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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!news.radio.cz!voskovec.radio.cz!news.radio.cz!CESspool!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uuneo.neosoft.com!mypc From: conrads@neosoft.com (Conrad Sabatier) Newsgroups: neosoft.users.freebsd,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Free BSD trouble Date: Fri, 31 Jan 97 00:06:29 GMT Organization: What? Me, organize? Lines: 72 Message-ID: <5crd6v$6tt@uuneo.neosoft.com> References: <32EAF919.17A0@neosoft.com> <5cflae$gal@bonkers.taronga.com> <5cpfsk$fqk@uuneo.neosoft.com> <5cq52k$i2o@bonkers.taronga.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.27.167.233 X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.0 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:34771 In article <5cq52k$i2o@bonkers.taronga.com>, peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) wrote: >In article <5cpfsk$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. Frankly, I really don't know. In Win95, there's a little driver or init that loads before MSCDEX. So apparently, it's not *too* standard. >>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? Well, it just annoys me that if I want to do a DOS install (which seems my only option at this point), I have to repartition my DOS drive. >>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 wasn't sure how stable 2.2 would be. I had played with a CURRENT release a while back and had some problems, so I was leery of going with it. >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. It's a generic S3 Trio 64. Worked fine in XFree 3.1. No idea what happened with 3.2. I did notice that it seemed to be running the video at a higher resolution than before (looked nice, actually!), just before disaster struck. >>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. Well, like I said, I *thought* I was playing it safe going with this over 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? Yes, I posted my config changes recently in a thread revolving around install problems and IDE CD-ROMs. And recommendations for a *cheap*, compatible IDE CD-ROM? Sure, I'd love to convert to total SCSI, but I'm pinched right now. Conrad, missing his FreeBSD already :-(