From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 24 21:13:04 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@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 E9B1911E for ; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 21:13:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mout.web.de (mout.web.de [212.227.17.12]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0CEAB191B for ; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 21:13:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from nebel.ror.de ([91.47.117.58]) by smtp.web.de (mrweb101) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0MQ6PP-1WAuWK1uXz-005L1J for ; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 22:12:56 +0100 Received: by nebel.ror.de (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 0A58B5C63; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 22:12:55 +0100 (CET) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nebel.ror.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0752A5C62; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 22:12:55 +0100 (CET) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 22:12:55 +0100 (CET) From: Volker Nebel X-X-Sender: volker@localhost To: Michael Sinatra , raitech@gmail.com, nwhitehorn@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Booting FreeBSD on a Macintosh? In-Reply-To: <52DADFA2.9040303@rancid.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: References: <52D6D32A.9010506@rancid.berkeley.edu> <52DADFA2.9040303@rancid.berkeley.edu> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:gDeU15Qze3qFf3kQ6+ieW6kX1okwCfg6uvqEFNKXSwpAYMhJxYo hVHxxPH2pquTdqF6Idjaw29dCb/rmYo8Q5G+3mab5olcPber9T9IOz/0GEzziPoEBeXF03T eK0m4h4BviBh3h2C+yI7d33eA1cY3yZC/KIYMj0Ua4vhj5mGwHD/+pciawMAEg7+aFj0/QE R3qQZ3qaDZ9eDhBmb7RjA== Cc: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 21:13:05 -0000 Dear Michael, dear Raimundo, dear Nathan, thank you for your tips! I waited for release 10 to be publicly announced, then tried GPT again, taking care that boot code is written, but it does not work. I then made the MBR slice with BSD partitions in it following the example in man gpart. Booting took long but it worked till I got the error message "can't exec getty '/usr/libexec/getty' for port /dev/ttyv5". I then tried BSD partitiions directly, as Michael had mentioned, the "dangerously dedicated" method, simply using the bsdinstaller. Now it boots quickly and fine. :) Best regards and thanks again, Volker On Sat, 18 Jan 2014, Michael Sinatra wrote: > On 01/15/14 11:26, Volker Nebel wrote: >> >> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Michael Sinatra wrote: >> >>> On 1/15/14 3:01 AM, Volker Nebel wrote: >>>> Dear all, >>>> >>>> looking for a good a computer I bought a Macmini 6,1 with Intel Core i5 >>>> last summer, then installed Ubuntu (for amd64) on it and now came back >>>> to FreeBSD (already running on my laptop). Having installed this, the >>>> macmini does not boot anymore, unfortunately. It only shows a blinking >>>> question mark in a folder symbol. >>>> I searched the web for hints and found half a dozen of pages >>>> describing how to run both, Mac OS and FreeBSD. One page recommanded to >>>> issue >>>> "gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gtpboot -i 1 ada0" after the >>>> installation and before reboot, but this didn't help. I found the hint >>>> to use FreeBSD for i386 - same result. (And it did boot Ubuntu for >>>> amd64.) Someone else recommanded to use MBR partitioning scheme instead >>>> of GPT, but the Partition Editor of the FreeBSD Installer returns "Error >>>> Invalid Argument" when I try to Create a partition of type freebsd-boot >>>> and size 64k or 512K. >>>> Can anybody help? How can I install FreeBSD 9.2 on a Macmini and >>>> boot? >>> >>> Surprisingly, the way I have gotten it to work is to use a good, >>> old-fashioned BSD-style disklabel. I just installed FreeBSD 10-RC1 on a >>> Mac Mini, but it was the oldest possible Intel version (a 1,1). >>> >>> If you install 9.2 the way you would install 8--use an MBR partition >>> with BSD disklabel on slice 1, you should get it to boot. >>> >>> I am not close to the machine right now, and it's powered off, but I can >>> fire it up and send you the partition/label parameters. >>> >>> Again, this is a very old 1,1 (still, it's an EFI system, but it's only >>> 32-bit), but the same scheme might work on your system as well. >>> >>> michael >>> >>> >>> >> >> Hi Michael, >> >> thank you for the hints! Though I would prefer GTP disk layout because >> booting with MBR may take longer (Apple first looks for GTP file system, >> that's what one of the posts said), I wouldn't mind doing so. But as I >> wrote, I don't get the first slice created. Is type freebsd-boot wrong? > > I read that also, but I am not sure it's quite right. At any rate the > following MBR partition scheme boots just fine on a Mini 1,1: > > [kenai] /home/michael# gpart show > => 63 125045361 ada0 MBR (60G) > 63 125045298 1 freebsd [active] (60G) > 125045361 63 - free - (32K) > > => 0 125045298 ada0s1 BSD (60G) > 0 117440512 1 freebsd-ufs (56G) > 117440512 7604224 2 freebsd-swap (3.6G) > 125044736 562 - free - (281K) > > > Oddly, if you skip the MBR and just do a BSD disklabel on the device > (similar to the old "dangerously dedicated" mode), it will still boot > properly into FreeBSD. > > I have yet to find a GPT scheme that will boot from a Mac Mini's EFI (at > least without something like rEFIt, but even that doesn't always work > with GPT schemes). I assume that's because the Minis I have are really > old; however, I have a newer mini (the one I am composing this message > on--I think it's a 3,1) that also boots with a similar MBR scheme. > > The easiest way to install this with the newer bsdinstallers is to > select "Manual" partitioning and then create an MBR partition with the > first slice for FreeBSD, and then label that slice with a BSD dislabel, > in the same way that sysinstall would have done it for 7.x or 8.x. > After that, it should "just work." > > michael > >