Saturday February 12, 2005A PC/FreeBSD War StoryCfcl's copy of FreeBSD 4.7 is starting to seem a bit dated. It doesn't have the latest Sendmail, never has supported DMA access on this mobo¹, etc. Also, I have some interest in playing with Kirk McKusick's latest file system hacks, etc. So, I decided to install FreeBSD 5.3 on a "spare" machine, so that I could (eventually) migrate cfcl to it. The machine already had a 20 GB IDE drive, which is plenty big enough for the OS. I added a 200 GB drive for home directories, etc. This may have been a mistake, but it seemed reasonable at the time (where are we going and what are we doing in this hand basket?). Then I went to the FreeBSD site, downloaded a bunch of CD images, put them on discs (using the Mac OS X Disk Utility's "burn" feature) and tried an install. Didn't work. Complained about the CD format. Sigh. To save pain, I ordered a FreeBSD 5.3 distribution from BSDMall. When it arrived, I tried again. This got further, but didn't really succeed. The 200 GB drive wasn't mountable, the Ethernet card didn't work, etc. So, I went to a user group meeting and whined. A lot. Eventually, two helpful folks looked at the BIOS, tried things out, and reported that my motherboard was simply too old and crufty to support the 200 GB drive. At this point, I _could_ have gone in the direction of using a PCI disk controller card, an older disk, etc. Being somewhat tired of the pain, however, I decided to do a massive upgrade. So, this morning I went to the local branch of a chain computer store. There, I was greeted by a friendly fellow who was pleased to help me pick out some components. He knew lots about this stuff and was quite happy to fill me in. Unfortunately, much of what he knew was wrong. I started to worry when he informed me that the DB-9 connector on one board was a video connector. I gently informed him that, although it looked similar, it didn't have enough (rows of) pins. He wasn't sure he believed me, but he was polite about it. Later, he told me that a CPU part number (3200) indicated its speed in MHz. That turned out to be off by 50%. By this time, I was checking things out for myself, as well as I could. Eventually, I found a mobo (MSI K8M Neo-V) / CPU (Athlon 64) combo that looked attractive and reasonably priced. I purchased it, along with a 512 MB stick of memory, for $400. I had some trepidation, based on the fact that the FreeBSD "Hardware Requirements" document didn't mention the Athlon 64 and a web search found varying indications, but I was feeling brave. So, I went home, eviscerated the chassis, and played Dr. F² for a while. All went well until I attempted to put in the CPU. Hmmm; doesn't seem to drop in. Look closely. Yep, it has more rows of pins than the ZIF socket has holes. Even when I rotate it 90 degrees. This is not the CPU chip I'm looking for. Went down to the store and explained the problem to the friendly fellow. He convinced himself (eventually) that I might be right, then got some techies to look things over. Well, it was the right CPU, but not the right packaging for this motherboard. However, after some fiddling and paperwork, a replacement chip was socketed and I drove home. Now I just need to plug in the RAM stick and... Ulp; it doesn't seem to be snapping into place. And the notches don't match the socket, in either count or placement. Look in the manual. Yep, this seems to be the wrong kind of RAM. GRUMBLE; back to the store again... More paperwork, but now I have the right RAM (I hope). After dinner, I come home and snap in the RAM. Check all the connections. Power it up. Doesn't seem to be powering up. Examine assorted things. Aha. There appears to be a power jack just for the CPU. My power supply has no plugs of this type. See if Vicki's birthday-present power supply (with the blue fan LEDs) has one of these plugs. Indeed it does. Steal it. Now things light up, but it still won't boot off the DVD. Mess with the BIOS (am I hot or what?). It doesn't see the USB keyboard; jack in an old PC keyboard. Rinse, repeat. Eventually, I do (AFAICT) all of the right things and the installation proceeds to an error-free finish. I'm still not out of the woods, because I need to migrate assorted files from the FreeBSD 4.7 system, make miscellaneous changes, etc. But the system boots, says all the right things in dmesg(8), and seems solid. So, I'm past the hardware issues (I hope!). A few hours of messing about with system configuration files and a few days of stomping out brush fires should see me through to a stable, upgraded system. Given that we have several Mac OS X systems around the house, none of which have ever caused me this much grief, you might ask why I didn't just move cfcl to one of them. My only excuse is that FreeBSD is open and configurable (albeit a bit TOO configurable, at times) and the migration from FB4.7 to FB5.3 shouldn't run into any real show-stoppers. That is, it should support all the same applications, etc. Nor can I blame the FreeBSD folks for the madness of PC "design". On the other hand, I can and do blame them for the !@#$% installer and the absence of reasonable support for either upgrading or patching (as in Mac OS X) the OS. These have been open issues for years, but support for multiprocessors must be more important than ease of installation and administration. Or something. Anyway, that's the news from San Bruno.
¹motherboard
A PC/FreeBSD War Story
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- posted at Sat, 12 Feb, 12:00 Pacific
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