> This is fairly easy. What you do it copy the files to a directory > on a second disk drive on the machine, and point sysinstall to that > partition/directory during the install. > > 8-).
(tongue in cheek) Thank you! ;-) OK, here's what I did. Remember, I just want to install from scratch, not upgrade or anything too complicated. I copied the entire contents of CD 1 to /dev/ad3s1e/freebsd which I mount as /disk2/freebsd. I used Midnight Commander to do this, selecting each directory and telling it to dive into subdirectories if they exist. I booted from the CD, worked my way as usual to the Media Selection menu and chose Install from an existing filesystem. I *did* set the mount point for ad3s1e to /disk2 and did not toggle NewFS (preserve files). I entered /dev/ad3s1e/freebsd as the location. It failed with "can't copy <each and every distribution> from /mnt/dev/ad3s1e/freebsd" Try again? Y Failed. Etc., etc., etc. I tried the whole thing again, entering /mnt/dev/ad3s1e/freebsd this time as the location. Failed again. I looked at the debug output with ALT + F2, and the only thing I remember was that it said it couldn't open some file for writing. This is the exact same error that I see so many people posting about when I Goolge for a solution to this question. The most frequent thing they ask is, "Do I have to mount the partition on which the distfiles are located before I install? If so, how?" Any suggestions (careful! <grin>)? >PPS: I've posted detailed instructions on doing this at least >three times in the past three years, since I needed to upgrade >over NFS to a machine without anything but a local copy of >FreeBSD that could be booted; start looking around June of 2001 >in the -current and -hackers archives. I searched a while and didn't find anything, probably gave up too soon, decided to just wing it. I'm off today and don't mind fiddling around trying to figure this out. _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
