Martin, hello. On 2014 Apr 6, at 22:21, mar...@martinbrandenburg.com (Martin Brandenburg) wrote:
> Assuming you are somewhat experienced with OpenBSD, setting up a > bootable USB with install sets isn't hard. Among BSDs, I'm familiar with Solaris (a long while ago), OS X and FreeBSD, but this is my first time giving OpenBSD a spin. It's a pity I'm doing it with suboptimal hardware. > And you'll be good to go. Thanks. > But you need OpenBSD to run that, as you already know. If the MacBook > you're using is x86, you'll be able to run VirtualBox and do it from > there. The trick is to eject the USB drive from disk utility so you > can attach it as a USB device to VirtualBox. That's an interesting plan, and thanks for the gotcha. I'll give that a try, though perhaps not tonight. > Since you can boot floppy.fs, it _might_ be possible to run mount_cd9660 > on a partition containing the ISO image. My problem there is that I can't get the image onto the netbook's disk, because I seem to be unable to see the flash drive with the image burned to it. That's a bit of a puzzle. With two flash drives plugged in (containing floppy.fs and install55), the boot sequence reports hd0, hd1 and hd2, as expected, but sysctl reports only rd0 and wd0, and there's nothing likely in /dev. I'm wondering if this blasted machine is even more broken than I now think it is. > I have also done your plan e before. If you're really worried you can > disconnect the hard drive before trying it. It's interesting to know that this is possible. Thanks for your help. All the best, Norman -- Norman Gray : http://nxg.me.uk SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK
