From owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 21 21:32:48 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 676FF16A422 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:32:48 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ulrich@infopuls.com) Received: from igel.cyberlink.ch (igel.cyberlink.ch [62.12.136.3]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 41A3143D46 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:32:43 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ulrich@infopuls.com) Received: (qmail 28308 invoked by uid 600); 21 Jul 2005 21:32:41 -0000 Received: by simscan 1.0.9 ppid: 28305, pid: 28306, t: 0.0031s scanners: regex: 1.0.9 Message-ID: <20050721213241.28305.qmail@igel.cyberlink.ch> From: Ulrich To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 23:32:41 +0200 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: PWS500a (Mitia) first install X-BeenThere: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Ulrich List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the Alpha List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:32:48 -0000 Hi Everybody I'm familiar with x86 based FreeBSD for about 4 years using 4.1 - 4.9 on an Intel box. I bought a used PWS500a with two 2 GB disks attached to an Adaptec2940(UW) SCSI controller and a Toshiba ATAPI CD-ROM drive attached to a second SCSI bus. From the FreeBSD technical documentation I learnt that it isn't possible to boot from SCSI disks attached to an Adaptec controller. Since I'm also familiar with Alphas I know that it isn't that simple to boot them from floppy either. I would be happy if someone could give me some advice what I should buy and how I should proceed to get the box running freebsd 4.11. I thought of buying an IDE disk and removing the 2 small SCSI disks which have Windows/NT 4 installed on them. I already opened the box and detected that there isn't much space left so I doubt whether I find a place where I can put the IDE drive. Would it be possible to prepare boot floppy disks to get the installer up and running and then install from the CD-ROM drive? Or do I have to prepare for a network install which of course assumes that it is possible to prepare boot floppies. I also assume that it should be possible to set up my Intel FreeBSD box to serve bootp requests and to provide the alpha installation files from the FreeBSD alpha distribution cd. Any comments on that? TIA Ulrich