Getting FreeBSD Installed

Ok, another epidsode with the old pc. I have Mandrake installed on it now... not the newest version... i think it's 9.0? Anyway, with Mandrake's business an uncertainty, and me always wanting the newest stuff, I need a change of OS.

Call me stupid, but i can't find ISO images on Red Hat's Site...

SUSE doesn't let you download the newest version right?

So, onto FreeBSD.
So far so good, easy to find ISOs, good instructions on which ones to download, burning went flawlessly.

But, the pc won't boot from cd, even when i change the start up options in the BIOS. So, i make the recommended boot floppies. When i instert the first floppy (kern.flp) everything goes smoothly and then it askes me for the other disk (mfsroot.flp). It put a screen of text on my moniter and then stops... nothing seemed to be doing anything... the floppy wasn't clicking, the cd wasn't spinning...

Is there a way inside mandrake to force it to boot from a cd? Or, should i delete mandrake/format? If so, could you tell me how to do that... i'm a *NIX newbi :(

~SonicDragon

Ok, another epidsode with the old pc. I have Mandrake installed on it now... not the newest version... i think it's 9.0? Anyway, with Mandrake's business an uncertainty, and me always wanting the newest stuff, I need a change of OS.

Call me stupid, but i can't find ISO images on Red Hat's Site...

SUSE doesn't let you download the newest version right?

So, onto FreeBSD.
So far so good, easy to find ISOs, good instructions on which ones to download, burning went flawlessly.

But, the pc won't boot from cd, even when i change the start up options in the BIOS. So, i make the recommended boot floppies. When i instert the first floppy (kern.flp) everything goes smoothly and then it askes me for the other disk (mfsroot.flp). It put a screen of text on my moniter and then stops... nothing seemed to be doing anything... the floppy wasn't clicking, the cd wasn't spinning...

Is there a way inside mandrake to force it to boot from a cd? Or, should i delete mandrake/format? If so, could you tell me how to do that... i'm a *NIX newbi :(

~SonicDragon

To download RH isos and get a large selection of other distros (including bsd) go to:

www.linuxiso.org

To download RH isos and get a large selection of other distros (including bsd) go to:

www.linuxiso.org

I've never installed from floopies, I paid like 9.00 USD for the four CD set of the newest stable version, and will continue to, but I notice during everytime that I've installed it (compulsive reformater here, heh), the install will seem to stall for awhile on certain pieces of hardware, for me it was my HDD, SCSI went pretty quick but the ATI's sat for a long time before the installation continued. . .wish I could help you more, maybe just reformatting everything like you suggested will work, but I would have to recommend getting the CD's, can't beat ten buck for 7,000+ apps and a kick butt OS. . .

~edit.. .to reformat, you should be able to do that with the Mandrake install disks and then just stop the installation process after you're done reformatting, otherwise put fdisk on a floppy and do it that way.

I've never installed from floopies, I paid like 9.00 USD for the four CD set of the newest stable version, and will continue to, but I notice during everytime that I've installed it (compulsive reformater here, heh), the install will seem to stall for awhile on certain pieces of hardware, for me it was my HDD, SCSI went pretty quick but the ATI's sat for a long time before the installation continued. . .wish I could help you more, maybe just reformatting everything like you suggested will work, but I would have to recommend getting the CD's, can't beat ten buck for 7,000+ apps and a kick butt OS. . .

~edit.. .to reformat, you should be able to do that with the Mandrake install disks and then just stop the installation process after you're done reformatting, otherwise put fdisk on a floppy and do it that way.

Its good to see that you paid for it, i payed for my "The Complete Free BSD" HUGE book and 4 system CDs and 6 CDs of tools, very nice i think, so yea maybe 10 dollars to buy it is a good idea. i bought my first version but i downloaded 4.7 and put the ISOs on CD from my Linux box and tested them to be sure they worked, i could boot from them fnie, you may wanna subscribe to Free BSD newbies the newsletter, alot of people seem to have a problem making ISOs work and so you may wanna give that one a try, maybe they were burned wrong or something. Anyway, good luck.

Its good to see that you paid for it, i payed for my "The Complete Free BSD" HUGE book and 4 system CDs and 6 CDs of tools, very nice i think, so yea maybe 10 dollars to buy it is a good idea. i bought my first version but i downloaded 4.7 and put the ISOs on CD from my Linux box and tested them to be sure they worked, i could boot from them fnie, you may wanna subscribe to Free BSD newbies the newsletter, alot of people seem to have a problem making ISOs work and so you may wanna give that one a try, maybe they were burned wrong or something. Anyway, good luck.

you might want to try remaking the cd if you used the "track at once" option. try the "disk at once" for EZ cd creator. if you want to boot from cd

the instructions for cd install using floppies is in the floppies directory called readme.txt:

For a normal CDROM or network installation, all you need to copy onto
actual floppies from the floppies/ directory are the kern.flp and
mfsroot.flp images (for 1.44MB floppies)...

you might want to try remaking the cd if you used the "track at once" option. try the "disk at once" for EZ cd creator. if you want to boot from cd

the instructions for cd install using floppies is in the floppies directory called readme.txt:

For a normal CDROM or network installation, all you need to copy onto
actual floppies from the floppies/ directory are the kern.flp and
mfsroot.flp images (for 1.44MB floppies)...

Quote:

---

When i instert the first floppy (kern.flp) everything goes smoothly and then it askes me for the other disk (mfsroot.flp)

---

How do you make your boot floppy disks? are you creating from a DOS or Windows system? or from other *nix?.In most cases you will need two files,"kern.flp and mfsroot.flp", but check README.TXT in the same directory to be sure.
From DOS/Windows :
D:\TOOLS\FDIMAGE.EXE
D:\FLOPPIES\BOOT.FLP
D:\FLOPPIES\MFSROOT.FLP
Assume that drive letter D is your CD-ROM drive.
Or you can do this D:\> tools\fdimage floppies\kern.flp A:
Repeat this command for each .flp file.

For other *nix use this :
#dd if=mfsroot.flp of=/dev/rfd0<<<This is device for freebsd and your device will be different depends on what Version *nix you have (I haven't check for mandrake)

Quote:

---

It put a screen of text on my moniter and then stops...

---

Can you explain it about text?

Quote:

---

When i instert the first floppy (kern.flp) everything goes smoothly and then it askes me for the other disk (mfsroot.flp)

---

How do you make your boot floppy disks? are you creating from a DOS or Windows system? or from other *nix?.In most cases you will need two files,"kern.flp and mfsroot.flp", but check README.TXT in the same directory to be sure.
From DOS/Windows :
D:\TOOLS\FDIMAGE.EXE
D:\FLOPPIES\BOOT.FLP
D:\FLOPPIES\MFSROOT.FLP
Assume that drive letter D is your CD-ROM drive.
Or you can do this D:\> tools\fdimage floppies\kern.flp A:
Repeat this command for each .flp file.

For other *nix use this :
#dd if=mfsroot.flp of=/dev/rfd0<<<This is device for freebsd and your device will be different depends on what Version *nix you have (I haven't check for mandrake)

Quote:

---

It put a screen of text on my moniter and then stops...

---

Can you explain it about text?

I read the readme.txt already and i already put krn.flp and mfsroot.flp on the flopies. I stuck them in, one worked and finished and then asked for the other disk. The other put on a screen of text and then stopped doing anything.

I did have the track at one option on. I am going to burn with the disk at once option as soon as i finish this message.

I'll let you all know what happend. THanks!

Can someone elaborate on how to put fdisk on a floppy/format mandrake

Thanks soooo much!
~SonicDragon

O, and as a side note, which do you all like better? BSD or Linux?

Thanks again!

BTW, i did use the fdimage.exe to create the floppies. Sorry i left that out :(

I read the readme.txt already and i already put krn.flp and mfsroot.flp on the flopies. I stuck them in, one worked and finished and then asked for the other disk. The other put on a screen of text and then stopped doing anything.

I did have the track at one option on. I am going to burn with the disk at once option as soon as i finish this message.

I'll let you all know what happend. THanks!

Can someone elaborate on how to put fdisk on a floppy/format mandrake

Thanks soooo much!
~SonicDragon

O, and as a side note, which do you all like better? BSD or Linux?

Thanks again!

BTW, i did use the fdimage.exe to create the floppies. Sorry i left that out :(

Fdisk, dowload at http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/ and copy it onto a disk. . .I like BSD better, I like the ports and package set up, I like different Linux distro's too, FreeBSD just seems more intuitive to me. . .

Fdisk, dowload at http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/ and copy it onto a disk. . .I like BSD better, I like the ports and package set up, I like different Linux distro's too, FreeBSD just seems more intuitive to me. . .

Well, i tried the different way of burning, and it didn't help :(

I downloaded the fdisk zip, unzipped it and put all the contents in a floppy and it said i couln't boot from the disk.... do i need to use the fdimage program for this too? :confused:

Man...this just won't work.. and now i can't even get rid of the old mandrake :mad:

Thanks for all your advice.
~SonicDragon

Well, i tried the different way of burning, and it didn't help :(

I downloaded the fdisk zip, unzipped it and put all the contents in a floppy and it said i couln't boot from the disk.... do i need to use the fdimage program for this too? :confused:

Man...this just won't work.. and now i can't even get rid of the old mandrake :mad:

Thanks for all your advice.
~SonicDragon

Oh yeah, sorry, you don't have any kind of windows on the machine do you?? Try the other method using your Mandrake install disks, when you get to the part where you choose the partition to use, use the disk tool that comes with Mandrake, I don't remeber what it's called, disk druid or whatever it is. . .just reformat w/ one big partition, if all you want on it is BSD, exit the install once the formatting is complete, and then try the install on FreeBSD again.

Or if you've ever used windows, and have an old boot disk lying around, or can borrow one, they all have a copy of fdisk on it w/ the neccessay files that'll run like command.com etc. . .

Oh yeah, sorry, you don't have any kind of windows on the machine do you?? Try the other method using your Mandrake install disks, when you get to the part where you choose the partition to use, use the disk tool that comes with Mandrake, I don't remeber what it's called, disk druid or whatever it is. . .just reformat w/ one big partition, if all you want on it is BSD, exit the install once the formatting is complete, and then try the install on FreeBSD again.

Or if you've ever used windows, and have an old boot disk lying around, or can borrow one, they all have a copy of fdisk on it w/ the neccessay files that'll run like command.com etc. . .

A while back i tried to install the new version of Mandrake... those disks didn't work either, but i never thought of using the old ones!

Thanks
~SonicDragon

A while back i tried to install the new version of Mandrake... those disks didn't work either, but i never thought of using the old ones!

Thanks
~SonicDragon

SonicDragon, did u check the MD5 checksum's? coz if you downloaded them wrong (ASCII or Binary(I think)) then it would mess up....

SonicDragon, did u check the MD5 checksum's? coz if you downloaded them wrong (ASCII or Binary(I think)) then it would mess up....