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From: wpaul@startide.ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Free beer for every FreeBSD User!!
Date: 28 Sep 1994 00:35:21 -0400
Organization: The M00se Illuminati (bl00p!)
Lines: 100
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <36arq9$a50@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>
References: <3699f3$439@wsiserv.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: startide.ctr.columbia.edu
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Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se,
Andrej Gabara (gabara@peanuts.Informatik.Uni-Tuebingen.DE) had
the courage to say:
: Great, now I lot your attention. I've posted a problem before but got no
: replies; would some kind soul please tell me why I can't install FreeBSD 1.5.1.1
: on my PC? (Alaris Leopard, IBM SLC2-66, IDE)
: About the beer, sorry, I lied ;=( But I would be very thankful for any pointers.
: Thank's
: -Andrej
: Hi, I've been installing FreeBSD 1.5.1.1 on my PC, got up to the
: "Congratulations..." message. Then I set the default installation directory
: with set_tmp_dir to /usr/distrib, and typed the command load_fd to load the
: binary (bin_tgz.??) distribution, which I copied on 11 disks.
: This is what I got:
: # load_fd
: Read from which drive [c] ? A
: Insert floppy in drive A:, then press RETURN to copy files...
: exec: /sbin/mount_pcfs /dev/fd0 /tmp/floppy
: mount: invalid argument
Your floppies need to be reformatted. I had this problem the first time
I installed FreeBSD because I generated my DOS floppies using the 'mformat'
command from mtools using Linux. Floppies formatted using MS-DOS at the
standard FORMAT command work fine, but mformat apparently doesn't always
get the boot signature quite right. This same problem can also happen
with some brands of factory pre-formatted floppies, though most big
name brands (Maxell, TDK) are probably okay.
Anyway, if you don't want to reformat all your floppies (it's a royal
pain to generate them all over again), you can try the following
workaround, which worked for me:
1) FTP to freebsd.cdrom.com or one of its mirrors and check the tools
directory. You should find an mtools 'mread' binary there, along with
a few other things (such as a C-Kermit binary and a few other mtools
commands). The mread program isn't as picky about boot signatures
and should be able to read your DOS floppies even though FreeBSD
won't.
2) Dig up one spare floppy and format it properly using MS-DOS.
3) Put the mread binary on this floppy.
4) Boot FreeBSD again, then place this new floppy in the A drive.
(You can use B: if you like, but I'll assume A: for this example.)
5) At the # prompt, type the following:
# mkdir /mnt
# mount -t pcfs /dev/fd0 /mnt
# cp /mnt/mread /tmp
# umount /mnt
You should now have a copy of mread in your /tmp directory.
6) You now have to pick a directory in which to load the bin_tgz.??
files. Assume this directory is called /foo/distrib. If /foo/distrib
doesn't exist, create it. Then do the following:
# cd /foo/distrib
# set_tmp_dir (press ENTER when prompted)
[place first of 11 bin_tgz.?? floppies in your A drive]
# /tmp/mread A:*.*
This should read the contents of the first floppy into the /foo/distrib
directory. You'll see each file being copied as it goes. When it's finished,
remove the first floppy and put in the next one, then type "mread A:*.*"
again. Repeat until you're out of floppies. :)
At this point, you should be able to type "extract bin" and watch as
the binary distribution is unpacked and installed.
Be advised that the whole /tmp directory will be flushed the next time
you reboot, so copy the mread binary somewhere else if you want to save
it. The mtools package in general has a few shortcomings, but mread
itself can be useful in this situation.
The only probme now is that even if you get FreeBSD properly installed,
you still won't be able to mount those floppies until you reformat them.
So it's largely a question of whether you want to do it now ir put it
off until later. :)
Hope this helpos.
-Bill Paul
wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu
PS: If, upon rebooting, you see the message "panic: init died" then
chances are your bin_tgz.?? files are corrupt and need to be
re-copied. I'm telling you this because I've seen many people
ask about this problem in this group before, and I don't want to
have to add you to the list. :)
--
-Bill Paul
wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu