From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 2 23:33:02 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29BCA1065670 for ; Tue, 2 Aug 2011 23:33:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from conrads@cox.net) Received: from eastrmfepi102.cox.net (eastrmfepi102.cox.net [68.230.241.198]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA1F18FC08 for ; Tue, 2 Aug 2011 23:33:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from eastrmimpo02.cox.net ([68.1.16.120]) by eastrmfepo203.cox.net (InterMail vM.8.01.04.00 201-2260-137-20101110) with ESMTP id <20110802230606.XGTR32702.eastrmfepo203.cox.net@eastrmimpo02.cox.net> for ; Tue, 2 Aug 2011 19:06:06 -0400 Received: from serene ([98.164.77.61]) by eastrmimpo02.cox.net with bizsmtp id Fb661h0031KMa2A02b66hT; Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:06:06 -0400 X-CT-Class: Clean X-CT-Score: 0.00 X-CT-RefID: str=0001.0A020209.4E3882DE.0071,ss=1,re=0.000,fgs=0 X-CT-Spam: 0 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.1 cv=VVfSoB9EhnV18W7Ttu+1ezfIXSJ0l7myRtJlh1i+5TE= c=1 sm=1 a=VGxxxfPArtUA:10 a=G8Uczd0VNMoA:10 a=kj9zAlcOel0A:10 a=+z5gOwi1mWmWLWYHm+9pGA==:17 a=kviXuzpPAAAA:8 a=fZfHpifQ993yG0kBt1YA:9 a=CjuIK1q_8ugA:10 a=4vB-4DCPJfMA:10 a=+z5gOwi1mWmWLWYHm+9pGA==:117 X-CM-Score: 0.00 Authentication-Results: cox.net; none Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 18:06:06 -0500 From: "Conrad J. Sabatier" To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <20110802180606.4599d800@serene> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.2 (GTK+ 2.18.3; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: 8.2-RELEASE-amd64.iso weirdness (help!) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:33:02 -0000 I burned a copy of FreeBSD-8.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso to CD. It booted and ran OK, but I encountered some rather odd behavior in a few places: As another user mentioned elsewhere, the packages distributions are beyond minimal, consisting only of some basic documentation in a variety of locales or languages. No software packages at all. Worse still, though, is what I ran across in the partitioning/labeling/boot record section of sysinstall; no more "dangerously dedicated" mode (unless you go into "expert" mode, which is rather a mystery to me), and worse yet, it seems that the options to install a plain master boot record or boot manager have no effect whatsoever! This is causing me no end of grief, as I'm trying to return this machine back to FreeBSD after having run Linux on it for some time. The only reason I initially installed Linux was that, at the time I bought the machine, neither my hard drive nor my CD drive were being recognized by FreeBSD (this has been fixed since then, I'm happy to report). The really crucial problem I'm facing right now is that I can't get Linux's damned "grub" off of my hard drive! I was hoping that using "dangerously dedicated" mode in sysinstall would allow me to overwrite the lingering copy of grub on my hard drive that I just can't seem to get rid of. The FreeBSD install works for the most part, despite the few oddities mentioned above, but when I try to boot into it afterwards, grub seizes control and hangs with an error code. I've tried numerous workarounds, using boot0cfg and both FreeBSD's and Linux's fdisk and friends, but to no avail. I'm stymied at this point, and desperately in need of some advice here. Can some sage person out there help me out of this predicament? Right now I feel like I'm doomed to keep running Linux or nothing at all! I am dying to get back to FreeBSD again. HELP!!! :-) -- Conrad J. Sabatier conrads@cox.net