Installing FreeBSD on old system?


 
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# 1  
Old 12-16-2003
Installing FreeBSD on old system?

I've never had trouble installing freebsd or any linux/unix system on any computer i've tried to do it on. I just recently aquired a Packard Bell, 75mhz Pentium, 482 i believe. Im having difficulty installing it. I have FreeBSD 5.1 on cd and the computer wont even recognize the cd on boot, so it wont launch the x-install program like it usually does. Is there anyway i can tell this computer to boot from cd?? it is not even an option in the bios settings.

So thinking i could just get a floppy set and install it that way, i made the floppys and succesfully booted in to the x-installer. Well I couldnt get it to even detect the cd in the drive, like my cd-rom wasnt even mounted, and i even tried installing from floppy, and it wouldnt recognize the floppy drive, again like it wasnt mounted. Does anyone have any suggestions?? it would be a great help. Thanks in advance.
# 2  
Old 12-17-2003
Re: Installing FreeBSD on old system?

Quote:
Originally posted by MadProfessor
I've never had trouble installing freebsd or any linux/unix system on any computer i've tried to do it on. I just recently aquired a Packard Bell, 75mhz Pentium, 482 i believe. Im having difficulty installing it. I have FreeBSD 5.1 on cd and the computer wont even recognize the cd on boot, so it wont launch the x-install program like it usually does. Is there anyway i can tell this computer to boot from cd?? it is not even an option in the bios settings.
It sounds like you are running on some seriously out of date hardware.

You can install FreeBSD via FTP if you have a broadband connection. I wouldn't suggest trying with dial-up. Smilie You should be able to install other Linux distribution via FTP as well.

You also might be able to add some boot-up parameters to get support for your CD-Drive. To do this, you will need to crack open your case and get the model number of your CD-Rom drive and controller (if non SCSI/IDE drive) and perform some basic research on the supported hardware for FreeBSD and Linux distributions.

Good Luck!
# 3  
Old 12-25-2003
Have you tried booting from a floppy disk?

I have done it (installing BSD 4.9) from a floppy on old hardware before.

You would need two floppy disks for the task.

The floppies can be obtained from a MsDos terminal, once you have downloaded:

fdimage.exe (program to create the images inside the floppies)
kern.flp (1st disk)
mfsroot.flp (2nd disk)

download from freebsd.org

Bernardo
 
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