5.0-RELEASE on an 80386 cpu?

Eduardo Viruena Silva mrspock at esfm.ipn.mx
Sat May 17 22:51:01 PDT 2003


On Sun, 18 May 2003, Paul Chvostek wrote:

>
> I have a gateway router that is an Intel 80386 with a Cyrix Automath
> MPU.  The unit is in a slimline (4" high) case and has four ISA Ethernet
> cards for which I don't have configuration software (but do have IRQ and
> such).  The unit is nicely nestled on a shelf with no room to spare and
> only enough cable slack for the case to be opened enough to get at the
> hard disk ... which recently suffered a head crash.
>
> I can't complain -- this box was running 2.2.6 until I upgraded it to
> 4.0-RELEASE, and it's been running 24/7 since then.  (1999 was it?)
>
> But now, I need to install an operating system on a new disk.  Obviously
> it will be alot of (hopefully unnecessary) work to upgrade the hardware,
> but when I boot 5.0-RELEASE floppies, I get a nasty panic after mfsroot
> goes in, finishing up with "BTX halted".

take care, 386 processor is no longer supported by the generic kernel.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/relnotes-i386.html

2.1.1 Processor/Motherboard Support


>
> I'm not sure if this a hardware issue, or perhaps an indication that 386
> compatibility has become a non-issue for most folks.  Is the install
> floppy trying to do something that only became possible in later CPUs?
> If so, will it be possible for me to compile and generate a set of boot
> floppies that are 386-compatible, or is there some alternate install
> process I could follow?  And if not, would my posting the wacky
> collection of register values help someone more clueful help me?

I believe you have to extract that disk, install FreeBSD using a newer
machine, recompile the kernel adding:

	cpu             I386_CPU

and erase any other cpu specification.

But I have never done it and I don't have a 386 to check it out.


>
> Thanks.  ;-)
>
> --
>   Paul Chvostek                                             <paul at it.ca>
>   Operations / Abuse / Whatever
>   it.canada, hosting and development                   http://www.it.ca/
>
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