Mac mini and FreeBSD

[Garance A Drosihn]

At 5:29 PM -0500 1/21/05, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
>At 1:15 PM -0800 1/21/05, Joaquin Menchaca wrote:
>>What do people thinking about the Mac mini 
>>(http://www.modyourmac.com/minipics/) and FreeBSD?  This little
>>computer is just so so tempting. :-)
>>
>>Think there should be any issues?
>
>In a reply to one of my recent messages, Peter said:
>
>     I'd say there's a very good chance [that FreeBSD/PPC will work on
>     the Mac-mini]. My guess is that it's Powerbook-style internals,
>     i.e. the Intrepid ASIC:  [...url...]
>
>     And there shouldn't be any issues with that.
>
>I can use a Mac-mini for other purposes if it does not work out with
>FreeBSD/PPC, so I'm going to try to get up early tomorrow to see if
>I can get to the local Apple Store early enough to pick one up.  If I
>succeed at that, I'll let people on this list know how well I make
>out with FreeBSD/PPC on it.

Close, very close!

I repartitioned my disk (using the Apple Disk Utility), leaving one
partition for FreeBSD, and one for FreeBSD-swap.  I booted up the
most-recent FreeBSD/PPC install CD (by holding down the 'C' key while
rebooting), and it works fine.  I get all the way to where I should
select installation media.  I select "Install from a FreeBSD CD/DVD",
and it says...

        No CD/DVD devices found!

(even though it's running off of it!)

I don't know what would be the best way to work around that, but I
have to head for home right about now.  (We're about to get hit with
a major blizzard, according to the weather reports).  Should I copy
some of the files off the install-cd to one of my other freebsd boxes,
and then point to that as an "ftp site" for install?  I tried to say
"use an existing filesystem", but that didn't get very far.

I can use option-F1, option-F2, and option-F4 to switch between console
screens, so I really have this feeling that "I'm almost there!".  :-)

Stupid blizzards...

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn            =   gad at gilead.netel.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer           or  gad at freebsd.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute    or  drosih at rpi.edu