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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!nic.csu.net!vax.sonoma.edu!levinson Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 386BSD - what a pain to install! Message-ID: <1992Sep22.175431.1@vax.sonoma.edu> From: levinson@vax.sonoma.edu Date: 22 Sep 92 17:54:31 -0800 References: <1992Sep22.225256.25660@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> Organization: Sonoma State University Nntp-Posting-Host: vax.sonoma.edu Lines: 76 In article <1992Sep22.225256.25660@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au>, rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Kendall Bennett) writes: > I have a small gripe about 386BSD, and trying to get the thing installed, > in a way that suits my system. Everything works ok if you want to simply > use the straight install program to get things going, but this does not > set up partitions on your disk, so you dont have a swap partition. > > I decided that I wanted to try installing with a number of partitions > (small root partition, swap partition and large /usr partition), > following the info in the FAQ. Problem is, I am not an experienced > UNIX sys admin person. Nor are the other hundreds and thousands of > DOS and OS/2 users out there who might want to start using 386BSD. I agree with you 100%. I got it installed also, and noticed about 6 MB free and I did partition it, but someone told me not to. > > The first problem that I came across was figuring out how to set up > a disklabel for my hard disk, with partioning. The documentation for > this is hard to follow and I made the error of specifying that my > IDE drive supports bad144 mapping - OOOHHH, what a mistake! When I > tried to newfs the partitions (now, the first time I did not newfs > the raw partitions, but the normal one like /dev/wd0a which could have > been a problem also I dont know), things hung up on me and I could not > get the system to boot at all, nor could I change the disklabel as the > system thought that the bad sector table was corrupt! Many long hours > were spent fixing this... > > The second problem is with trying to newfs the system - do I newfs the > raw disks or the normal disks? > > The solution to this is more helpful utilities - an interactive version > of disklabel similar to fdisk that WONT let you do stupid things that > could severly corrupt your system. Probably also a good install > system. > > Before people flame me, I intend to do something about this. I have > run across so many problems getting 386BSD installed properly, that > I am sure lots of other MSDOS or OS/2 users out there would run into > them as well. To this end I hope to put together some more informative > installation documentation for the non-Unix neophites (I have been > using UNIX systems for 3 years, but have never done any sys admin stuff), > and work on some better installation utilities. If anyone has any > comments or suggestions about this, please mail me... I am also contemplating getting a tape backup system, and a larger hard disk, however I do not want to get these unless I know they will work. > > +------------------------------------------+-------------------------------+ > | Kendall Bennett, | Internet: | > | Advanced Computer Graphics Centre, | kjb@godzilla.cgl.citri.edu.au | > | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, | rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au | > | Victoria, AUSTRALIA. | | > +------------------------------------------+-------------------------------+ > | CoSysop (Bossman), PC Connection Australia: +61 3 688 0909 | > +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- Eric Levinson rcisnet2!root@moon.nbn.com | Home computer (UUCP) levinson@vax.sonoma.edu | Vax levinson@zippy.sonoma.edu | Sun System Eric Levi | Pc Link, America Online JWPP04A | Prodigy Department of Computer Science Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA I can also be reached on my BBS system, Color Galaxy Milky Way at (415) 883-0696 3/12/24 bps Press <ENTER> a few times after connect