FreeBSD Installation Problems

[John Murphy]

"Sukhbinder Singh" <sukhbinders at hotmail.com> wrote:

>     First, I made the 2 image floppy disk for the 2 image files by
>downloading them from ftp.freebsd.org. These 2 files are kern.flp and
>msfroot.flp. I also downloaded and made an image disk for drvivers.flp just
>to download the drivers at the installation process.

Sounds like you are trying to install the 5.0 version.  I would advise
anyone who is fairly new to FreeBSD to try 4.7 instead.  You would need
to obtain the 4.7 images for kern.flp and mfsroot.flp.  There is no 
driver.flp for 4.7.

<snip>

>I have 2 MB of my hard disk space devoted to FreeBSD.

2MB isn't enough! I presume you meant 2GB :)

<snip (all ok so far)>

>Then in the next screen I get another window
>with a request message like "Do you want to try DHCP configuration at the
>Interface ? Yes No ". I selected No and proceeded to the next level of the
>installation process. In this next level, I get a big screen called the
>"Network Configuration" window to proceed with my ftp. I think or suspect
>this is where the problem is.  This window has 7 fields which it requires me
>to enter. These 7 fields are host, domain, ipv4 gateway, name server, IPv4
>address netmask :, extra option to ifconfig. I do not know any information
>regarding any of the fields. If I leave all of these fields empty, the
>installation program prompts me with an error message like "must specify a
>host name of some sort !"  Then I just entered a host name for the host,
>like foo.com and pressed enter to proceed all the way through the 7 fields
>to the OK button.

You definitely need some more entries there.  Choose something that you
would not find on the net for domain.  I use the rather boring my.domain
and the hostname can be any word you like.

You must insert a valid IP in the Name Server (DNS) field.  If you usually
use Microsoft Windows to connect to your ISP, you should be able to see
the Name Server address by using winipcfg while connected.  Or you may be
able to find this from your ISP's www help pages, or contact their Tech.
Support as a last resort.

Without a Name Server the installation won't be able to convert a name
like ftp.freebsd.org into a number (62.243.72.50).  And therefore will
not be able to connect.

It would probably help to put an entry in the interface netmask field.
255.255.255.0 should be ok.

<more snippage>

>It fails to download freebsd automatically from the freebsd ftp site like
>it should. Any help will be helpful.

I hope this is helpful.

Good luck.
John.