problem installing on i386

[Jerry McAllister]

On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 11:09:05AM +0200, Desmond Coughlan wrote:

> Hi,
>   I hope that I'm not sending this to the wrong list, or that the question hasn't already been answered.
>    
>   I'm trying to install 6.1-RELEASE onto a Pentium-3.
>    
>   I had a lot of trouble creating the diskettes, but after changing the floppy drive, no problem.  Now, when I do the install, I have two hard drives, and configure them as follows...
>    
>   disk0
>   150M / 
>   512M /etc
>   512M /etc
>   512M /var
>   1024M /bin
>   4096M /usr
>   1024M swap
>    
>   disk1
>   4096M /forums
>   4096M /mail
>   4096M /sql
>   1024M swap

I just noticed yet another thing.
You do not have a /tmp partition.
Although it is not essential to have a separate /tmp, it is a good
thing because many thing write to it, often unexpectedly and if it
happens to grow fast, it could fill up root and cause the system to
hang.   So, putting it in its own separate partition helps protect
the rest of the system if some process starts to run away with things.

So, my over all suggestions are now.
Get rid of the separate  /etc  and  /bin  partitions.  Leave them in root.
Then give the 512 MB to /tmp and the 1024 MB to /var.   


I also notice that you do not create an obvious place for user's
home directories.   Maybe you do not expect to have regular user
accounts, so that is OK.   But, if you do, it is often a good idea
to create a large partition for those to keep them somewhat isolated
for the general operation of the system.   I usually make a separate
/home partition.    
I wonder what you intend to do with a 4 GB /mail partition.  If it
is for user accounts to keep mail, then maybe that should instead
be the /home partition to contain users' accounts home directories.
Just a thought.

Sheesh, if I would read more carefully the first time, I could save
some retyping and network traffic.    But, I get so many Emails that
I have to try and rush through them.

Anyway, good luck,

////jerry

>    
>   I go through the installation, via ftp, and then set the root password.  Oh, and the 'FreeBSD boot manager' is the option I choose, when configuring the disks.
>    
>   When I reboot, this is what I see ... 
>    
>   Manual root filesystem specification 
>   <fstype>:<device> Mount <device> using filesystem <fstype> eg 
> ufs:da0s1a 
>   ?                           List valid disk boot devices 
>   <empty line> Abort manual imput 
> 
>   ... and that's it.
>    
>   Nothing else.  The machine just sits there.  
>    
>   Is there something I've missed ?  We've tried the same install on three different machines, using three different motherboards, and four different hard drives.  Something is wrong, either with the installation media, or else with our method of going about it.  Oh, and I tried installing 5.5 on the same machines, with the same result.
>    
>   FreeBSD rocks; I've used it for a long time on many different machines, and this is the first time that this has happened.
>    
>   Could someone suggest a solution?  The people with whom I'm installing this, are starting to whisper the word 'Linux', and it's giving me nightmares....   :(
>    
>   Thanks.
>   
> D.C
>    
> 
>  		
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