Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 19:50:13 +0100 (MET) From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de> To: nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams) Cc: FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD current users) Subject: Re: Installation: still not perfect Message-ID: <199612041850.TAA19392@freebie.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <199612041819.LAA10954@rocky.mt.sri.com> from Nate Williams at "Dec 4, 96 11:19:44 am"
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Nate Williams writes:
>> 1. I am doing the installation on a notebook (AcerNote Light, if
>> anybody's interested; 75 MHz Pentium, 24 MB main memory in my
>> config, 528 MB hard disk, 2 PCMCIA slots, in one of which I have a
>> 3Com 3C585C).
>
> This is a *supported* configuration for all recent releases (starting
> with 2.0.5).
Thanks for the correction.
>> 2. This machine doesn't have a CD-ROM, so I had intended to install
>> via the Ethernet board. The boot kernel recognizes the Ethernet
>> board, thinks it initializes it, but nothing comes out.
>
> It may be using the wrong network connector. You may have to tell it to
> use a different connector using the '-link0 link1' OR 'link0 -link1'
> flags.
That's a point. In the meantime, unfortunately, the diagnostics no
longer run, and I can't get the board recognized. They seem to expect
a Microsoft hard disk already installed, and after overwriting the
hard disk, they die with a spurious error message:
Can't Run Install, files missing. Make sure you have INSTALL.EXE, INST1.SAC
and STRINGS.BIN in your directory (-1, 2)
>> This
>> appears to be due to the fact that it doesn't have PCMCIA
>> support. If this is the case, it would be nice (a) for the driver
>> to notice the fact and not pretend that everything's working, and
>> (b) to have a boot diskette which does support notebooks.
>
> The boot disk you have supports the 3Com PCMCIA cards fine, *as long* as
> the driver is configured to use the IRQ/port/IOMEM values stored in the
> card's ROM *AND* the correct network adaptor is selected using the link
> flags.
The values were correct. They don't seem to be any more; now the
probes don't find the board any more, and I can no longer change them,
since the diagnostic is broke.
>> 3. It may be that the Ethernet board is defective. It's difficult to
>> be sure: 3Com have designed what must be a superlative in their
>> line of decreasingly useful diagnostic software. I returned one
>> Ethernet board after the diagnostics said it was bad, but the
>> other one behaves just the same: if I write the config info first,
>> the diag software passes, but if I then stop the program and
>> re-enter, it fails again (can't find the registers). Has anybody
>> else seen this?
>
> Hmm, I haven't seen this. Are you using card-services before you run
> the configuration file.
No. Why should I? I thought that was only for Microsoft users. I
don't have any Microsoft stuff on this machine any more.
>> 4. So, I thought, let's try using lp0 as the interface. Doesn't
>> work: it looks as if the setup scripts aren't expecting a
>> point-to-point connection, and they don't specify the address of
>> the other end of the link, so ifconfig fails. Is there a trick
>> here?
>
> Yep, use the 'additional parameters' portion of the network setup to
> specify the remote address. (This is also necessary for the link
> parameters).
Thanks. I'll note that.
>> 5. OK, let's do a floppy install of the minimum necessary. That
>> doesn't work either, although I stuck to the letter of what the
>> installation scripts say. Looking at the debug output under F2,
>> it shows that it succeeded in mounting the disks (I tried both
>> MS-DOG and ufs formats) on /dist, and then went looking for
>> /dist/bin/bin.tgz and /dist/bin/bin.inf, which it didn't find.
>> There's nothing in any documentation I know about which even
>> mentions these files.
>
> Hmm, unless the documentation has changed, it *specifically* says to
> create the dists directories on the floppies.
Yes, it does, and that's what I did. The first floppy contained
\BIN\BIN.AA through \BIN\BIN.AE.
Another question: I also have another PCMCIA board here, which appears
to be an NE2000 clone. Without PCMCIA, it wasn't recognized. Is
there any chance of getting it to run with the PCMCIA stuff
configured?
Greg
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