Important:
By default, the installation will not make any changes to your disk(s) until you see the following message:
Last Chance: Are you SURE you want continue the installation? If you're running this on a disk with data you wish to save then WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO MAKE PROPER BACKUPS before proceeding! We can take no responsibility for lost disk contents!
The install can be exited at any time prior to the final warning without changing the contents of the hard drive. If you are concerned that you have configured something incorrectly you can just turn the computer off before this point, and no damage will be done.
Start with your computer turned off.
Turn on the computer. As it starts it should display an option to enter the system set up menu, or BIOS, commonly reached by keys like F2, F10, Del, or Alt+S. Use whichever keystroke is indicated on screen. In some cases your computer may display a graphic while it starts. Typically, pressing Esc will dismiss the graphic and allow you to see the necessary messages.
Find the setting that controls which devices the system boots from. This is usually labeled as the “Boot Order” and commonly shown as a list of devices, such as
Floppy,CDROM,First Hard Disk, and so on.If you are booting from the CDROM then make sure that the CDROM is selected. If you are booting from a USB disk or a floppy disk then make sure that is selected instead. In case of doubt, you should consult the manual that came with your computer, and/or its motherboard.
Make the change, then save and exit. The computer should now restart.
If you prepared a “bootable” USB stick, as described in Section 3.3.7, “Prepare the Boot Media”, then plug in your USB stick before turning on the computer.
If you are booting from CDROM, then you will need to turn on the computer, and insert the CDROM at the first opportunity.
Note:
For FreeBSD/pc98, installation boot floppies are available and can be prepared as described in Section 3.3.7, “Prepare the Boot Media”. The first floppy disc will contain
boot.flp. Put this floppy in the floppy drive to boot into the installer.If your computer starts up as normal and loads your existing operating system, then either:
The disks were not inserted early enough in the boot process. Leave them in, and try restarting your computer.
The BIOS changes earlier did not work correctly. You should redo that step until you get the right option.
Your particular BIOS does not support booting from the desired media.
FreeBSD will start to boot. If you are booting from CDROM you will see a display similar to this (version information omitted):
Booting from CD-Rom... 645MB medium detected CD Loader 1.2 Building the boot loader arguments Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found Relocating the loader and the BTX Starting the BTX loader BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02 Consoles: internal video/keyboard BIOS CD is cd0 BIOS drive C: is disk0 BIOS drive D: is disk1 BIOS 636kB/261056kB available memory FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1 Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf /boot/kernel/kernel text=0x64daa0 data=0xa4e80+0xa9e40 syms=[0x4+0x6cac0+0x4+0x88e9d] \If you are booting from floppy disc, you will see a display similar to this (version information omitted):
Booting from Floppy... Uncompressing ... done BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.01 Console: internal video/keyboard BIOS drive A: is disk0 BIOS drive C: is disk1 BIOS 639kB/261120kB available memory FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1 Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf /kernel text=0x277391 data=0x3268c+0x332a8 | Insert disk labelled "Kernel floppy 1" and press any key...Follow these instructions by removing the
boot.flpdisc, insert thekern1.flpdisc, and press Enter. Boot from first floppy; when prompted, insert the other disks as required.Whether you booted from CDROM, USB stick or floppy, the boot process will then get to the FreeBSD boot loader menu:
Either wait ten seconds, or press Enter.
Most SPARC64® systems are set up to boot automatically from disk. To install FreeBSD, you need to boot over the network or from a CDROM, which requires you to break into the PROM (OpenFirmware).
To do this, reboot the system, and wait until the boot message appears. It depends on the model, but should look about like:
If your system proceeds to boot from disk at this point,
you need to press
L1+A
or
Stop+A
on the keyboard, or send a BREAK over the
serial console (using for example ~# in
tip(1) or cu(1)) to get to the PROM prompt. It
looks like this:
| This is the prompt used on systems with just one CPU. |
| This is the prompt used on SMP systems, the digit indicates the number of the active CPU. |
At this point, place the CDROM into your drive, and from
the PROM prompt, type boot cdrom.
The last few hundred lines that have been displayed on screen are stored and can be reviewed.
To review the buffer, press Scroll Lock. This turns on scrolling in the display. You can then use the arrow keys, or PageUp and PageDown to view the results. Press Scroll Lock again to stop scrolling.
Do this now, to review the text that scrolled off the screen when the kernel was carrying out the device probes. You will see text similar to Figure 3.2, “Typical Device Probe Results”, although the precise text will differ depending on the devices that you have in your computer.
Check the probe results carefully to make sure that FreeBSD found
all the devices you expected. If a device was not found, then it will
not be listed. A custom kernel
allows you to add in support for devices which are not in the
GENERIC kernel, such as sound cards.
After the procedure of device probing, you will see Figure 3.3, “Selecting Country Menu”. Use the arrow key to choose a country, region, or group. Then press Enter, it will set your country easily.
If you selected as country, the standard American keyboard map will be used, if a different country is chosen the following menu will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to choose the correct keyboard map and press Enter.
After the country selecting, the sysinstall main menu will display.