How to Clean Install NEXTSTEP on Previous

[drakar]

The download is a 7z archive that contains an iso of the CD plus 7 floppy images.

[andreas_g]

As far as i know you can't install without a boot floppy. There are install CD-ROMs and boot floppys for all version of NeXTstep/OPENSTEP from 2.2 onwards. On older versions you had to use BuildDisk.app to clone a running system to a new disk.

I just successfully installed NeXTstep 3.2 using Previous:
SCSI ID 0: target disk (HDD)
SCSI ID 1: boot floppy in floppy drive
SCSI ID 2: install CD-ROM

Boot with command bsd(1,0,0)

[mikeboss]

AFAIR only turbo-systems were able to boot from OPENSTEP CDs.

[zombie]

OK so thank you guys.  The floppy does indeed get the install to go further, but I'm still getting errors.

So here is my setup.
FD0 moto_3.3_Boot_Floppy
SD0 2GB_Blank_Image
SD1 NEXTSTEP_3.3_InstallCD

The floppy looks for the CDROM and kicks to it, the CD rom does the initial command line install. You reboot. The floppy starts booting, and then kicks to SD0 where install continues.

Then the GUI INstall NEXTSTEP window pops up listing all the packages. The mouse moves WAYYYY too fast, but whatever. I hit the Install button and after a while I get a

Build FAILED!
Swedish Package failed to install.

Some error like that. What is interesting I did this with my own private image of NeXTSTEP 3.3 from my personal CD, AND, from the 3.3 image I downloaded from link provided in this thread.  Same error.

Any thoughts here?

[zombie]

Sure, here's the 3.3 archive: https://winworldpc.com/download/41c2a3cb-9cc2-a118-c39a-11c3a4e284a2

The CD image has intel in the name but it's for m68k as well.

It doesn't seem like the floppy does much other than detect the CD drive and then boot from that, but it must be doing something else to make it work.

So thank you, that was ultimately it.

So following up my own post. It seems you need to DESELECT every single optional install package. Hit INSTALL button, and then the install will finish. Then you can go back after you boot into the system and install all those packages individually (my guess is doing so as root).

I don't remember needing to do any of that back in the day.

So in summary, to get a clean version of NEXTSTEP 3.3 installed, you need to:

Get the motoFloppyBoot floppy, set Previous to use it as a FLOPPY. Set the boot order to boot floppy first. Set your blank 2GB drive to SD0. Set your NeXTSTEP Install CD to SD1.  Kick from the floppy, go through the install.

Then, when you get to the first GUI installer package window, DESELECT every optional package except the base package. Hit the Install button. It will finish the install, reboot.

THEN, when the reboot is complete, enable root account, log in as root, go to the NEXSTEP_3.3 CD in Workspace, look in the NextCD/Packages folder, and install any of the optional packages you want from there.

Thanks everyone for helping out here. Thanks so much drakar!

[zombie]

So I think I spoke to soon.

So now I'm in root and I'm trying to install all the extra packages.  Every time I try to instal DigitalWebster, the entire system freezes up.

Has anyone successfully installed all the packages without the emulator hanging?

[zombie]

Ok so seems the system is "crashy" when I run the NeXT Dimension. So the trick seems to be to the the entire install on a single monochrome setup.

So I think I will do the entire install again from scratch. Nice and clean. And once it's done, I can then mess with the dimension.

Does anyone remember what the trick was to be able to log into the root account without having to set a password up on your 'me' account.

I vaguely remember it was like right clicking or command clicking or something right after the display process initializes after you log out. But I cannot quite seem to catch it.

[Rob Blessin Black Hole]

It is easy to set up a password for your me account just double click the calendar / clock icon ,  upper right on dock
this opens the preferences panel , it may open but be hidden behind the file viewer window just move the window with mouse
click the padlock icon ,  
set the me account password.
Now when you logout you will have a login screen.
this lets you login as either me or root
you can simply type root  with no password and you are in as root ,

this makes it so much easier to install packages and everything else vs having to su to root from terminal window.
While in as root , click the calandar icon again scroll right set unix expert preferences now you will see all the hidden files and you may also want to set the root password..... be sure to set the root password before networking to prevent cluster f mayhem....

[zombie]

It is easy to set up a password for your me account just double click the calendar / clock icon ,  upper right on dock
this opens the preferences panel , it may open but be hidden behind the file viewer window just move the window with mouse
click the padlock icon ,  
set the me account password.
Now when you logout you will have a login screen.
this lets you login as either me or root
you can simply type root  with no password and you are in as root ,

this makes it so much easier to install packages and everything else vs having to su to root from terminal window.
While in as root , click the calandar icon again scroll right set unix expert preferences now you will see all the hidden files and you may also want to set the root password..... be sure to set the root password before networking to prevent cluster f mayhem....

Thanks Rob. But I want to not do that so my installs are "virginal".

And the trick is log out of the me account. Your cursor will 'jump' as the window manager resets, click the mouse button and hold it. If you time it right, it will bring up the login window.

But I plan to back up this virginal clean install for when I might need it. And then yes, once I start using it for myself, I will put in a password for the reasons you give.

[rumbeard]

Have you tried using the boot floppy?
I just tried booting from CD and got the same results you had, but using the floppy worked for some reason.
I put the HD on ID 0 and CD on ID 4. The boot floppy searches for a cd drive, finds it and then installs fine. The floppy image I'm using is from the winworld 3.3 archive, 3.3_Moto_Boot_Disk.img.

I always thought that to boot NS/OS on black hardware required an installed disk (either optical or hard drive, or floppy).  My understanding was always that black hardware would not boot directly from CD.

Back when I did my only 4.2 install on my cube it had a floppy (this was almost 20 years ago).  It was used to bootstrap the CD.  I believe I dangled an old Sony CDR drive I had in an external Sun case off the SCSI port and used the floppy to kick off the install.  Worked a treat.  One of the easiest installs I've done.

My cube had been in the garbage somewhere so it never had an MO... so was either removed ahead of time or what I don't know.  Luckily I had to give it a minor clean and it had plenty of RAM at the time... Can't remember if I upgraded the RAM First.

[zombie]

Ok so I updated my first post providing an answer. I'll continue to update this thread as we get more answers.

Next, a status update and one still minor install problem.

I got a clean install of NEXTSTEP 3.3 User, and then developer. I then successfully did the OPENSTEP 4.2 upgrade of that 3.3 User/Dev install.

However, then when I went to install OPENSTEP 4.2 Developer I got some install errors. First, some of it was due to the order in which you must install the developer packages. So to not get dependancy errors you must install the packages in the following order, I think:

ProfileLibs.pkg
DeveloperTools.pkg
DeveloperLibs.pkg
GNUSource.pkg
DeveloperDoc.pkg

However, I get an error when installing the DeveloperDoc.pkg as follows:

Installing

Code Select Expand

/NextDeveloper/Examples/AppKit/Yap/English.lproj/Document.nib/data.classes ... Not a directory.
**** There were errors while installing DeveloperDoc.pkg.
...errors


It's not the end of the world but I'm not understanding what went wrong for this not to install completely cleanly. Any thoughts?

[zombie]

Ok, one way around this is before you install the DeveloperDoc.pkg is to rename that Document.nib file to something like Document_OLD.nib and then the package will install with no errors.

Now on to install Patch4 User, Dev, and EOF profiles over the system

[andreas_g]

I did some tests yesterday and could not reproduce the problems installing while NeXTdimension is running. I'll PM you my e-mail address. Please send me your configurstion file and informations about your host system.

[Rob Blessin Black Hole]

As root:

DeveloperTools.pkg
DeveloperLibs.pkg
ProfileLibs.pkg
GNUSource.pkg
DeveloperDoc.pkg

[neozeed]

something doesn't sound right with all that corruption.

Is the disk slightly over 2GB?

the floppy has the boot program that'll read CD's.  I spent an ungodly amount on a SCSI floppy drive to read it to install 3.3 back when I had hardware and I was pissed, it was only a few KB! ... lol and I could have just dd'd it to the start of a hard disk. sigh.

And yeah you can just DD the CD-ROM to a HD, and boot from that.

I'm pretty sure you can BEN (Booth EtherNet) the boot program as well, although that is a bit involved to setup.

NeXT goes a little crazy when it crosses that 2GB limit.. it'll act okay but slowly destroy itself.