If you can't neboot the best way of getting it going is using the hdd in one chassis for install and then move it to the desired machine afterwards. This is way easier in openbsd than in linux.
8mb won't work for openbsd without trickery that you want to get near. I believe these days 24 is about the lower limit. Nick correct me if I am wrong. On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 05:10:50PM -0700, L wrote: > Hello from Alberta (waving to Theo, Bob, and others), > > This email was meant to be short, but it is long. I apologize. Sigh. > > I have a few dumb 100MHZ to 133MHZ AMD 486/586 portable computers with > PCMCIA cards and 8MB-56MB of RAM that I'm absolutely determined to turn > into OpenBSD servers this weekend or this week. They have no floppy, no > CDROM, no fans (quiet closet servers). They have old style PCMCIA (16bit? > no bumps), a serial port, 640x480 screen, and an IDE hard drive. I have > compatible pcmcia network cards that fit into them, and even telephone > modems. > > Options for installing OpenBSD? The docs tell me about cdrom/floppy > installs, which sadly I don't have on this dumb 486.. > And if network install isn't possible? (I have to study my pcmcia cards and > bios more to know if this is the case).. > > Well I have installed Linux successfully before for these devices using a > trick: > I took the hard drive out, put it into a computer that *does* have a cdrom > or floppy.. install linux on it. When done installing, transport the hard > drive back to dumb device, and it magically boots with a mem=8MB boot param > and possibly other params to fool it. Then I proceed to setting up the > hardware that is different from the PC it was installed on, once I'm logged > in. And yes it did actually boot an log in, don't know if it was random > luck but I didn't think it would work. > > Is there an easier way to install OpenBSD than this method of borrowing > another PC for the initial install? I can copy files onto the hard drives > first.. that's not a problem. The computers can already boot into Windows > 95, Windows 98, or Dos, or Linux.. but most contain Win95. I can easily > stick files on them within Windows network or with a USB to IDE converter I > have. > > I was thinking if there was some program that I could modify the partitions > in Windows 95 with and create some bootable master OpenBSD MBR.. I had this > tool where I could access Linux partitions from within Total Commander on > windows once but don't think it was for bsd. > > Partition Magic even came to mind, since it can create BSD partitions AFAIK > from within a Winblows system.. although I have to see if it creates > openbsd compatible ones. Again, I'm clueless here and would like to know if > there are alternatives to partition magic like an bsd capable fdisk tool > that I could screw with from within dos or win95. Or, even I could use > linux to start off with, but most have Win95 already on them. > > Destroying the hard drive is OKAY.. no important data. I can always get > them running again by formatting them through my USB to IDE tool or by > accessing them as slaves in another desktop. I'm okay with hurting myself > and the hard drives in the process. > > I have to find some documentation on my PCMCIA cards to see if network > install is possible. I've never done network install before and am clueless > whether my devices could do such a PXE style install. They are EtherLink > 3C589C 10 base T cards and not the newer cardbus/32bit style. Even if they > do support network install, I'd like to know if there are other ways to > install OpenBSD from a hard drive directly, using some sort of Dos trick or > MBR trick, if there is no floppy/cd available. > > Best Regards, > L505 (Lars)
