When installing FreeBSD 5.0 on my GTW PC ( 1.8Ghz P4, 512mb Rdram ,& Nvidia MX440-128 ) , installation freezes on PROBING DEVICES , PLEASE WAIT ( this can take a while ) Keyboard & mouse become unresponsive to input. I have installed FreeBSD on another PC , only to have the installation unusable by a video input signal out of range error message.
I would someday really like to get a look at FreeBSD. Is there a solution or workaround to this freeze?
Back to RedHat for now.
Thanks for listening; clay394

Can't really tell you why your having a freeze up problem but I also had a similar problem with 5.0 except I would freeze up while installing python pkg. same place everytime. May just be the nature of the beast. Use v. 4.8 or maybe try 5.1 I had good luck with both of those Although in 5.1 I had some prblems compiling java so I went back to 4.8. It is the recommended stable version and runs rather well. It's been a challenge for me to use but have learned a lot about the CLI and really enjoy using it.

Good Luck to You!

Thank you , Autuknu , for your reply to my plight.
I may wait for another version of FreeBSD to be released that will installl on my year old PC. I suspect my new Nvidia display card is too new & my monitor is alien to this version of BSD.
Walks away from coyotes!!

I have a P4 1.8 Ghz with 1 gig of DDR ram and a nvidia mx 420 64M card and I run FreeBSD 4.8-R just fine. I have the card running 3D with the drivers from Nvidia website too.

Maybe there was a conflict in the kernel configuration? The standard install has about 10 network cards listed and usually at least two have a conflict of resources. And if you do think it is your monitor you can skip the X server setup and run it in text mode after installing BSD.

Thank you for your reply, Manadien.
Being that I've only been computing for about a year, and have exposed myself to Linux only recently,( Mississippi is not a leading state of technology ) I have not yet developed the knowledge or resources to even begin to understand the kernel configuration or controlling the computer from the command line.
I need to begin from the GUI, and move into deeper water from there. I will probably wait for a new version ( a .2 or .3 } before again attempting another FreeBSD install. I wont't give up!! I've got empty hard drive space just waiting for for something new.
clay394

You should not have a problem with video support. It may not be optimized, but I'm sure you'd be able to use a generic driver for the video card with some success.