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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!cam.news.pipex.net!pipex!edi.news.pipex.net!pipex!demon!jraynard.demon.co.uk!jraynard.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail From: james@jraynard.demon.co.uk (James Raynard) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Installation Problems : 2.0.5-RELEASE Date: 2 Jul 1995 00:29:19 -0000 Organization: A Private FreeBSD Box Lines: 61 Message-ID: <3t4p8v$lq@jraynard.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.jraynard.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: jraynard.demon.co.uk I have experienced some problms in upgrading from 2.0 to 2.0.5 and would be grateful for any help or comments. The machine is a Dell 433/L with a Phoenix 1.10 A12 BIOS and a Conner 420MB hard disk. The main problem is that the Conner is detacted as a 340MB during bootup and there doesn't seem to be any way to get 2.0.5 to change its mind! I had the same problem with 2.0, but easily got around it by making the partitions with linux's fdisk (or for FreeBSD purists, doing a minimal install, editing the disklabel from the command line and re-installing). Unfortunately, neither of these work with 2.0.5. Trying to change it in the installation partition editor has never worked for me - the correct number of cylinders is displayed when I enter it, but the old one is still used in calculations! With 2.0.5, some error messages appear at the end of the boot sequence when I try these kludges, but are obliterated by the initial menu before I can read them, and do not appear on the debug screen. They are apparently something to do with chunks, whatever those are. I have soldiered on regardless and completed the installation on the part of the disk I can use. It's very nice - congratulations to all - but it would be so much nicer if I could use all my disk, not just 80% of it! 8-) There were a few other irritations in the installation procedure, though not quite as serious as the one above:- 1. Disklabel editor hung when I did an "undo". Everything was ignored except ^C. 2. Timezone. After setting up my timezone for local time, Europe, Great Britain (excluding N. Ireland) I was asked, at 6.16pm, "does 05:15:10 5.0.96 GMT look reasonable" ?!! The only alternative I was given was to choose a different part of the UK to live in!! 3. In the menu to choose the location of the boot code, the only option that can be selected is the boot manager. Two others are shown, and the highlight can be moved to them, but the selection star doesn't change. This is particularly annoying as I selected the "use whole disk" option in the partition editor. 4. When rebooting at the end, the "syncing disks... done" message comes up but the system doesn't reboot. This can only be achieved by switching to vty0 then back to vty1 and pressing a key. As the user has already been asked to confirm the reboot, why not reboot straightaway? BTW I used floppies to install, if that makes any difference (don't laugh - I have a standalone computer, the CD isn't available here yet and the price of local phone calls has just gone up by 15%, so the only sensible way to do it is to download it at work onto floppies). This isn't meant to be a flame - I'm a big fan of FreeBSD and have a lot of respect and admiration for the people who work on it, but it's so ^%$%$@^%$ frustrating when you can't get something to work as well as you know it's capable of. Cheers, James -- Segmentation fault (core dumped): cannot find file '.signature'