Cannot install FreeBSD on a Pentium 3 processor.

R

R6exe

Hi, I'm having some trouble trying to install FreeBSD on my Pentium 3.
I burned a disk with the FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso, and when I try to install it on the Pentium 3 PC I get this error: lua error cannot open /boot/lua/load.lua no such file or directory.
So at first I thought maybe the problem was the CD/DVD reader, so I tried to use a Windows XP installation media, and it worked.
Then I thought it was the disc, so I try to boot it into another machine that is very old too and it worked, it booted perfectly, without any errors. The machine specs are an AMD Athlon XP at 1.25Ghz 1,5Gb RAM, and an ATI 9200 PRO. It's very old like the Pen3 and of course it doesn't use UEFI.
So what could be the problem ?
Maybe the Pen3 machine isn't compatible ?
The specs of the Pen3 are these:
Pentium 3 866MHz
640MB RAM.
Nvidia Geforce 128MB VRAM.
10GB IDE Hard drive.
Regards.
 

234031 – loader can't traverse filesystem, LUA ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua

bugs.freebsd.org bugs.freebsd.org
Seems it is a known bug. It is said that its patched, but there are reports that it is again on 12.1.

Other thing is that you have version form 01 nov 2019. Seems that it was patched later. In this link you have more recent (may 2020) version of iso image you want. Also bootloader-only etc:


Download and install version from here, maybe it works.

Try this if you need to use iso image you have:
detsaoT said:
As others have pointed out:
  1. Copy /boot/loader to /boot/loader.112
  2. Run freebsd-update -r 12.0-RELEASE upgrade
  3. Run freebsd-update install
  4. Copy /boot/loader.112 to /boot/loader
  5. Reboot
  6. Continue post-installation steps as usual.
Click to expand...

Last thing I think is worth to mention is that Pentium 3 is i686 architecture. It is still x86-32 bit, but amd had i386 all the time then. They should be compatibile tho. Anyway if both above method don't work, I'd try FreeBSD 7-10, or NetBSD.

I personally wonder if it is kind of bug that in main download folder are versions from 11.2019, while on snapshot there are versions from 05.2020? (I think it is against definition of snapshot xd).
Tell me if it works or not.
Cheers.

Edits for deletes.
 
jomonger said:

234031 – loader can't traverse filesystem, LUA ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua

bugs.freebsd.org bugs.freebsd.org
Seems it is a known bug. It is said that its patched, but there are reports that it is again on 12.1.

Other thing is that you have version form 01 nov 2019. Seems that it was patched later. In this link you have more recent (may 2020) version of iso image you want. Also bootloader-only etc:


Download and install version from here, maybe it works.

Try this if you need to use iso image you have:


Last thing I think is worth to mention is that Pentium 3 is i686 architecture. It is still x86-32 bit, but amd had i386 all the time then. They should be compatibile tho. Anyway if both above method don't work, I'd try FreeBSD 7-10, or NetBSD.

I personally wonder if it is kind of bug that in main download folder are versions from 11.2019, while on snapshot there are versions from 05.2020? (I think it is against definition of snapshot xd).
Tell me if it works or not.
Cheers.

Edits for deletes.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your answer jomonger, but I was able to fix this by burning another CD with Plop (a tool to boot usb in machines that in theory are not able to do in their BIOS), and use FreeBSD Memstick 12.1 Release.
Now I have another problem but related to networking, so I think at least this thread is solved.
Cheers.
 
Cool.
I have old P3 cpu with geforce 2 and I thought about running FreeBSD there for tests, so it is worth to know. Thx for info.
 
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