Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:27:56 +0100 From: Anthony Atkielski <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Choosing to install turns off laptop. HD is untouched. Message-ID: <705761739.20050214062756@wanadoo.fr> In-Reply-To: <4210142F.8000202@optonline.net> References: <4210142F.8000202@optonline.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
bsdnooby writes: > When I try to install FreeBSD, my brand new HP Pavilion laptop turns > itself off. While it's rather late for me to make this observation, I find that computers from big-name vendors tend to show a great deal of interdependence between the pre-installed OS and the hardware. The vendors often design the systems around the assumption that the pre-installed OS (normally Windows) will be the one and only OS on the machine. There may be tweaks in the OEM installation of the OS that accommodate tweaks in the hardware, or vice versa. Because of this, it can be very problematic to wipe the disk on such a machine and install a new one. It should always be possible, but the amount of effort required to get it working may sometimes be substantial. I've seen server machines afflicted in the same way. Compaq has long had a habit of messing around with this sort of thing, and unfortunately HP often makes similar mistakes. High-end HP machines even have custom motherboards and a custom BIOS (both created by HP for HP and with a specific OS in mind), although I don't think the Pavilion is one of these machines. Worse yet, some BIOS show the same tendency, although at least in that case you can usually enter the BIOS at boot and undo whatever the defaults are set for Windows. Ideally, then, for something other than the pre-installed OS (such as FreeBSD), you're probably better off buying an off-brand PC made from off-the-shelf components, or building your own machine yourself. This is what I did for my server, and I was pleasantly surprised when it booted up instantly into FreeBSD as soon as I installed my existing disk drive from the old server (although I reinstalled the OS, anyway, in order to make sure it corresponded exactly to the new hardware configuration). -- Anthony
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?705761739.20050214062756>