Another question. I know I need to write the boot file to the usb drive
thus:
# dd if=install66.fs of=/dev/da0 bs=1M conv=sync
But can I just use plain old "cp base66.tgz /mnt" etc for the other files?
On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 1:26 AM Clay Daniels <clay.daniels.jr@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Nick, thanks for straightening me out about what is actually going on here
> with the install. I see that there is now a fresh snapshot with today's
> date, not the one I downloaded and ran yesterday. This might tend to keep
> one busy. I'm not sure I would not be better off doing what Bruno & Marc
> suggested and run sysupgrade. Thanks to them for the advice.
>
> If I do decide to put the filesets on the the install thumbdrive, I see a
> total of 26 files in the directory. Obviously some are not necessary like
> the floppy or both the .fs & .iso (just one needed), nor the test
> instructions, etc.
> So which files do I REALLY need on my usb thumbdrive to get a complete
> install, x included?
>
> Please excuse the "top-posting". That's the only way my darn google mail
> does reply's. Kind of irritating, to me and the reader too.
>
> Clay
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 12:34 PM Nick Holland <nick@holland-consulting.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 2019-11-27 21:29, Edgar Pettijohn wrote:
>> > On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 08:05:30PM -0600, Clay Daniels wrote:
>> >> I have successfully installed OpenBSD 6.6 release and would like to
>> give
>> >> the Current Snapshots a try. I went to a mirror, and to:
>> >>
>> >> Index of /pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/amd64/
>> >>
>> >> I saw install66.fs (probably for usb memstick) and install66.iso
>> (surely
>> >> for a cd/dvd) at ~450Mb. I picked the install66.fs, wrote it to a usb
>> >> thumbdrive, and it starts the install. When i get into the install it
>> asks
>> >> where are the file sets? Humm, maybe it gets these online and it tries
>> to
>> >> do this but no luck. It was late last night, and I checked to see if
>> it had
>> >> written anything to my disk, which it had not, and went to bed. This
>> >> evening I'm looking a bit deeper at the snapshot directory and I
>> suspect I
>> >> need to provide the install with base66.tzg at ~239Mb.
>>
>> NO!
>>
>> [snip misleading stuff]
>> > I noticed this also, but hadn't had time to figure out if I had messed
>> up or
>> > the installer had. As a general rule I assume its me that messed up.
>> Its odd
>> > if you mount the install66.fs you can see the pub/amd64 directory, but
>> during
>> > installation it can't seem to find the directory regardless of what I
>> have
>> > tried.
>> >
>> > Edgar
>>
>> First of all...nothing at all to do about snapshots -- the OpenBSD
>> installation process has remained amazingly stable over the last 20
>> years.
>> New options here and there, but overall, very similar. Unless something
>> changed in the last few days, installing a snapshot is identical to
>> installing 6.6.
>>
>> The installXX.iso and installXX.fs are complete, stand-alone installation
>> kits. Everything you need is on them. You can boot from them, and all
>> the installation files are right there. Look Ma! No network needed!
>> ...well...unfortunately there is the issue of firmware files, which are
>> legally not feasible to put on the install media, so you will need network
>> for most machines eventually. But let's ignore that for now. :)
>>
>> Once the system has booted on the install kernel, you have three devices
>> you are working with:
>> 1) the install kernel's internal "RAM disk" that is part of bsd.rd which
>> you booted from,
>> 2) your target disk
>> 3) the USB drive with the install files on it.
>>
>> The reason you can't see the install files on the USB stick from the
>> install kernel is they aren't mounted. You didn't boot from the entire
>> USB stick, you booted from ONE TINY LITTLE bsd.rd file, that just happened
>> to be sitting on the big USB stick...but as far as bsd.rd is concerned,
>> the USB stick isn't part of the booted environment (yet).
>>
>> You aren't booting from a "Live Media". You are booting from a tiny
>> kernel
>> with a built in file system that's sitting on the same inert file system
>> as
>> the install files.
>>
>> Read that over and over until you understand what I'm saying, not what you
>> are assuming is going on. It's really important to understand. It's very
>> different from many Linux installation processes -- you are running off a
>> file only 10MB in size which is now completely in RAM. That file JUST
>> HAPPENED to come from a USB stick that's much bigger.
>>
>> So, when it comes to answering where your install files are, they are on
>> a disk, but it's NOT a mounted disk. It's on your USB drive that's not
>> mounted now, and won't be after installation, but could be useful shortly.
>>
>> Your next problem is...WHICH disk? On a minimal system, it would be the
>> next sd device after your install disk -- assuming you are installing to
>> sd0, your USB stick might be sd1. HOWEVER, if you have a flash media
>> reader
>> on your system, who knows where it is. One trick would be to unplug your
>> USB drive and plug it back in and look at the white-on-blue console
>> message
>> that come up at you. Yes, you are unpluging your boot device, sounds bad,
>> but read what I wrote earlier, it's no longer using that -- the boot has
>> completed, and it's running from RAM now, it's completely ignoring that
>> USB drive. So let's say you do this and you see it's sd4. Tell the
>> installer the files are coming from a file system not currently mounted
>> and when it asks, tell it "sd4"
>>
>> Nick.
>>
>>
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