goon's Journal: (not) installing openbsd on old i386 hardware

trying to install a gateway/firewall or firewall for this chipset on an old 486DX100, VL/1-486SV2G-X4, 16Mb, WD420 AC2420 HD. Seems the bios I'm using can be upgraded but it a $$US proposition. I pretty sure it's a bios problem as opposed to a hard drive problem. I actually got a copy of the bios, but it has to be burned to a chip and fitted. Read most of the i386 install problems.

I end up getting a *disklabel error* and when the machine reboots I get a failure to read the disklabel.I'm using the most simple disklabel of
wd0a / 341M
wd0b swap 64M
wd0c unused

using the entire disk. Have to install bootblocks and the drive boots. But I notice before rebooting the disklabel reports a sysctl machdep.bios.diskinfo device not configured i386 error. Nb: Drive below 1024Mb so no problem with / partition.

Absolute OpenBsd isn't a bad book, but it skips right over the hardest case installs with old bios. In fact at the start of the book Lucas dumps his old machine and updates it for a new one. But I'm less concerned with failure of the HD, creaky bios than putting the machine to use.

RTFM again I thinks. As esr points out in his new book, art of unix programming (you can read online)... read the documentation very carefully.

Then there's always good old reliable slackware ...