Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 13:40:10 -0400 From: Patrick Seal <patseal@hyperhost.net> To: "Bond, Jeffery" <Jeff.Bond@nectech.co.uk> Cc: "'alan17@wizard.net'" <alan17@wizard.net>, "'FreeBSD questions'" <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Disappointment with FreeBSD :-( Message-ID: <19990720134010.A63990@hyperhost.net> In-Reply-To: <DD2AB7991BC6D211988E00A024AC583B83EC76@exchange.nectech.co.uk>; from Bond, Jeffery on Tue, Jul 20, 1999 at 02:58:18PM %2B0100 References: <DD2AB7991BC6D211988E00A024AC583B83EC76@exchange.nectech.co.uk>
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> > -----Original Message----- > > From: alan17@wizard.net [SMTP:alan17@wizard.net] > > Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 1999 2:49 PM > > To: Jeff.Bond@nectech.co.uk > > Subject: Disappointment with FreeBSD :-( > > > > Hi, Jeff, Now I can't even get my mail to questions@freebsd.org! > > > > Could you forward this on please? Thanks, Alan > > > > I am still having problems with booting FreeBSD, despite much > > anguish and trial. > > > > As I previously reported: When I turn on my machine, and enter "bsd" > > at the LILO prompt, BSD certainly seems to be booting. The screen > > messages start with "Loading bsd . . . " and continue on, using a lot > > of terminology that a 'umble Linuxian like meself cannot fathom. But at > > the end of the process, here are the lines that appear on the screen: > > changing root device to wd1s1a > > changing root device to wd1a > > error 6: panic: cannot mount root (2) > > syncing disks . . . done In all the gibberish, what does it say about wd0, wd1, etc. hit Scroll Lock when you get the error and scroll up using the directional arrows. > > > > and then I am offered the chance to reboot. > > > > It seems _extremely_ strange to me that the BSD kernel, installed on > > my secondary IDE master, at the beginning of the 6.3 gig hard drive, > > thinks that its root partition is on the primary master. Indeed I would > > call this a bug in the booting procedure. > > Is FreeBSD all alone on this hard drive? In /var/run/ there should be a file called dmesg.boot. Mail that to me and the list. That file contains all that gibberish output durring boot. It may or may not be there. > > I also find it passing strange that there are AFAIK no boot/root floppy > > pairs for BSD. We've had these in Linux for aeons. > > > > I have just upgraded my Linux kernel to 2.2.10, and I've compiled in > > support for just about every file system that is offered, including > > UFS. And I can, from Linux, mount the first partition(=slice?) of > > my FreeBSD installation, and read/write files there. > > > > So I have two questions: > > > > 1. Can anyone suggest an addendum to my lilo.conf that would enable the > > "stupid" FreeBSD boot procedure to find where the '/' partition is? > > [ Here is the relevant part of my lilo.conf: > > # BSD bootable partition config begins > > other = /dev/hdc1 > > label = bsd > > table = /dev/hdc > > loader = /boot/chain.b > > # BSD bootable partition config ends > > ] > > > > 2. Is there any thing that I can write/delete to, e.g. the stuff in my > > FreeBSD /boot directory that will help the FreeBSD boot properly? I > > can, as stated, read/write in the FreeBSD directories because I can > > mount and read/write the UFS files. > > > > Do the Free BSD developers read this E-list? Has any developer any > > remedy to suggest? > > > > TIA for help! > > > > Continuing to struggle . . > > > > Alan > > > > -- > > Alan McConnell If it can't be abused, it's not freedom. > > Pixel Analysis Do not destroy what you cannot create.(L. Szilard) > > alan17@wizard.net What a giftless bastard! (Tchaikovsky, about Brahms) > Good luck! -- ------------------------------------ _____________________________________ Patrick Seal |"Microsoft isn't evil, they just make <patseal@hyperhost.net> | really crappy operating systems." Hyperhost - http://www.hyperhost.net| -Linus Torvalds To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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