From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Oct 8 15:21:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA05531 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:21:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gdi.uoregon.edu (gdi.uoregon.edu [128.223.170.30]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA05515 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:21:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (dwhite@localhost) by gdi.uoregon.edu (8.7.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA02322; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:21:27 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:21:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug White Reply-To: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu To: d b dews cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: 30 day Installment Plan In-Reply-To: <32595FA8.220A@camel.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, d b dews wrote: > This marks my thirtieth day attempting a successful install of BSD and > here's a couple lessons learned for other newbies: Ack. :-/ > 1. Don't try using an old machine to save money. BSD don't like old > hardware. Certain old hardware. :-) > 2. Don't try using fips.exe to create a BSD partition on an existing > DOS/NT disk on a new machine to save money. The install gobbles up the > boot sector and you'll have to fdisk it out, reformat, and re-do all the > DOS and NT stuff. Huh? That's not right, unless your partition table was corrupted OR you didn't have any free slots on the table. I don't know just what NT does, if it really musses up FAT disks or not. > Finally, after I forewent it all and got BSD installed (on a new machine > by itself), it says my 3com 3c5098 network card has a 10Base2 adapter > for the lo0 (gets the ep0 right as a 10BaseT) so that $1800 adapter and > the $400/month dedicated ISDN line are just overpriced night lights. This is a case where you need to use the -link2 option on ifconfig to point FreeBSD in the right direction. Although it should autodetect it if there is something plugged into the 10baseT slot. > Windows NT marched out without a hitch on the same machine. I even have > a DOS tcp-ip stack (with packet driver) that runs beautifully on it. Well, those are operating systems that know what to expect. FreeBSD expects perfection, which is completely unobtainable on the PC architecture. No one follows standards. > But from what I can tell this BSD will be incredible when and if I can > get by all these little problems. I think I've got them all nailed for you. FIPS, well, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I've found it's better to bite the bullet and buy the disk, that way you don't have to mess up your existing FS and makes setting up the disk easier (just tell the installer to use the whole disk). Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major