FreeBSD 5.0 will not boot

[Greg Panula]

Jd wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone, I released turned to FreeBSD simply because I am
> discouraged with windows and there security scheme (did you guys see the
> document microsoft wrote about how to stop windows from sending out info
> about your computer onto the net? it's freaking 250 pages, and that
> doesn't cover all the xtra exploits that can come in your computer).
> Anyways, I recently tried 4.8 rc2, and it worked like a charm.  So I
> wanted to try 5.0...that was a problem.
> 
> Unfortunately, 5.0 won't boot for me.  I go through the installation
> procedure without a glitch.  But then, when comes first boot, after the
> initial message (when you have a 10 second delay and you push enter) all
> I get is hex being dumped to my screen, and alot of it.  Now I think I
> read somewhere that FreeBSD5.0 now comes with a splash screen when it
> boots.  I have a geforce ti4200.  To make X work (under 4.8) I needed to
> get the nvidia drivers, would this affect anything?  If so, how do I get
> to install those drivers before I can get a first boot?  (I tried
> booting from the cd, and getting a shell, but I can't even 'ls' from
> that shell)
> 

If it hurts when you do that, don't do that. :)

Just run 4.8, 5.0 is still "beta" code.

If you're still interested in trying 5.0... first see if you can get it
run without X windows.  Instead of pressing the enter key, press the any
key to get a boot prompt and then type 'boot -s' to boot into single
user mode.  If you can boot into single user mode, then you know the OS
can boot.  And problem is most likely with getting X to run.  Don't know
how to really explain how to trouble-shoot X windows problems.  But you
might want to try using the stock nvidia driver or the stock vga driver
that comes with X before attempting to using the drivers provided by
nvidia(not sure those work with 5.0 anyways).

Comment out the line in /etc/ttys that contains "xdm -nodaemon" to keep
freebsd from starting X windows at boot-up.  Make sure at least ttyv0 is
uncommented, so you'll get a console prompt.

But since you're new to freebsd, I suggest sticking with 4.8 and getting
a feel for it.  This will give you a stable platform to learn with and
an idea of how to trouble-shoot problems.

Good luck,
  greg