Dell PowerEdge1850 Won't Take a Freebsd4.11 Installation.

[Martin McCormick]

Lowell Gilbert writes:
>Well, I'd certainly expect 5.4 or later, with the ATA and RAID
>improvements, to work better, but you're right that it kind of 
>sounds more like the CD is giving you the problems.
>
>Check the emergency shell (alt-F4, I think?) for any messages...

	Thank you very much.  I have downloaded the iso images for 5.4
that I need to get started:

5.4-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso
5.4-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
5.4-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso

and discovered another surprise.  There appears to be no headless
option as in boot -h although I may have missed it.  A google search
turned up a pretty good article on how to make a headless boot.flp
floppy for 5.4.

	Is there any way to make the standard boot CD come up on a
serial port?

	The instructions for making the boot.flp image assume you
already have FreeBSD5.4 installed somewhere which I don't yet have.

	I did see a bootsio file on the bootonly CD so that looks like
a possibility.

	As a computer user who happens to be blind, the ability to do
a cold start from a serial port, preferably from the boot/installation
cd saves lots of time and tinkering.  Most of us are in this business
because we love to tinker, but sometimes there is a job to be done and
the faster it gets done, the better.

	Thanks again.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Information Technology Division Network Operations Group