These notes have been prepared from those written originally for NetBSD
0.9. The conversion was done by someone who has had experience with
installing and upgrading 386bsd, but who is not a unix guru, so there
will be slant towards this experience. Corrections/updates are
welcomed, it is difficult/impossible to test every last hardware
Be sure to read _ALL_ of this document before you try to install
FreeBSD. FreeBSD probably looks a bit similar to things that you've
seen before (perhaps 386BSD), but the installation procedures are quite
FreeBSD 1.0 Release Contents:
------- --- ------- --------
The FreeBSD 1.0 Release consists of the following elements:
Bootable Kernel-copy floppies
These disks are bootable and have enough utilities on
board to copy a new kernel to a prepared hard disk. While
they are primarily intended for installing FreeBSD, they
also make upgrading to a new kernel easy: boot from it,
and copy a new kernel to disk.
You must choose between one of two kernel-copy floppy
images, depending on your disk controller type. The
"kcopy-ah-floppy" image supports the Adaptec 154x and 1742
SCSI adapters, while "kcopy-bt-floppy" supports the Bustek
742 and Ultrastore SCSI adapters. For systems with only
MFM, RLL, ESDI or IDE disk controllers, either image can
In addition to a bootable floppy, currently two additional
disks are required to prepare your hard drive for FreeBSD
and to install the FreeBSD distribution. Like the boot
floppies, these are distributed as binary images. They are
are referred to below as the "filesystem-floppy" and the
There is also an optional fourth installation disk referred
to as the "dos-floppy". Unlike the other install disks,
there is no binary image for the dos floppy. Instead this
is a regular MS-DOS-formatted floppy disk containing any
FreeBSD programs you choose to copy to it using mtools or
even the DOS copy command. The most commonly requested
programs have been put in a tools directory at FreeBSD
These facilitate upgrading to FreeBSD from any previous
patch-kit level of 386BSD 0.1. They are still in testing,
but should be available by the time you read this from
the tools/upgrade directory at FreeBSD archive sites.
tools/upgrade/386BSD-to-FreeBSD-update-LATE-BETA.tar.gz]
FreeBSD distribution sets
These collections contain the complete FreeBSD system and
utilities in source and binary form. There are three
separate sets: the FreeBSD binaries, the FreeBSD sources,
and the DES sources+binaries. The DES set contains only
crypt(3) code and is subject to U.S.A. export restrictions.
The binary distribution set can be found in the "binarydist"
subdirectory of the FreeBSD archive sites. It consists
of files named bin_tgz.aa to bin_tgz.db (i.e., 80 files
all told). A CKSUMS file (* see note below) is included
for verifying the integrity of these.
The source distribution sets can be found in under
"sourcedist" subdirectory of archive sites. It is consists
of files named src_tgz.aa to src_tgz.cp (i.e., 68 files
all told), plus file CKSUMS*.
Finally, the security distribution set contains
usr/src/libcrypt/*, the source files for the DES encryption
algorithm, and the binaries which depend on it. It can
be found in the "securedist" subdirectory on sites which
choose to carry the complete FreeBSD distribution.
The individual files in each collection are no more than
235 Kbytes in size. (The last file is just long enough
to contain the rest of the data for that distribution
Each collection is a split, gzip'ed tar archive. They
are reassembled and extracted by the install procedure.
However, to view them without installing FreeBSD, you can
use, e.g., the command line:
cat bin* | gunzip | tar tvf - | more
or to extract the files themselves:
cat bin* | gunzip | tar xvfp -
Using this method, the files are extracted in the current
directory. So to install the binary distribution, for
instance, you have to run the "tar xvfp" from the root
In each of the distribution directories, there is a file
named "CKSUMS" which contains the checksums of the files
in that directory, as generated by the cksum(1) command.
You can use cksum to verify the integrity of the archives,
if you suspect one of the files is corrupted.
N.B.: The CKSUMS files are produced using the 4.4BSD
version of cksum which is POSIX-compliant. The values in
these file do not match the cksums generated by the 386BSD 0.1
version of cksum (which is based on an earlier "standard").
A copy of the new cksum binary that will run on
386bsd/Netbsd/FreeBSD can be found in the "tools" subdirectory
System Requirements and Supported Devices:
------ ------------ --- --------- -------
FreeBSD 1.0 runs on ISA (AT-Bus) and EISA systems, with 386 and 486
processors, with or without math coprocessors. It does NOT support
Micro-channel systems, such as some IBM PS/2 systems. The minimal
configuration includes 4Meg of RAM, and an 80Meg hard disk, but to
install the entire system you'll need much more disk space, and to run
X or compile the system more RAM is recommended. (4Meg will actually
allow you to run X and/or compile, but it's extremely slow.)
Supported devices include:
Standard floppy controllers
Standard hard disk controllers:
SCSI hard disk controllers:
Adaptec 154x series * [kcopy-ah-floppy]
Bustek 742 (EISA) [kcopy-bt-floppy]
DTC 3290 in 1542 emulation mode *
* Your system can NOT have more than 16MB of memory with
Serial communications ports
[4-port multi-serial cards - require kernel built
[We do not support the Intel 82501 serial chip used
in some PC's at this time]
SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and equivalents
(including the SMC "Elite" series)
QIC-02 format tape drives
most SCSI tape/DAT drives
[an early QIC-40 or QIC-80 tape driver exists,
but is not yet incorporated into FreeBSD]
Mitsumi CDROM drive with Mitsumi Controller
Most SCSI CD-ROM drives on a supported SCSI controller
To be detected by the distributed kernels, the devices must
be configured as follows: (Note: IRQ 9 is the same as IRQ 2
on ISA/EISA based machines)
Device Name Port IRQ DRQ Misc
------ ---- ---- --- --- ----
Floppy Cntlr. fd0 0x3f0 6 2
AHA-154x SCSI Cntlr. 0x330 11 5 [kcopy-ah-floppy]
AHA-174x SCSI Cntlr. automatically configured [kcopy-ah-floppy]
BT742 SCSI Cntlr. 0x330 12 [kcopy-bt-floppy]
UHA-34f SCSI Cntlr. 0x330 14 5 [kcopy-bt-floppy]
(In FreeBSD GAMMA and before, UHA was on IRQ 11)
SCSI Disks sd[0-2] automatically configured
SCSI Tapes st[01] automatically configured
SCSI CD-ROMs cd0 automatically configured
Serial Ports com0 0x3f8 4
3COM 3c503 ed0 0x280 5 iomem 0xd8000
NOTE for 386bsd users: the we0 device for the WD80xxyy card has been
replaced with an ed0 device. The default settings of 9/280/d000 have
been changed to 5/280/d800 as this address accomdates all of the boards.
Novell Ethernet ed0 0x280 5
NOTE for 386bsd users: the ne0 device for the NEx000 card has been
replaced with an ed0 device. The default settings of 9/300 have
ISOLAN ISOLink is0 0x280 10 7
QIC-02 Tape wt0 0x300 5 1
Interruptless Parallel (Printer) Port
N.B.: Disable the lpt interrupt on the board or you will
have problems using the lpa drivers.
Hard-Disk Storage Requirements
--------- ------- ------------
The minimum base installation of FreeBSD requires a free hard disk
partition with at least 16 MB free space. This is only enough for
the three installation disks, which don't support a multi-user
The full binary distribution extracts to about 46 MB.
The full source distribution extracts to about 72 MB.
The kernel source only extracts to about 7 MB.
To recompile the sources requires an additional 55 MB.
To recompile the kernel requires an additional 2 MB.
Since additional room is required for extracting the distributions,
a full binary installation requires a minimum of about 80 MB (46
MB extracted + 16 MB archived + 8 MB minimum swap + room for
A complete source + binary distribution requires a minimum of
about 210 MB (assuming a minimum 8 MB swap).
Getting the System on to Useful Media:
------- --- ------ -- -- ------ -----
Installation is supported from several media types, including:
MS-DOS hard disk (Primary partition)
No matter what you do, however, you'll need at least three disks (1.2M
or 1.44M) handy, on which you will put the kernel-copy image and the
install (or upgrade) floppy images.
The images are available from the directory "floppies", under the root
of the FreeBSD/FreeBSD-1.0 tree at your favorite archive site.
They're available both as raw disk images, and gzipped, to save time
If you are using an AHA-154x or AHA-1742 SCSI host adapter, you need
the kcopy-ah-floppy image. If you're using a BT-742 SCSI host adapter
or an Ultrastor adaptor, then you'll need the kcopy-bt-floppy image.
If you're using MFM/RLL/IDE disk controllers, you can use either
kernel-copy floppy image.
If you are using UNIX to make the floppies, you should use the command
dd(1) to write the raw floppy images (i.e., kcopy-ah-floppy or
kcopy-bt-floppy, filesystem-floppy and cpio-floppy) to the floppies.
For example, to write kcopy-ah-floppy to a 5.25" 1.2 Mb floppy
$ dd if=kcopy-ah-floppy of=/dev/fd0a bs=30b count=80
or for a 3.5" 1.44 Mb floppy:
$ dd if=kcopy-ah-floppy of=/dev/fd0a bs=36b count=80
If you are using DOS to make the floppies, use the rawrite.exe
utility. This can be found in the "tools" subdirectory of the
archive site. Copy rawrite.exe and the binary images to a DOS
disk, type "rawrite" under MS-DOS and follow the instructions.
Rawrite can write binary images to either 1.2MB or 1.44MB
MS-DOS-formatted floppies.
Any other programs from the tools directory that might be needed
for installing FreeBSD, such as kermit, should be copied to a DOS-
formatted floppy (1.2MB or 1.44MB). Under 386BSD, they can be
copied to floppy using the mcopy command. Under DOS, use the DOS
The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation
depend on which method of installation you choose. The various methods
To prepare for installing via MS-DOS hard disk:
To prepare FreeBSD for installaton from the MS-DOS C: drive
of the hard disk, you need to do the following:
If FreeBSD is installed on a hard disk containing
a Primary MS-DOS partition (as opposed to an
Extended DOS partition), then the FreeBSD distribution
files can be read directly from DOS. Preparation
is just a matter of copying the FreeBSD distribution
files onto DOS C: drive of the hard disk.
If FreeBSD is installed on a separate hard disk than
MS-DOS, it is not currently possible to read the FreeBSD
distribution files directly from DOS. In this case,
a different medium should be used.
Once you have the files on the C: drive, you can proceed to the
next step in the installation process, viz preparing your hard
To prepare for installing via MS-DOS floppies:
To prepare FreeBSD for installaton from MS-DOS floppies, you
need to do the following:
Count the number of "<set>_tgz.xx" files
you have (these are split, gzip'ed, tar
archives). Call this number N. You will
need N/6 1.44M floppies, or N/5 1.2M
floppies to install the distribution
in this manner. For the set of bin files
(i.e., 80 files) and 1.2 Mb floppies you will
Format all of the floppies, with MS-DOS.
Don't make any of them MS-DOS bootable
floppies (i.e., don't use "format /s"!)
If you use "format /u" then the format
Copy all of the "<set>_tgz.xx" files on
the DOS disks. Under DOS use the DOS copy
command. Under 386BSD, use, for instance,
the make_floppies script:
for dist in bin_tgz.*; do
if [ $x -ge $N_PER_DISK ]; then
echo -n "Insert next disk, "
echo -n "and press ENTER... "
(Or you might use tar instead).
Once you have the files on DOS disks, you can proceed to the
next step in the installation process, viz preparing your hard
To prepare for installing via a tape:
To install FreeBSD from a tape, you need to be somehow
to get the FreeBSD filesets you wish to install on
your system on to the appropriate kind of tape,
If you're making the tape on a UN*X system, the easiest
tar cvf <tape_device> <files>
where "<tape_device>" is the name of the tape device
that describes the tape drive you're using (either
/dev/rst0 for SCSI tape, otherwise /dev/rwt0).
If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator.
"<files>" are the names of the "<set>.tar.gz.xx" files
which you want to be placed on the tape.
If your tape drive is not a type recognzed by the
kernel, then it may be necessary to set the tape density
using either the st(1) command (for SCSI tape) or the
mt(1) command. Both these programs are available from
the tools directory of the FreeBSD archive site.
To prepare for installing via an NFS partition:
NOTE: this method of installation is recommended
only for those already familiar with using
the BSD network-manipulation commands and
interfaces. If you aren't, this documentation
should help, but is not intended to be
Place the FreeBSD software you wish to install into
a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory
mountable by the machine which you will be installing
FreeBSD on. This will probably require modifying the
/etc/exports file of the NFS server and resetting
mountd, acts which will require superuser privileges.
Make a note of the numeric IP address of the NFS server
and make a note of the router closest to the the new
FreeBSD machine if the NFS server is not on a network
which is directly attached to the FreeBSD machine.
Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next
step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk.
To prepare for installing via FTP:
NOTE: this method of installation is recommended
only for those already familiar with using
the BSD network-manipulation commands and
interfaces. If you aren't, this documentation
should help, but is not intended to be
The preparations for this method of installation
are easy: all you have to do is make sure that
there's some FTP site from which you can retrieve
the FreeBSD installation when it's time to do
the install. You should know the numeric IP
address of that site, and the numeric IP address of
your nearest router if the new FreeBSD computer is
not on the same net or subnet as the FTP site.
Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next
step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk.
To prepare for installing via Kermit:
The preparations for this method of installation
require that the kermit program be put on the
dos-floppy installation disk. This will be
loaded as part of the minimum base installation.
Kermit is available from tools directory of the
FreeBSD FTP site. This is a FreeBSD binary and
only executes under the FreeBSD operating system.
Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next
step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk.
(The beta upgrade script is available on request from
FreeBSD-questions@freefall.cdrom.com)
Preparing your Hard Disk for FreeBSD Installation:
--------- ---- ---- ---- --- ------ ------------
NOTE: If you wish to install FreeBSD on your whole drive, (i.e. you do
not want DOS or any other operating system on your hard disk), you can
skip this section, and go on to "Installing the FreeBSD System."
Firstly, be sure you have a reliable backup of any data which you may
want to keep; repartitioning your hard drive is an excellent way to
WARNING: If you are using a disk controller which supports disk
geometry translation, BE SURE TO USE THE SAME PARAMETERS FOR FreeBSD AS
FOR DOS! If you do not, FreeBSD will not be able to properly coexist
Secondly, make sure your disk has at least 16 Mbytes free space (or
80 Mbytes for the complete binary distribition).
You are now set to install FreeBSD on your hard drive.
Installing the FreeBSD System:
---------- --- ------ ------
If DOS or OS/2 is already installed on the hard disk, installation should
be easy. By default FreeBSD is installed after the last DOS or OS/2
partition. Otherwise, you may need to specify your hard disk's geometry
(i.e., number of cylinders, heads and sectors per track).
For computing partition sizes, it might help to have a calculator handy.
And it's finally time to install the system!
The following is a walk-through of the steps necessary to get FreeBSD
installed on your hard disk. If you wish to stop the installation, you
may hit Control-C at any prompt and then type `halt'.
Boot from the kcopy-ah or kcopy-bt floppy, depending on
your hard disk controller type.
When prompted to insert the filesystem floppy, remove the
kcopy floppy from the drive and insert filesystem floppy
N.B.: The filesystem floppy must not be write protected.
[When booting, if no message prompt appears after a
reasonable period of time, reboot and try it again. If
this doesn't work, try disabling your CPU's internal and
external caches, and then try to boot again. If there is
still no message prompt, then you can't install FreeBSD
on your hardware. If you were able to install 386bsd,
this is definitely a bug in our software; please report
it! Please include your system configuration, and any
other relevant information in your bug report.]
The boot sequence continues after the filesystem floppy
has been inserted. A copyright notice is displayed along
with a list of the hardware that FreeBSD recognizes as
being in your machine. You might want to make a note of
the disk values for cylinders, heads, sectors etc for
After a short while (approximately 30 to 60 seconds), you
should see a welcome message and a prompt, asking if you
wish to proceed with the installation.
If you wish to proceed, enter "y" and then return.
You will then be asked what type of disk drive you have.
The valid options are listed on the screen (e.g., SCSI, ESDI).
You will then be asked for a label name for your disk.
This should be a short, one-word name for your disk,
e.g., "cp3100-mine" for a Conner Peripherals "3100" disk.
You needn't remember this name.
Next, you will be prompted for the geometry information.
The default values should be correct, in which case just
hit ENTER to accept them. Otherwise enter the values
that were displayed during the boot sequence as they are
The default size of the FreeBSD portion of the disk
is the maximum available at the end of the disk (which may
be the whole disk). Accept the default by hitting ENTER.
Otherwise, enter an appropriate value using the information
If you are not installing on the whole disk, you will be
asked for the offset of the FreeBSD partition from the
beginning of the disk. Again, hit ENTER to accept the
default, or enter a cylinder offset from the beginning of
You will then be asked for the size of your root partition,
in cylinders. The suggested maximum size is 15 Mbytes
which is used as a default. Accept this, or enter a
suitable value (after converting to cylinders using the
Next, you will be asked for the size of your swap partition
- again, you must calculate this in cylinders. You should
probably allocate around twice as much swap space as you
have RAM memory. If you wish the system to save crash dumps
when it panics, you will need at least as much swap as you
The install program will then ask you for information about
the rest of the partitions you want on your disk. For the
purposes of this document, you only want one more: /usr.
Therefore, at the prompt, when in asks you to enter the size
of the next partition, enter the number of cylinders remaining
in the FreeBSD portion of the disk. When it asks you for the
mount point for this partition, say "/usr".
After the FreeBSD partition have been assigned, install checks
the disk for an MS-DOS partition. If one exists, you are prompted
whether to make this accessible from FreeBSD (i.e., for reading
and writing). And if you choose to make the DOS partition
accessible, you are prompted for what directory it should
be mounted on. "/dos" is used by default. With this
choice, you could copy the contents of the DOS root
directory (i.e., C:\), for instance, with the Unix command:
If have you a DOS partition and you don't want it visible
from FreeBSD, just respond with "n" when asked whether to
YOU ARE NOW AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN.
If you confirm that you want to install FreeBSD, your hard
drive will be modified, and perhaps it contents scrambled at
the whim of the install program. This is especially likely
if you gave the install program incorrect information.
Enter "no" at the prompt to get the option of redoing the
configuration, using your previous choices as defaults.
If you are sure you want to proceed, enter "yes" at the prompt.
The install program now makes the filesystems you specified.
If all goes well, there should be no errors in this section
of the installation. If there are, restart from the the
beginning of the installation process.
After the installation program prompts you to see if you'd
like to be told about all of the files it's going to copy
to your hard drive, it will spend a few minutes copying these
files and then will print out an informative message and
place you at a "#" prompt.
Read the message and note which partition (e.g., sd0a or wd0a)
you need to copy a kernel to. Reboot the machine off the
kcopy-xx-floppy disk, but this time at the prompt asking
you to insert a file system floppy, do _not_ replace the
floppy, just press <enter>.
At the "kc>" prompt, enter "copy" to prepare to copy the
kernel on the floppy to your hard disk.
At the next "kc>" prompt, enter the disk partition to which
you want to copy the kernel. (e.g., sd0a or wd0a).
It will work for a minute or two, then present you with
another "#" prompt. Follow the instructions given, (i.e.,
halt the system) and reboot from the hard disk. You will
probably have to do a hardware reset or else your ethernet
card might not be recognised at reboot (e.g., if you have a
When the machine boots, a three-line banner should appear at
the top of the screen. In a few seconds, a series of
messages will appear, describing the hardware in your machine.
Once again, this stage can take up to two minutes, so DO NOT
You will be asked to insert the cpio-floppy into a floppy
drive, and enter that drive's number. "0" corresponds to
DOS's "A:" drive, "1" corresponds to DOS's "B:" drive.
After you enter the number it will ask you if you'd like to
watch its progress, and after you answer this question it
will begin installing still more files on your hard disk.
This should take no more than 3 minutes.
You are given the option to load the dos-floppy disk.
In particular, if you want to use kermit for downloading
the distribution, the dos-floppy should have the kermit
binary. Or if you are using SCSI tape, the dos-floppy should
To load the dos-floppy, remove the cpio-floppy from the
drive, insert the dos-floppy and enter a "yes" response
at the prompt. Otherwise, enter "no" at the prompt.
After the dos-floppy has been loaded, you are given (more)
instructions, (e.g., to halt the system) and you should
reboot the machine again, from the hard drive and probably
with a hardware reset to kick your ethernet card back into
CONGRATULATIONS: You now have the minimum base of FreeBSD
files on your hard disk! Now you get to install the
distribution file sets. Remember that, at minimum, you must
install the bin.tar.gz.xx file set (see below for
After the machine is done booting, you will be presented
with a screenful of information about what to do next.
What you do from this point on depends on which media you're
using to install FreeBSD. Follow the appropriate
instructions, given below.
To install from MS-DOS hard disk partition, floppy or tape:
The first thing you should do is to choose a temporary
directory where the distribution files can be stored.
To do this, use the command "set_tmp_dir" and enter
your choice. The default is /usr/distrib.
After you have chosen a temporary directory,
you should issue the appropriate load command:
load_fd - for loading from a MS-DOS hard disk
partition, or from floppies,
load_qic_tape - for loading from QIC-02 tape, or
load_scsi_tape - for you're loading from the first
SCSI tape drive in the system.
If loading from tape, it may be necessary to first
set the default density using the mt or st command.
The low-density device (/dev/rst0 or /dev/rmt0)
is used by the load_xx_tape command, so to prepare
a SCSI device for reading QIC-150 tape, you might use:
# st -f /dev/nrst0 rewind
# st -f /dev/nrst0 low_dnsty 16
If loading from floppy or hard disk, the load_fd
command prompts for information, such as to which
floppy drive or hard disk directory to load from.
Additional options are available, e.g., for listing
and, if loading from hard disk, changing source
Go to the directory which contains the first
distribution set you wish to install. This is
either the directory you specified above, if using
load_fd, or possibly a subdirectory of that
directory, if you loaded from tape.
When there, run "set_tmp_dir" again, and choose
the default temporary directory, by hitting
Run the "extract" command, giving it as its sole
argument the name of the distribution set you
wish to extract. For example, to extract the binary
distribution, use the command:
and to extract the source distribution:
After the extraction is complete, go to the location
of the next set you want to extract, "set_tmp_dir"
again, and once again issue the appropriate
extract command. Continue this process until
you've finished installing all of the sets which you
desire to have on your hard disk.
After each set is finished, if you know that you
are running low on space you can remove the
distribution files for that set by saying:
For example, if you wish to remove the distribution
files for the binarydist set, after the "extract bin"
command has completed, issue the command:
Once you have extracted all sets and are at the "#" prompt
again, proceed to the section "Configuring Your System,"
To install via FTP or NFS:
First you must decide on a temporary directory to hold
the <set>.tar.gz.xx files. The directory /usr/distrib
is suggested. You should cd to it, if necessary do
a mkdir first. Use set_tmp_dir to identify this
directory to the install process.
Configure the appropriate ethernet interface (e.g. ed0,
ne0, etc.) up, with a command like:
ifconfig <ifname> <ipaddr> [netmask <netmask>]
where <ifname> is the interface name (e.g. ed0, etc.),
and <ipaddr> is the numeric IP address of the interface.
If the interface has a special netmask, supply
the word "netmask" and that netmask at the end of the
command line. For instance, without a special netmask:
ifconfig ed0 129.133.10.10
or with a special netmask
ifconfig ed0 128.32.240.167 netmask 0xffffff00
ifconfig ed0 128.32.240.167 netmask 255.255.255.0
If you are using the AUI connector on a 3C503 card, you
must also set the LLC0 flag (the default is to use the BNC
ifconfig ed0 130.252.23.86 llc0
If the NFS server or FTP server is not on a directly-
connected network, you should set up a route to it
route add default <gate_ipaddr>
where <gate_ipaddr> is your gateway's numeric IP address.
If you are NFS-mounting the distribution sets,
mount them on the temporary directory with the command:
mount -t nfs <serv_ipaddr>:<dist_dir> <tmp_dir>
where <serv_ipaddr> is the server's numeric IP address,
<dist_dir> is the path to the distribution files on
the server, and <tmp_dir> is the name of the local
temporary directory (e.g., /usr/distrib). Proceed as if
you had loaded the files from tape, "cd"ing to the
appropriate directories and running "set_tmp_dir" and
"extract" as appropriate.
If you are retrieving the distribution sets using ftp,
cd into the temp directory, and execute the command:
where <serv_ipaddr> is the server's numeric IP address.
Get the files with FTP, taking care to use binary mode
to transfer all files. A simple set of commands is
cd <where/the/binarydist/files/are>
cd <where/the/sourcedist/files/are>
Once you have all of the files for the distribution sets
that you wish to install, you can proceed using the
instructions above as if you had installed the files
First you must decide on a temporary directory to hold
the <set>.tar.gz.xx files. The directory /usr/distrib
is suggested. You should cd to it, if necessary do
a mkdir first. Use set_tmp_dir to identify this
directory to the install process.
Invoke kermit and dial the remote kermit server.
A typical session might be:
# stty -f /dev/sio01 clocal
C-Kermit> set file type binary
C-Kermit> set line /dev/sio01
C-Kermit> set receive packet 740
Connecting to /dev/sio01, speed 9600.
The escape character is Ctrl-\ (ASCII 28, FS)
Type the escape character followed by C to get back,
or followed by ? to see other options.
atdt 1234567 <-- dial the remote
login: mylogin <-- login to the remote
remote$ kermit -ix <-- remote kermit as binary server
^\C <-- return to local kermit
C-Kermit> get bin_tgz* <-- request files from remote
[...] (wait long for transfer to complete)
C-Kermit> finish <-- terminate remote server
C-Kermit> exit <-- exit remote kermit
remote$ exit <-- exit remote host
^\C <-- return to local kermit
C-Kermit> exit <-- exit local kermit
At this point the binary distribution should be
downloaded to the FreeBSD system. Run the "extract"
command, giving it as its sole argument the name
of the distribution set you wish to extract. For
example, to extract the binary distribution, use
and to extract the source distribution:
After the extraction is complete, go to the location
of the next set you want to extract, "set_tmp_dir"
again, and once again issue the appropriate
extract command. Continue this process until
you've finished installing all of the sets which you
desire to have on your hard disk.
After each set is finished, if you know that you
are running low on space you can remove the
distribution files for that set by saying:
For example, if you wish to remove the distribution
files for the binarydist set, after the "extract bin"
command has completed, issue the command:
Once you have extracted all sets and are at the "#" prompt
again, proceed to the section "Configuring Your System,"
Further Tips on Installing FreeBSD
------- ---- -- ---------- -------
You might wish to install the binarydist first, get that
working, and then at a later point in time have a go at
installing the sourcedist. BEFORE YOU REBOOT AFTER INSTALLING
THE BINARYDIS, you must preserve the commands that do the
extracting. They are kept in the single-user-mode .profile
file called /.profile. Proceed like this:
mv /.profile /.profile.install
ln /root/.profile /.profile
When you are ready to install the sourcedist at some time
in the future, get into multi-user mode (i.e., the normal
means of running FreeBSD) and issue these commands:
cp /.profile.install /.profile
This will cause the system to go into single-user mode, and
the install profile will be active (i.e., you will find the
commands load_fd, extract etc available to you again).
If your disk has several operating systems, you may want
to install a boot manager such as Thomas Wolfram's os-bs
for selecting which system to boot. os-bs135.exe and other
boot managers are available from the tools directory of
the FreeBSD FTP site. os-bs works well with DOS, OS/2,
FreeBSD and other systems, however, it cannot currently
be used to boot FreeBSD from a second hard disk. Another
boot manager, such as boot-easy should be used.
To install, for instance, os-bs, boot the system with
MS-DOS and insert the dos-floppy containing os-bs135.exe
in floppy drive A:. Then enter the DOS commands:
A menu should now appear on the screen. Use the cursor keys
to highlight the install option, hit ENTER, and follow the
For more information about the ob-bs program, including its
capabilities and limitations, see the file `readme.1st' in the
If your disk has several operating systems and you choose
not to install os-bs, then fdisk can be used to change
the boot system. This is done by making the primary
partition for the boot system active. FreeBSD has an
fdisk command that can be used for this purpose as well.
Once you have finished extracting all of the distribution sets that you
want on your hard drive and are back at the "#" prompt, you are ready
to configure your system.
The configuration utility expects that you have installed the base
system. If you have not, you will not be able to run it successfully
(nor will you have a functional system regardless of configuration).
To configure the newly installed operating system, run the command
Configure will ask for the machine's hostname, domain name, and other
network configuration information. You should check that configure has
set up the following files correctly:
Once you have supplied configure all that it requests, your machine
will be configured well enough that when you reboot it it will be a
completely functional FreeBSD system. It is not completely configured,
however; you should adjust the /etc/sendmail.cf file as necessary to
suit your site and/or disable sendmail in /etc/rc and you should look
in /etc/netstart to make sure the flags are defined correctly for your
site. You might wish to set up several other tcp/ip files, such as
Once you are done with configuration, reboot with the "reboot" command.
When it boots off of the hard drive, you will have a complete FreeBSD
system! CONGRATULATIONS! (You really deserve them!!!)
Registration? What's that?
If you've got something to say, do so! We'd like your input.
Please send random comments to:
FreeBSD-questions@freefall.cdrom.com
Please send bug reports, and that sort of material to:
FreeBSD-bugs@freefall.cdrom.com
If you'd like to help with this effort, and have an idea as to how
you could be useful, send mail to:
FreeBSD-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
THANKS FOR USING THIS; that's what makes it all worthwhile.
[a favor: Please avoid mailing huge documents or files to these mailing lists,
as they will end up in our personal mail spools. We will be
happy to make other arrangements]
This is $Id: install_notes,v 1.10 1993/10/16 12:05:51 rgrimes Exp $
projects / unix-history / blob