Install With Serial Console Troubled Using Hyperterminal (FreeBSD 5.2 RC2 I386)

Sabahattin Gucukoglu mail at sabahattin-gucukoglu.com
Wed Jan 7 05:35:54 PST 2004


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Hi people,

I am having real problems installing FreeBSd on a (in practice) headless 
box (which is actually a FIC 5200-CD Birch notebook with the lid closed up 
and sealed forming a nice little box with peripherals showing :-) ) using 
M$ HyperTerminal from Windblows 2000 on an accessible machine with screen 
reader (bit of software that talks, basically).  My intent, as I am 
totally blind and so cannot install FreeBSD directly from keyboard and 
screen on the laptop, was to get an install full enough done over the 
serial console that would include means that would allow me to get remote 
access to the box over the network (TelnetD/SSHD, etc) from the Windows 
machine, from whence the full power of FreeBSD could (hopefully) be 
enjoyed (this is to act as my services box), perhaps by installing 
screen/BRLTTY or YASR or other accessibility aid I can free the real 
console.  I had to spend money on a network card (PCMCIA) so Linux would 
work, but my old card is listed as working with FreeBSD (and it certainly 
doesn't work with Linux), plus FreeBSD is just more "Me" anyway and better 
for the job ... so I'd *really* like to run it.

Trouble is, if I follow these steps:

1.  Set up HyperTerminal, Com1 at 9600, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop 
bit, no hardware control.

2.  Put kern.flp from FreeBSD 5.2 RC2 in floppy drive.  Boot up until I 
hear the initial bootstrap start (what gets displayed there, BTW, and what 
is this prompt asking me for?  What is this bootstrap, the bootloader?), 
then type "-h" and press enter.

3.  Listen to a whole lot of messages come from the console running 
Hyperterminal.  Insert mfsroot, press enter on terminal, as expected it 
goes on.

4.  Type "1" for ANSI, press enter.  Least graphics/7-bit ASCII which is 
great.  Only thing I can't see is highlighting, but that's alright because 
initial letters work in menus.

5.  Press N, gets me the main menu.

Now, as soon as I press down arrow cursor, the "Do you really want to 
exit" dialog pops up.  This stopped becoming a problem when "Standard Jis" 
was selected as input from terminal input translation, but it doesn't look 
like the cursor keys are behaving.  Also in the usage and keymap 
selections, I couldn't use cursors or pageup/down, nothing seemed to move. 
 I don't believe my cursors are working at all, or properly.  I've tried a 
multitude of combinations of terminal types from the initial selection 
(the 1-5 prompt), and selections in Hyperterminal to match.  Nothing. :-(

I'll try testing this on earlier versions, going back to 4.9, where I have 
a nasty suspicion from what I've read somewhere that it will, in fact, 
work there.  It does without saying though that I would like to use the 
5.2 release, because of its nice features (for me the notable GCC 3, for 
starters).

Can *anyone* who might have *any* answer (apart from RTFM), please let me 
know?  (I'm not on list, so if you could CC me when you reply to list or 
vice versa - thanks)

Your help much appreciated!

Cheers,
Sabahattin
- -- 
Thought for the day:
    Intuition (n): an uncanny sixth sense which tells people 
    that they are right, whether they are or not.

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Sabahattin Gucukoglu
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