot with a Mac Install 10.3.7 disk (my 10.4.5 install disk > kernel panics) Hmm. That is a little disturbing. The MacOS install DVD should not be kernel-panicing, unless the DVD itself is bad! I'm doing all my recent work using a MacOS 10.4.4 install disk, and have not seen any problems. Could it be that the Mac itself is bad? Bad memory, perhaps? Failing hard drive? If it kernel panics with your 10.4.5 DVD, then see if you can get it to work with some other MacOS 10.4.something install DVD. >I enter the Installer -> Open Disk Utility system >I select my drive (37.3 GB TOSHIBA MK4025GAS >I select the Partition option and choose > Volume Scheme: 1 partition > Name: FreeBSD > Format: Unix File System > Size 37.26GB > Click the "Partition" option > Confirm that I understand information will be destroyed > This disk has 1 volume: "disk0s3" When I do this, I have the MacOS utility create all the partitions I will need in FreeBSD-land. I create p #1: MacOS HFS+ partition. a "small" size. In my case, it's large enough to do a minimal MacOS install into, but then I'm starting with a larger hard disk. I suspect that it's still true that it's more convenient to have some MacOS partition that you can put the freebsd boot loader on, even if it's only 10 meg's worth. p #2: Unix partition to use for /, size = "most of the disk", name (in DiskUtility) == fb_root p #3: Unix partition to use for /var, size = 750 meg, name (in DiskUtility) == fb_var p #4: Unix partition to use for SWAP space. It looks like you planned on using 2 gig, which is a good size. name (in DiskUtility) == fb_swap So, IMO you want the partitions in that order (or at least with MacOS one first, and the '/' one second). Pick the sizes you want for #1, #3, and #4, and then make #2 take all that's left. In my case, I didn't bother splitting up '/' and '/usr' on PowerPC, even though I do that for FreeBSD on other hardware platforms. Also note that I like having a huge '/var'. Most people are happy with much less than 750 meg. > Click "Partition" >Quit Disk Utility After the disk is partitioned, you might want to start up the Terminal application (it should be in the same menu where you selected the "Disk Utility" application), and then do the unix command: df -kl One thing that will show you is that your disk partitions will be numbered something like: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/disk0s5 10354005 452 9835853 0% /Volumes/fb_root /dev/disk0s7 1312266 452 1246201 0% /Volumes/fb_var /dev/disk0s9 3140772 452 2983282 0% /Volumes/fb_swap (you'll see more lines than that, but those are the lines for your Unix partitions). Ignore most of those numbers, except the fact that the filesystems are "/dev/disk0s5", "/dev/disk0s7", and "/dev/disk0s9". The disk utility is actually creating two partitions for every unix partition that you ask for. The extra partitions will probably eat up 8.5 meg each. The 'df' command in MacOS will not show them to you, but if you're really curious you could also try the unix command: diskutil list disk0 >Quit Installer [Quit] >Boot to OFW and 'eject cd' >I boot the FreeBSD 7.0 disk (PPC bootonly ISO) >Run through the initial screens to select country etc... >Sysinstall asks to create partitions and recognizes ad0 > (s2 is OWM 8MB I think and s3 38145M) "s2" was probably the hidden partition for the single unix partition that you created, and "s3" was the actual unix partition. If you follow the steps I suggested above, the top section of the disklabel editor will probably show you *something* like: Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s1 Free: 63 blocks (0MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s2 Free: 262144 blocks (128MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s3 Free: __n__ blocks (10MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s4 Free: 17408 blocks (8MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s5 Free: __n__ blocks (33000MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s6 Free: 17408 blocks (8MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s7 Free: __n__ blocks (750MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s8 Free: 17408 blocks (8MB) Disk: ad0 Partition name: ad0s9 Free: __n__ blocks (2000MB) (except you might only see 4 lines at a time, and the "__n__" fields will have real numbers in them). Using the up-and-down arrow keys, select the line for "ad0s5", press 'C', say you want a filesystem, and the name will be '/' (the single character, without the quotes around it). Using the up-and-down arrow keys, select the line for "ad0s9", press the 'C' key, and say that you want a swap area. Using the up-and-down arrow keys, select the line for "ad0s7", press the 'C' key, say that you want a filesystem, and the name you want will be '/var'. Note that you should check the sizes (in "MB") on each of those lines, and make sure they're the sizes that you're expecting based on the partitions that you actually created. The sizes from that 'df -kl'. Ignore all partitions which claim to be 8-megs. Once you've done that, I think it's the 'Q' key will drop you out of the disklabel editor, and you can go on with the rest of your steps. Note that what I'm skipping is the part about using the default "A" option. Maybe that works fine, but I have not done a brand new PowerPC install in years, and when I last did an install that option simply didn't work. So, out of paranoid superstition, I will suggest that you avoid it for now. >I choose Developer install without ports >I choose FTP media for install Presumably you will have better luck at this point. If not, maybe someone else will chime in with answers. Once I do have enough spare time, I will try a clean install for real, and then I shall try to write up some better directions. But it is very unlikely that I will have enough spare time for at least a week or two. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu
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