Making an OpenBSD 4.0 install cd
As a part of the ongoing wireless saga, I’ve grown weary of the difficultly of running the early-beta rt2×00 drivers, so I thought I’d chance OpenBSD 4.0 on hera. Though OpenBSD 4 doesn’t support WPA (a huge shortcoming IMHO) it does have famously good wireless support. Since Ubuntu is basically useless on hera, I wanted to repave her with OpenBSD 4.
Problem: hera has no LAN connectivity. She was made (c. 1997) before on-board Ethernet was invented, and the aging Intel cardbus adapter I have is very flaky.
Solution: build a complete OpenBSD install CD. I followed the instructions in this article, though I had to use my FreeBSD box to build the ISO since I didn’t have/want to fuck with getting mkisofs going on Windows. If using FreeBSD, make sure you install the sysutils/cdrtools package.
After that, it was a breeze. OBSD detected it was an install CD, found all the pieces, and installed them fine. Oh, and support for my Ralink card? Automatic.