Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!206.109.2.48!bonkers!not-for-mail
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: neosoft.users.freebsd,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Free BSD trouble
Date: 30 Jan 1997 06:44:04 -0600
Organization: none
Lines: 71
Message-ID: <5cq52k$i2o@bonkers.taronga.com>
References: <32EAF919.17A0@neosoft.com> <5cflae$gal@bonkers.taronga.com> <5cpfsk$fqk@uuneo.neosoft.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.taronga.com
X-No-Archive: yes
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:34737
In article <5cpfsk$fqk@uuneo.neosoft.com>,
Conrad Sabatier <conrads@neosoft.com> wrote:
>o <sigh> As usual, the same as with every previous version of FreeBSD I've
> used (since 2.1.0), still refuses to recognize the same IDE CD-ROM drive
> that Windows 95 has no problem whatsoever dealing with (thanks to a
> vendor-supplied driver, of course).
In other words it's not a standard IDE CDROM, or else you wouldn't need a
vendor-supplied driver. I don't see how that's FreeBSD's problem.
>o Will not even do the install from a DOS partition (distribution files copied
> from CD-ROM to a DOS hard drive), if said partition is greater than roughly
> 512 MB. FreeBSD *still* can't deal with DOS partitions beyond this limit.
It's 1024 cylinders.
Neither can DOS, without a disk manager.
Neither can NT, during the install process. This limitation is in the BIOS and
documented in the NT installation manuals. If Microsoft can't deal with the
problem why do you expect FreeBSD to be able to?
>Frankly, I find the latest release a major letdown. And I do mean *major*.
It's basically bugfixes over 2.1.5. If you're already running 2.1.5 and
you're not having the problems that it's fixing, then you should go right
to 2.2. Walnut Creek CDROM will give you an unconditional refund on your
2.1.6 CD if you want 2.2 instead, and you can even keep the 2.1.6 CD. How
can they be more fair than that?
I'm sorry XFree86 trampled on your boot partition. What sort of video card
are you using? XFree screwups are usually traceable to driver problems.
>Answer? One doesn't. One sends said disk back to manufacturer, requesting
>refund and cancellation of subscription to automatic upgrade service.
*sigh*
You shoulda asked me first. 2.1.6 is a minor upgrade, if you're happy with
2.1.5 there's no point bothering with it. It's still the way to go for a *new*
install if you can't wait for 2.2.
>But sorry. Let me know when you've ironed out all the kinks.
Some of the kinks won't ever be ironed out. Special drivers for semi-
proprietary CDROMs aren't something FreeBSD can deal with. You said you
got it working after setting the system up. What did you do? Did you send
the config/driver changes in to the development team?
I've had problems with Windows 95 that have trashed the disk during the
install and required a reinstall. In fact we've lost days of work because
Windows 95 has eaten people's systems. PC hardware is just the pits.
Microsoft has lots more people working on the problem, and I've still had
more problems with their products than UNIX... and I'm running the Microsoft
software on premium boxes and the UNIX stuff on whatever's left over.
Including IDE.
Two of the boxes I'm running FreeBSD on are generic IDE boxes with IDE CDROMs,
and some truly bizarre video cards (like, a special one for a custom plasma
panel display) have been working since 2.0.5. They're *standard* IDE CDROMs,
though... they don't use special drivers under Windows or NT either.
(I hate to admit it, but IDE has actually gotten halfway stable. It still
sucks on performance, though, for servers)
--
The Reverend Peter da Silva, ULC, COQO, BOFH.
Reality is the stuff that's still there when you turn the video off.