5.3 on Intel 386 ?

[Oliver Fromme]

Rob <spamrefuse at yahoo.com> wrote:
 > I thought 386 support had been removed since 5.X. But
 >   http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/installation-i386.html
 > says:
 > 
 >    1.2 Hardware Requirements
 >    FreeBSD for the i386 requires a 486 or better processor to install
 >    and run (although FreeBSD can run on 386 processors with a custom
 >    kernel)....
 > 
 > What does this mean?
 > Should I install on 486 or higher, build a custom kernel and then
 > physically put the very same disk in a 386 PC?

I haven't tried this myself, but you should be able to re-
place the GENERIC kernel on the install CD with a custom
kernel that contains i386 CPU support.  That way you don't
have to physically move disk drives.

Alternatively, install FreeBSD 4.10 (or -stable) which
still supports i386 in GENERIC, then update from there,
keeping the i386 option in your kernel.

Note that you will need a hardware FPU (i387 math co-pro).
FreeBSD 4.x supports math emulation, so you don't need a
hardware FPU there, but apparently that support has been
removed in FreeBSD 5.x.

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München
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