Re: Install from USB flash drive? Sort of...
Oliver Fromme wrote: It depends on the FreeBSD version. Older versions mounted it on /dist, if I remember correctly, but newer ones mount it directly on /. I just tried booting to the flash with a cdrom installed so I could run the fixit shell. Apparently the cdrom is mounted on /dist and the flash isn't mounted at all. So either sysinstall isn't recognizing the flash as installation media or its favoring the cd when its present. How can I tell which is happening? How do I get it to mount the flash automatically? I also tried using the fixit shell to mount the flash to /mnt but that didn't work either. However, I can install from cd after booting to flash, but that defeats the purpose. And since the crazy bios on my motherboard renumbers the ata devices I end up with a useless etc/fstab after removing the cd-rom drive. I love the way sysinstall congratulates me for installing FreeBSD after it fails to find the installation media. Its just so friendly. :P ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Install from USB flash drive? Sort of...
Oliver Fromme wrote: Brandon Fosdick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [...] > Determined to press on I tried the "install from existing file > system" option, w hich I had never noticed before. That didn't work > since I had no idea what path to give it, or even if the flash drive > had been mounted. It depends on the FreeBSD version. Older versions mounted it on /dist, if I remember correctly, but newer ones mount it directly on /. So assuming the flash is mounted as /, what path do I give sysinstall when it asks? I've tried /, /dist and /mnt. None worked. You can copy directly from the ISO to your flash drive, excluding the things that you don't need (i.e. packages). There's no need to make an additional copy on your HD. For example: # cd /cdrom; find . | grep -v /packages | cpio -dump /flash That worked much better. Thanks ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Install from USB flash drive? Sort of...
Brandon Fosdick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So I had this "brilliant" idea that I was going to install FreeBSD > on my new amd64 system using a 512MB flash drive since I didn't feel > like digging out a CD-ROM. I ended up installing from CD anyway, but > I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone else knows how to do > this. > [...] > The next morning it occured to me that I probably could have just > copied the files from an install CD. Right. Or from an FTP site. > [...] > Determined to press on I tried the "install from existing file > system" option, w hich I had never noticed before. That didn't work > since I had no idea what path to give it, or even if the flash drive > had been mounted. It depends on the FreeBSD version. Older versions mounted it on /dist, if I remember correctly, but newer ones mount it directly on /. > Thinking that maybe I had built a bad release I decided to try > copying from the disc1 iso. The iso is listed at 515MB which is > almost small enough. The packages are about 70MB and they're not > strictly necessary so I thought it would work. So I mounted the iso > and proceeded to copy the files out, since iso's mount read only and > I needed to delete stuff. You can copy directly from the ISO to your flash drive, excluding the things that you don't need (i.e. packages). There's no need to make an additional copy on your HD. For example: # cd /cdrom; find . | grep -v /packages | cpio -dump /flash > To my surprise it turned into 1.1GB when copied onto a "real" > filesystem. Obviously that's a problem. Depends on how you copy things. Using cp(1) for recursive copies is almost always a bad idea, because you will get duplicates of all hardlinked files. That's why your copy grew to 1.1GB. For recursive copies, use cpio, tar, pax, cpdup or similar tools. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "C++ is over-complicated nonsense. And Bjorn Shoestrap's book a danger to public health. I tried reading it once, I was in recovery for months." -- Cliff Sarginson ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Install from USB flash drive? Sort of...
So I had this "brilliant" idea that I was going to install FreeBSD on my new amd64 system using a 512MB flash drive since I didn't feel like digging out a CD-ROM. I ended up installing from CD anyway, but I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone else knows how to do this. My first thought was to fdisk and newfs my flash drive to make it look like a bootable drive. I had successfully made a win98 boot "floppy" on a smaller flash drive so it seemed like a natural place to start. Surprisingly, that actually worked. I was able to boot from the device, but naturally there wasn't anything else on the device. So, then late at night when I wasn't thinking clearly I proceeded to do a make release with the intent of copying the release onto the flash drive. The next morning it occured to me that I probably could have just copied the files from an install CD. Oh well. The drive booted fine and went into sysinstall and everything seemed to work in the normal fashion. However, I ran into a problem when it came time to select the installation media. Obviously I couldn't select the CDROM/DVDROM option (although I tried it anyway, just for kicks) so I tried to do an FTP install. Oddly, the network chip wasn't detected, even though it is recognized when booting from a CD. Perhaps there was something wrong with the release I had rolled. Determined to press on I tried the "install from existing file system" option, which I had never noticed before. That didn't work since I had no idea what path to give it, or even if the flash drive had been mounted. I suspected it hadn't been, so I proceeded to the emergency holographic shell, at which point I realized just how useless that feature is if you don't have a CD in the drive. So I returned to the network install idea. Thinking that maybe I had built a bad release I decided to try copying from the disc1 iso. The iso is listed at 515MB which is almost small enough. The packages are about 70MB and they're not strictly necessary so I thought it would work. So I mounted the iso and proceeded to copy the files out, since iso's mount read only and I needed to delete stuff. To my surprise it turned into 1.1GB when copied onto a "real" filesystem. Obviously that's a problem. The handbook (Section 2.13.1) says that the boot-only iso has everything needed to do a network install. So I downloaded that, mounted it and copied it to the flash disk. It boots and recognizes the NIC. Now I can do a network install. Finally. But that's a really slow way to do an install. There has to be some way to get sysinstall to install from a flash drive. Right? So now I have questions... How do I use a USB drive as installation media? How do I get sysinstall to recognize the USB drive as a fixit disc/holographic shell? How does an ISO manage a 50% compression ratio? ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
