Linux Solutions

Welcome to the tutorial guide. The tutorial will provide you with instructions and advise about how to install FreeBSD on your computer.

It is good to know that the FreeBSD installation process can install FreeBSD from files located in any of the places such:

Local Media.
Local media can be, a CDROM or DVD, a DOS partition on the same computer, a SCSI or QIC tape and Floppy disks

Network
A network can be a FTP site, going through a firewall, or using an HTTP proxy, an NFS server and a dedicated parallel or serial connection

Please note that if you have purchased FreeBSD on CD or DVD then you already have everything you need.

Let’s see how the installation process for FreeBSD can be started by.The FreeBSD installation process is started by booting the computer into the FreeBSD installer. The computer normally boots using the operating system installed on the hard disk, but it can also be configured to use a bootable floppy disk. Most modern computers can also boot from a CDROM in the CDROM drive.

If you would like to create boot floppy images then please follow the steps:

- first of all, acquire the Boot Floppy Images
The boot disks are available on the installation media in the floppies/ directory, and can also be downloaded from the floppies directory, ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases//-RELEASE/floppies/. Replace and with the architecture and the version number which you want to install, respectively.

Please note that the floppy images have a .flp extension. The floppies/ directory contains a number of different images, and the ones you will need to use depends on the version of FreeBSD you are installing, and in some cases, the hardware you are installing to. In most cases you will need four floppies, boot.flp, kern1.flp, kern2.flp, and kern3.flp.

- secondly, please prepare the floppy disks
Please note if you want to download image file then you need to prepare one floppy disk per image file. It is a good idea to test the disks by formating them.

Please note that when going through the installation process for FreeBSD, if the installation program crashes, freezes, or otherwise misbehaves, then a possible cause could be the floppy disk. If this is the case, then please write the floppy image files to new disks.

- how to write the Image Files to the Floppy Disks
The .flp files the images of the complete contents of the disk. This means that a user cannot simply copy files from one disk to another. Instead, specific tools are required to write the images directly to the disk.

If you are using the floppies from the CDROM, and the CDROM is the F: drive, then it is good practice to run :
F:\> tools\fdimage floppies\boot.flp A:

Please repeat this command for each .flp file, replacing the floppy disk each time, being sure to label the disks with the name of the file that you copied to them. Adjust the command line as necessary, depending on where you have placed the .flp files.

If you want to write the image files directly to disk, then please run this command on FreeBSD:
# dd if=boot.flp of=/dev/fd0

Please note that on FreeBSD, /dev/fd0 refers to the first floppy disk (the A: drive). /dev/fd1 would be the B: drive, and so on.

If you followed the instructions and guidance as provided in this tutorial, then you will have successfully installed the FreeBSD.