Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 02:12:28 -0400 (EDT) From: CyberPeasant <djv@bedford.net> To: benjamin@dante.saar.de (Benjamin Gerfelder) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: how to install without /stand/sysinstall Message-ID: <199805230612.CAA23363@lucy.bedford.net> In-Reply-To: <199805220905.LAA13485@dante.saar.de> from Benjamin Gerfelder at "May 22, 98 11:05:22 am"
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Benjamin Gerfelder wrote:
> hi there,
> I have a problem installing FreeBSD on an old 4 Mb 486 Laptop. I'm able to
> boot the Kernel correctly, but when my system tries to start /stand/sysinstall,
> it crashes. Now my question: is there a way to install a minimal working
> system without /stand/sysinstall ?
> Thank you for your time :)
Yeah. It can probably be done. (I'm saying this without trying.
You're a wee bit tight on memory.)
**** Do this, if possible **** The easiest way is to pull the disk
and temporarily install it in a second machine. (Well, gutting a
laptop may not be so easy.) Maybe you can, if lucky, plug the disk
into the controller of the other machine (and the other machine's
power supply!) without too much cutting and welding. If you can do
this, it's really really painless. You may run into a disk geometry
problem if the disk+controller is weird. (IDE's are the potential
problem. SCSI is usually OK).
Or /borrow/ some memory for the machine. 5 mb is probably minimum.
Some laptops use proprietary memory though. If you could get 8MB
in there for a day or two, I will /ALMOST/ guarantee a successful
installation.
I have a spare machine (8 MB 386SX). Maybe we can come up with
something. Does that laptop have ethernet? (Please say "yes"!)
How were you planning on installing? NFS? Ftp? Floppies? [shudder].
Modem? [partial shudder]. The evil scheme I am hatching would
require either a network connection of some kind or two floppy
drives. How much disk do you have?
Note: this weekend is a major US holiday (until Tuesday), so expect
light list traffic. (I'll be around though).
Dave
--
Unix System 7:
an improvement on all other Unix releases, previous and subsequent.
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