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Old 11th April 2012
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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Default floppy-based installation on Dell without cdrom .. ?

Hi !

I've got an old Dell Precision workstation (Intel Xeon) .Some hardware issue prevents me from using a cdrom ..
Can I install OpenBSD on it using a floppy ?
If not , then PXE ?


Thank you very much !
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Old 11th April 2012
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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I am astonished you ask, without doing any research. At all.
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Old 11th April 2012
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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I did in fact .. I read how to set up a pxe server for diskless install .. but floppy-based installation is something I can't find a clue about anywhere so far
there are those floppy51.fs , floppyB51.fs and floppyC51.fs
but I miss how to use them
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Old 11th April 2012
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daemonfowl View Post
but I miss how to use them
What section of the FAQ deals with installation?
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Old 11th April 2012
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Why did you miss FAQ 4.3 , and the INSTALL.i386 document?

Why does the Project take pride in its documentation?
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Old 11th April 2012
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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Still I fell short to make those lines useful and so I asked you about how to use the floppies.
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Old 11th April 2012
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daemonfowl View Post
Still I fell short to make those lines useful...
What part of Section 4.3.2 are you having trouble with?
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Old 11th April 2012
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Your original post in this thread is what someone who has not bothered to read the FAQ or the INSTALL.i386 document would type.

So, since you state you read the documents but still could not determine what to do, a more specific and targeted question from you might have elicited a useful response.

And, you have not been able to articulate what has confused you. So, please review the following quotes, noting my highlights, and see if you still need to ask questions. If you do, please, try to make your questions as specific as you possibly can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FAQ
  • floppy50.fs (Desktop PC) supports many PCI and ISA NICs, IDE, SATA and simple SCSI adapters and some PCMCIA support. Most users will use this image if booting from a floppy
  • floppyB50.fs (Servers) supports many RAID controllers, and some of the less common SCSI adapters. However, support for many standard SCSI adapters and many EISA and ISA NICS has been removed.
  • floppyC50.fs (Laptops) supports the CardBus and PCMCIA devices found in many laptops.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FAQ
4.3.2 - Creating floppies on Unix

Precise details and device names may vary from Unix variant to Unix variant; use what is appropriate for your system.
To create a formatted floppy, use the fdformat(1) command to both format and check for bad sectors.

#
fdformat /dev/rfd0c
Format 1440K floppy `/dev/rfd0c'? (y/n): y Processing VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV done. If your output is like the above example, then the disk is OK. However, if you do not see ALL "V"'s then the disk is most likely bad, and you should try a new one.
To write the image file to the disk, use dd(1). An example usage of dd(1) is below:

# dd if=floppy50.fs of=/dev/rfd0c bs=32k Once the image is written, check to make sure that the copied image is the same as the original with the cmp(1) command. If the diskette is identical to the image, you will just see another prompt.

# cmp /dev/rfd0c floppy50.fs

Quote:
Originally Posted by INSTALL.i386
Bootable installation/upgrade floppy images:
The three floppy images can be copied to a floppy using rawrite.exe, ntrw.exe, or `dd'...
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Old 24th April 2012
passthejoe passthejoe is offline
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I installed OpenBSD (it was 4.4) on a machine via floppy. I made the floppy with ntrw.exe, and it worked like the proverbial charm.

That this can still be done is amazing.

The FAQ is your friend. Read it. Repeat.
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Old 27th April 2012
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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@jgimmi,@ocicat,@passthejoe,
Thank you very much !!
:-)
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Old 26th July 2012
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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In the case of a usb floppy drive .. what's to be used instead of fdformat ?
what changes are to be made to make it a boot device ?
The usb floppy drive is detected as :
Code:
umass0 at uhub2 port 1 configuration 1 interface 0 "Y-E DATA FlashBuster-U" rev 1.10/3.12 addr 2
umass0: using UFI over CBI with CCI
scsibus3 at umass0: 2 targets, initiator 0
sd0 at scsibus3 targ 1 lun 0: <Y-E DATA, USB-FDU, 3.12> ATAPI 0/direct removable
I access floppies just like I do with an msdos formatted flash.
Thanks for help.
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Old 27th July 2012
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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A quick Internet search shows that dd(1) can be used, but fdformat cannot. A patch was posted to tech@, without follow-up.

Search. Read. Enjoy.
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