switching to FreeBSD

[hirohitosan]

Hi there.
My system has 2 HDD, on the first is Ubuntu (ad6) and on the second is FreeBSD (ad8).

I want to set up FreeBSD as my first OS.

At this time my system start as follow: Grub on the first HDD -> FreeBSD boot manager.

My plan is to set FreeBSD boot manager, make FreeBSD default, format the Linux partition UFS, and finally have just FreeBSD on my system.
It is possible without fresh install?

thanks

[Black]

If you already have FreeBSD boot loader installed correctly on your drive ad8, you can just set bios to attempt boot from ad8 first.

[hirohitosan]

well it's quite strange. I can't set my bios to boot from ad8. I enter in BIOS -> Boot and when I try to change the HDD order nothing happen. I mean a menu appear, I chose as first HDD the second HDD and Enter but nothing is change. When I reboot grub starts again

[anomie]

If I am reading / understanding this correctly, you just need to install the FBSD bootloader to your MBR. You should be able to do this from:

# sysinstall

[Black]

Also FreeBSD MBR could be installed directly with boot0cfg command, like this: boot0cfg -B /dev/ad6 or boot0cfg -B /dev/ad8 for other disk.

[tankist02]

Or you can install grub as the FreeBSD boot loader:

As root:

cd /usr/ports/sysinstall/grub
make install clean

and then follow the instructions.

[hirohitosan]

If You should be able to do this from:
# sysinstall

Thanks .. how? I search through the sysinstall menu but I couldn't find it ....:r

[hirohitosan]

Also FreeBSD MBR could be installed directly with boot0cfg command, like this: boot0cfg -B /dev/ad6 or boot0cfg -B /dev/ad8 for other disk.

sorry I don't want to do this before I understand a little the consequences. After boot0cfg -B /dev/ad6 should I configure FreeBSD MBR? Or will automatically recognize where is now my FreeBSD?

thanks

[hirohitosan]

cd /usr/ports/sysinstall/grub
make install clean
I did this but I'm still afraid after reading from info grub:
*Caution:* This procedure is definitely less safe, because there are
several ways in which your computer can become unbootable. For example,
most operating systems don't tell GRUB how to map BIOS drives to OS
devices correctly--GRUB merely "guesses" the mapping. This will succeed
in most cases, but not always. Therefore, GRUB provides you with a map
file called the "device map", which you must fix if it is wrong.

I don't know if continuing with grub-install
Has anyone experience in doing this?

[Black]

sorry I don't want to do this before I understand a little the consequences. After boot0cfg -B /dev/ad6 should I configure FreeBSD MBR? Or will automatically recognize where is now my FreeBSD?

thanks

After FreeBSD MBR installed it will allow you to boot into any primary partition you have on your drives by pressing f-keys. No configuration needed. Installing MBR with boot0cfg normaly would not affect your drive's partition table.

[hirohitosan]

it works thanks! :)