Subject: Re: Problems installing
To: Mike Long <mikel@shore.net>
From: Mark Andres <mark@giganet.net>
List: port-i386
Date: 02/03/1998 06:11:55
Hi,

On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Mike Long wrote:

> >Problem 1: MSDOS and NetBSD cannot share the HD:
> 
> Yes, if you want to share a disk between MSDOS and NetBSD you have to
> use fdisk to create a DOS MBR, and create DOS and NetBSD partitions in
> it.

Umm, OK. Putting this in the INSTALL document would be helpful. If you are
going to tell new users "read the INSTALL document! read the INSTALL
document!" then you should have the documentation there be complete.
 
> >Problem 2: Must download all tarballs EVEN IF you are not installing them
> >all.
> 
> I guess sysinst assumes that the FTP site has the full distribution.
> You probably could have worked around this by creating a zero-length
> games.tar.gz file on your HP.

:-)
 
> Note that 1.3 is the first release to use the sysinst tool, so it has
> many sharp edges which need to be polished off.  FreeBSD's tools have
> been around longer, and also can be simpler because they only have to
> deal with a single architecture.

Yes, I understand this. I wanted to point out these problems, because they
will send many newbies screaming into the night. 
 
> >Problem Three: The distribution tarballs or the tar program is corrupt.
> 
> >From where did you get the tarballs?  I noticed when I installed 1.3
> that the comp.tgz tarball I got from one of the mirrors was corrupt,
> but when I got it from ftp.netbsd.org it was fine.  I informed the
> maintainer of the mirror and it should be fixed by now.  However, that
> doesn't mean it couldn't have become corrupted again, or maybe you got
> it from a different mirror which isn't yet aware that it may be
> corrupt.

I downloaded all of them from ftp.netbsd.org, not a mirror site. Also, the
comp.tgz file was the worst, but other tarballs had problems such as
xcomp.tgz, misc.tgz, and man.tgz.

   Mark Andres               E-mail: mark@giganet.net
          Running NetBSD, 100% Microsoft Free!
   Me & NetBSD: http://www2.giganet.net/~mark/NetBSD/