From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 7 17:31:40 2012 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 66774106566B for ; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 17:31:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hartzell@alto.alerce.com) Received: from griffon.alerce.com (griffon.alerce.com [206.125.171.162]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CD868FC16 for ; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 17:31:40 +0000 (UTC) Received: from griffon.alerce.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by griffon.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 75C8A2842A; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 09:13:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from alto.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 53A9028428; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 09:13:04 -0800 (PST) Received: by alto.alerce.com (Postfix, from userid 503) id E38D02FDC7F; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 09:13:03 -0800 (PST) From: George Hartzell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <20311.38687.874857.590780@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2012 09:13:03 -0800 To: Carsten Mattner In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 8.2.0b under 23.2.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV using ClamSMTP Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Single boot EFI Mac install X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 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: Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:31:40 -0000 Carsten Mattner writes: > Has anyone successfully installed FreeBSD as a single boot system > on an EFI Mac? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by a single boot system. I have Mac Pro that runs Mac OS on on disk (actually a pair in a software RAID) and FreeBSD from another pair (gmirror RAID). I suspect that I could pull the MacOS disks from the system and it would happily run as a FreeBSD only machine. I believe that I set up the disks using the mac tools and then did an install from a DVD, but it's been a while. The only particularly trick-ish part is that I had to partition the FreeBSD disks using MBR style partitions, that's (part of?) what the Mac firmware uses to decide to turn on it's PC-style BIOS emulation, which FreeBSD needs before it can get itself going. GPT partitions will not work. Every once in a while the machine hangs at boot time but I haven't seen it in a while. What happens if you just throw a FreeBSD DVD in the drive? g.