FreeBSD 2.0.5 Release

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 5 Jan 2010, andrew clarke wrote:
>
> I don't think the very early releases available on CD are bootable.
> Not many PCs in the mid-1990s supported booting from CD.  CD-ROM
> drives weren't very common and those that did exist often had
> non-standard interfaces that required special drivers to work - which
> meant the BIOS couldn't see them to boot from them.
>
> To install FreeBSD 2.x, if I recall correctly you need to write the
> FreeBSD diskette images (in the /floppies/ directory) to diskettes,
> then boot from the first install diskette, while having the
> installation CD in the CD drive.  You may need to RTFM a bit to get
> this working.
>
> ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/2.0.5-RELEASE/INSTALL

"El Torito" bootable CDs boot from a floppy image on the CD.

(This is what happened earlier; the CD software used cheaply-licensed 
DR-DOS floppy image to boot and load IDE CD-ROM drivers.  Not quite the 
right thing, but it meant well.)

So it's possible to create another CD using the original, but adding the 
first FreeBSD floppy as a boot image.  mkisofs has the -b option for 
this; I don't recall details for Nero but seems like I've seen it.

FreeBSD 2 may not like that configuration.  Still might be easier to try 
than finding a floppy drive.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA