confused new customer
norseman
norseman at firstlight.net
Thu Jun 16 17:31:57 GMT 2005
To: FreeBSD et al
I don't think this qualifies as a bug, but...
Yesterday (well... now it's last week) I received a copy of FreeBSD
5.4 in a 4-CD box along with the the usual invoice. The surprise was I
hadn't ordered it in many a year. All the information in the invoice
was correct and up to date. I don't know how this happened but IT IS OK,
at least this time! Tell you what - I'll keep the FreeBSD 5.4 CD set
and you keep the money my credit card company will send you. That should
make us both very happy. :)
Obviously the above paragraph means I am a true novice with
FreeBSD. As such I have run into a snag. I've been using Slackware since
its first CD came out. I have a disk partitioned as follows:
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 255 2048256 6 FAT16
/dev/hda2 * 256 1275 8193150 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda3 1276 7296 48363682+ 85 Linux extended
/dev/hda5 1276 1403 1028128+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 1404 2168 6144831 83 Linux native
/dev/hda7 2169 3698 12289693+ 83 Linux native
/dev/hda8 3699 7296 28900903+ 83 Linux native
Command (m for help):
The idea was to use /dev/hda7 for FreeBSD, but FreeBSD seems to
have a problem with this disk. It will not acknowledge /dev/hda3 and
beyond.
I looked into the Doc section of FreeBSD's website and found the
pertinent parts rather out of date. (No offense meant - the cry for help
with the Docs/man is right there on the home page.) This does present
the problem of what to do next. Slackware's fdisk has been quite happy
dealing with all the formats below. At least all I've had occasion to
use. (some are: DOS 1,4,6; Win 7,b,c,f; CP/M 52; Linux 82,83,85.) Yes -
some need modules to work, but at least the fdisk provides the clues as
to which. One gets used to something and forgets the whole world is not
the same. The initial assumption was that FreeBSD had the same tables
(abilities).
0 Empty 1b Hidden Win95 FA 64 Novell Netware bb Boot Wizard hid
1 FAT12 1c Hidden Win95 FA 65 Novell Netware c1 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
2 XENIX root 1e Hidden Win95 FA 70 DiskSecure Mult c4 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
3 XENIX usr 24 NEC DOS 75 PC/IX c6 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
4 FAT16 <32M 39 Plan 9 80 Old Minix c7 Syrinx
5 Extended 3c PartitionMagic 81 Minix / old Lin da Non-FS data
6 FAT16 40 Venix 80286 82 Linux swap db CP/M / CTOS / .
7 HPFS/NTFS 41 PPC PReP Boot 83 Linux native de Dell Utility
8 AIX 42 SFS 84 OS/2 hidden C: df BootIt
9 AIX bootable 4d QNX4.x 85 Linux extended e1 DOS access
a OS/2 Boot Manag 4e QNX4.x 2nd part 86 NTFS volume set e3 DOS R/O
b Win95 FAT32 4f QNX4.x 3rd part 87 NTFS volume set e4 SpeedStor
c Win95 FAT32 (LB 50 OnTrack DM 8e Linux LVM eb BeOS fs
e Win95 FAT16 (LB 51 OnTrack DM6 Aux 93 Amoeba ee EFI GPT
f Win95 Ext'd (LB 52 CP/M 94 Amoeba BBT ef EFI (FAT-12/16/
10 OPUS 53 OnTrack DM6 Aux 9f BSD/OS f1 SpeedStor
11 Hidden FAT12 54 OnTrackDM6 a0 IBM Thinkpad hi f4 SpeedStor
12 Compaq diagnost 55 EZ-Drive a5 BSD/386 f2 DOS secondary
14 Hidden FAT16 <3 56 Golden Bow a6 OpenBSD fd Linux raid auto
16 Hidden FAT16 5c Priam Edisk a7 NeXTSTEP fe LANstep
17 Hidden HPFS/NTF 61 SpeedStor b7 BSDI fs ff BBT
18 AST SmartSleep 63 GNU HURD or Sys b8 BSDI swap
Command (m for help):
OK - First: any suggestions on adding FreeBSD to the existing
system (which is a laptop)?
Second: In reading the helps on the website I find my own
experiences differ in the style of having a disk share it's space among
multiple OSs. My procedure for creating the above layout was as follows:
Mandatory: MSDOS 1st & <=2Gig; Windows 2nd; Linux/UNIX 3rd
Mandatory: Boot flag left with Windows after LILO is run.
Boot CD
Use fdisk to setup the partitions I want and set the partition IDs
(6 for DOS; 83 for Linux, etc.)
Set boot flag on MSDOS partition
Put in a floppy and boot MSDOS; format C: /u/s
copy over boot floppy contents if special drivers were used.
correct drive letters in AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.
remove floppy
Reboot and validate all is working (except for my typos it always does)
Once drive is up I (may) restore contents from backup media
Put the Win-95/98 CD in and run it's install from MSDOS
or
Boot CD and move bootable flag to Win Partition and reboot,
Booting the bootable Win-whatever CD (I'm running WIN-XP PRO)
install windows in win partition while telling it to ignore all disk
zones that are not MSDOS or WIN-whatever
Reboot numerous times (MicroSoft mandatory)
Remove CD and reboot once more and check it's working (always is)
Insert Slackware Disk#2 and boot it and login as root
Format as swap the swap section and as Linux the Linux sections
Mount partition and copy the live section from CD to partition that
will be base (/) and correct the /etc/fstab to reflect disk layout,
correct /etc/lilo.conf to desired flags and boot order
Reboot with CD still in
Use the manual boot method (shown on screen) to boot the harddrive,
and login as root
Remove CD and run LILO
Reboot Linux from BIOS/LILO (ie. boot from harddrive) and login as root
Finish configuring Linux (PATH, HOME, groups, passwords, network, X11,
etc.. I just copy in the backups I had made and tweak.)
Reboot and check things out
(Fix whatever you forgot last time and restart at line above)
Restore the Win-whatever you had on backup (overload), same for MSDOS
if you haven't already.
Boot each OS in turn and verify all is OK.
(Always is.) Now to "update" Linux to the extra programs you use.
Install/recompile'n'install all those extra goodies you use.
You are up'n'running! Usually takes me 1 to 4 hours most of which is
disk format time plus overload plus recompile/reinstall time.
(NOTE: As of 2004:
The Linux crowd is starting to give Gates a GOOD name! Linux is
becomming problamatic. Some of your "goodies" may not coimpile
any more or may now be broken. It can take several weeks to check
all the toys for correctness and to dry the crying towel.
(All those lost goodies! DOSEMU,WINE,ENLIGHTENMENT to name some.)
New downloads may or may not work. They may be work differently.
)
SO - I tried that approach with FreeBSD and hit a blank wall. The
ads on the jewel case insert note a "live" system. Best I've seen so
far is a type of duplicate of the SUN MicroSystem embedded Forth. Which
isn't an actual "live" system, just a smart BIOS. (No one is going to
network a GIS software package nor even X11R? with just the Forth and a
blank disk.) Again, I'm new to FreeBSD. With Slackware (up thru 7.1) I
don't even need a hard drive present. Just boot the CD and run ifconfig
correctly to get on the net and startx brings up the GUI. Still makes a
great rescue disk. Especially for busted MicroSoft drives.
I guess I've made an assumption that if FreeBSD was installed on
another disk and moved to the partition noted above it might work. The
problem being the setup currently shipping on disk #1 was thought to be
like Slack's. Again - me forgetting that the world is not all the same.
I'm not ready to reconfigure my current drive. Work load does not
permit it at this time. Documentation states FreeBSD recognizes PCMCIA,
but apparently not from it's "live" system? If there is a way to enable
PCMCIA disk support from the booted CD I would like know. I have extra
laptop drives and would love to see the FreeBSD install in action. I
also have USB drives available. But so far DISK#1 doesn't acknowledge
them either. I saw an old doc that states FreeBSD must be on a primary
partition to be used. Since Slackware no longer has this restriction,
nor the 1024 cylinders thing, is it fair to assume FreeBSD is likewise?
Well... I've rambled enough. Any help in merging a working FreeBSD onto
the above disk layout (in /dev/hda7) will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Steve Turner
norseman at firstlight.net
(at work with a minimum of 6 keyboards for me plus trouble shooting
others, my outgoing Email is probably not a returnable address.
Please send to the norseman address.
)
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