Date: Fri, 03 Jan 1997 13:54:46 +0100 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@dimaga.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: 2.2-BETA install fraught with peril? Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970103135444.009c5a70@dimaga.com>
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The following experiences was on a Dell 90Mhz Pentium with 24 MB RAM, 3C509, #9 SVGA card, 2x Quantum IDE drives slaved to each other with the IDE adapter at the motherboard, and an Adaptec 1542CF (BIOS version 2.11) with a Micropolis 1.7GB drive, which I tried to install to. No IRQ or IO area conflicts. The box run Linux (Red Hat 4.0 + upgrades) and Win 3.11 normally, and is quite stable. The install was done with active FTP through a proxy FTP server on a firewall. I encountered the following problems (some my own fault, some either bugs or hardware problems): (1) FreeBSD adjusted the disk geometry (probably due to some stupid "translation" in the BIOS or similar), so I couldn't boot when I was finished installing. I've been bitten by this before, and should be more careful, but I think it would be an idea with a warning. (Ie: Unreasonable disk geometry found - guessing a better geometry - YOU WILL NOW NOT BE ABLE TO BOOT FROM THIS DRIVE) (2) fixit.flp didn't work - I got "disk full" and segmentation fault all the time (until I changed root to my HD, whereupon I ended up with just segmentation faults :) This could be a bad disk in my end; the user I tried to install for is notorious for having lousy floppies. (3) The 3C509 was detected and not detected every second reboot. This card has always worked under Win3.11 and Linux; however, that 1542CF was new to this install. Win3.11 and Linux didn't seem to have any problems with it present (I booted them a couple of times each), but this _might_ be luck. This problem was also present on the 2.1.6 kernel (which I ended up using). (4) For 2.2-BETA, sysinstall died with signal 10 and 11 (sometimes one, sometimes the other), usually after attempting and failing to extract from a media. (5) When attempting to run passive FTP, the system couldn't cope, and I was thrown back to the site-selector - WITH NO ERROR OR WARNING MESSAGE. For a user who had never done this before, it could look as if the install was finished. (And without debug mode, VTY2 gave me little information, too - I found out what was wrong only after enabling debugging information. Otherwise, I got no error messages at all when FTP failed) (6) The documentation of proxy-FTP in the FreeBSD-handbook was quite skimpy, and somewhat misleading. I had to guess for myself that I would have to put ftp@ftp.site.to.fetch.from as username for proxy-FTP to work, and _then_ push the firewall's address into the URL. Better documentation or a separate setup for proxy-FTP might be a good idea. (I know there are more kinds of proxy-FTP servers, but with the extra .3MB it should probably be possible to cater to them all, like WS-FTP does.) (7) For a period, I had a problem with the network card, where I would give all information for configuring it, the card would be configured, default route would be added (if I had a gateway set up), and the installer would hang. The system was still up - I could switch VTYs and it responded to Ctrl-C - but I got no further in the install. The problem went away when I moved the 1542CF BIOS from C8000H to DC000H and dropped into the BIOS of the 1542 at the same time and looked the values over (no changes done). I did both at the same time (stupid me), so I don't know what caused the fix, but assume it was the BIOS (though the drive BIOS had worked before this, too, and believe the network had worked in Win3.11 after I added the drive - but don't quote me on that). (8) When fetching more things by URL, the URL is cleared to ftp:// each time. This also happen when you've already given the box a value. I think that was it. I got it to install (using 2.1.6-floppies instead of 2.2-BETA due to the bus errors/segment violations), and assume I will get it up and running later today (I'll just have to fix the partitioning and copy the data back), so I haven't and problems asa a such, but it would be nice for everybody else to get this fixed (as I now know the quirks, and won't have more trouble :) Eivind Eklund / perhaps@yes.no / http://maybe.yes.no/perhaps/
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