From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 28 20:47:23 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 351DBB21; Thu, 28 Nov 2013 20:47:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from griffon.alerce.com (griffon.alerce.com [206.125.171.162]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 163FE13D6; Thu, 28 Nov 2013 20:47:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from griffon.alerce.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by griffon.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C35A28435; Thu, 28 Nov 2013 12:47:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from alacrity.alerce.com (75-149-38-78-SFBA.hfc.comcastbusiness.net [75.149.38.78]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by griffon.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 266A028434; Thu, 28 Nov 2013 12:47:15 -0800 (PST) Received: by alacrity.alerce.com (Postfix, from userid 503) id 7281D18AE6A6; Thu, 28 Nov 2013 12:47:14 -0800 (PST) From: George Hartzell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <21143.43986.419091.973040@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 12:47:14 -0800 To: Mark Felder Subject: Re: mac mini In-Reply-To: <1385308605.5007.51434733.4AEBDB8D@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <21136.62025.950336.994239@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <1385308605.5007.51434733.4AEBDB8D@webmail.messagingengine.com> X-Mailer: VM 8.2.0b under 24.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.5.0) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV using ClamSMTP Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.16 Precedence: list Reply-To: hartzell@alerce.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 20:47:23 -0000 Mark Felder writes: > On Sat, Nov 23, 2013, at 12:22, George Hartzell wrote: > [...] > > > > I've been running FreeBSD on a 2008 Intel 8-core Mac Pro (the tower) > > for years, just bumped it up to the current 10-BETA3 (now that Andriy > > solved the ZFS/mmap bug I was fighting and I can trust my flac tagging > > pipeline again). > > > > Works great. I'm running the gnome desktop using the nvidia binary > > distribution to drive a 30" Dell monitor. > > > > Root on Zfs, two disk mirror. Swapping directly onto partitions, no > > mirror or ZFS involved. > > > > I'm still depending on the BIOS emulation to boot and it only gets > > triggered if you use MBR formatted disks, not GPT. That confused the > > daylights out of me for a bit. I'm not sure if the EFI (?) boot stuff > > works or not. > > > > One time out of 4 it hangs early in the kernel starting up. Never > > cared enough to get help tracking it down. > > > > I know someone with the same model of Mac Pro but he's been in the > process of moving. I'll see if I can convince him to install FreeBSD on > a drive and reproduce that hang. > > When was the last time you ran OSX on it? There might be a > BIOS/firmware/EFI update waiting. It runs OS X frequently. As far as I know everything is up to date (though it's still on Snow Leopard). The hang is random, it'll boot smoothly for a while and then it'll hang a couple of times. There was a point that I thought it was connected with typing at the boot prompts (something keyboard related) but I've decided that that was just my mind grasping for a pattern. Also doesn't seem to matter whether I've most recently been running freebsd or mac os x. Next time it does it I'll take some notes about what it's up to. g.