On Mon, Aug 02, 1999 at 11:28:45AM -0400, AARON MARKS wrote:
> Is it possible to do a headless install on an i386 machine? I've done it
> on an Alpha and
> I've seen mention of Sparcs, but no i386.
> 
> Thanks,
> -A.
> 

I've done it, but I had to build my own bootfloppy, with serial bootblocks.
Look in /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/stand for bootblocks and other goodies, and
in /usr/src/distrib/i386/floppies for bootfloppy stuff.

The quick version is this:  compile serial bootblocks using 
/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/stand/biosboot_com0/Makefile (ISTR needing to frob
the build a little bit;  I don't recall offhand).  Install this bootblock
in /usr/mdec/biosboot_com0.sym .

After a make in /usr/src (to ensure the necessary object files are there;
the floppy build process doesn't auto-build what's necessary), cd to
/usr/src/distrib/i386/floppies/fdset-common, and edit the Makefile thus:

change:
BOOTCODE=       ${MDEC}/biosboot.sym

to:
BOOTCODE=       ${MDEC}/biosboot_com0.sym

Then cd to /usr/src/distrib/i386/floppies/ramdisk and do a make.  (You need
to be root for this part)

Then, cd to /usr/src/distrib/i386/floppies/fdset and do a make there as
well.  This should generate boot1.fs and boot2.fs, which are images which 
should be written to floppies.

Alternately, I think it should be possible to simply use 'installboot' to 
install the biosboot_com0.sym bootblock to an existing bootfloppy.
I'm guessing something like this, with the floppy in fd0:

/usr/mdec/installboot -v /usr/mdec/biosboot_com0.sym /dev/rfd0a

...which should also work.

Sorry for the wordiness of response.  :)

+j
-- 
Jeff Rizzo                                         http://boogers.sf.ca.us/~riz