9-BETA-3 boot issue when partitioning with shell

je33

je33

I decided to try 9-BETA-3 on a 64G Crucial M4. On first pass accepted "Guided" and took the defaults for partitioning. All went well and system installed and ran fine. However, [cmd=]gpart ada0[/cmd] showed that partitions were "not" aligned on 4k boundaries.

From the literature I located it looked like there was a consensus that aligning on 1M boundaries was the way to go. So, in the next install pass, I chose "Shell" from the partition dialog; created 1M aligned: freebsd-boot, freebsd-ufs and freebsd-swap partitions. I then [cmd=]newfs -U /dev/ada0p2[/cmd] [cmd=]mount /dev/ada0p2 /mnt[/cmd] [cmd=]vi /tmp/bsdinstall_etc/fstab[/cmd] (creating entries for / and swap) then finally [cmd=]exit[/cmd]

From there the installation proceeded as in the default install above. But, no joy, would not boot. My new Asus MB w/ EUFI went right past the new install. As well: when I "F8 and selected the new installation drive", no boot was realized.

Questions:

Does this look like it might be an issue with the Asus EUFI BIOS?

Does not the installer load the boot image into the freebsd-boot partion?

If not, where would it be on the install media (memstick.img) so that I may use it to install at creation of the partition.

tia !
 
je33 said:
I decided to try 9-BETA-3 on a 64G Crucial M4. On first pass accepted "Guided" and took the defaults for partitioning. All went well and system installed and ran fine. However, [cmd=]gpart ada0[/cmd] showed that partitions were "not" aligned on 4k boundaries.
Click to expand...

Default is a 64K freebsd-boot, followed by freebsd-ufs, and freebsd-swap. What did it show?

From the literature I located it looked like there was a consensus that aligning on 1M boundaries was the way to go. So, in the next install pass, I chose "Shell" from the partition dialog; created 1M aligned: freebsd-boot,
Click to expand...

There's a tip in the bsdinstall chapter about this: freebsd-boot should be no larger than 512K at present. But you should start the freebsd-ufs partition after it at 1M:
Code: 
# gpart create -s gpt /dev/ada0
# gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l gpboot -s 128K ada0
# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0
# gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l gprootfs [color="Red"]-b 1M[/color] -s 20G ada0
# gpart add -t freebsd-swap -l gpswap -s 512M ada0

Adjust the labels and sizes appropriately. This shows 128K, which is big enough and still aligns to 4K sectors. Or use 256K or 512K, just not 1M.

Does this look like it might be an issue with the Asus EUFI BIOS?

Does not the installer load the boot image into the freebsd-boot partion?

If not, where would it be on the install media (memstick.img) so that I may use it to install at creation of the partition.
Click to expand...

While it could be a problem with the BIOS, try the 512K or smaller size first. bsdinstall does install the bootcode, which is /boot/gptboot.
 
Default is a 64K freebsd-boot, followed by freebsd-ufs, and freebsd-swap. What did it show?
Click to expand...

From my guided partition (entire disk) install:

Code: 
# gpart show ada0
=>       34  125045357  ada0  GPT  (59G)
         34        128     1  freebsd-boot  (64k)
        162  117440384     2  freebsd-ufs  (56G)
  117440546    6250496     3  freebsd-swap  (3G)
  123691042    1354349        - free -  (661M)

162 sticks out.

There's a tip in the bsdinstall chapter about this: freebsd-boot should be no larger than 512K at present. But you should start the freebsd-ufs partition after it at 1M:
Click to expand...

Works, thank you. Obviously I fixated on the 1M ufs start offset along with several posts at large stating that the "future" safe alignment boundary is 1M, and decided to include all the extra space into the boot partition.

From my current installation:

Code: 
#gpart show ada0
=>       34  125045357  ada0  GPT  (59G)
         34        256     1  freebsd-boot  (128k)
        290       1758        - free -  (879k)
       2048  117440512     2  freebsd-ufs  (56G)
  117442560    7598080     3  freebsd-swap  (3.6G)
  125040640       4751        - free -  (2.3M)

Now I'm wondering if Trim support should be enabled?

Thanks again wblock@, sincere regards
 
je33 said:
From my guided partition (entire disk) install:

Code: 
# gpart show ada0
=>       34  125045357  ada0  GPT  (59G)
         34        128     1  freebsd-boot  (64k)
        162  117440384     2  freebsd-ufs  (56G)
  117440546    6250496     3  freebsd-swap  (3G)
  123691042    1354349        - free -  (661M)

162 sticks out.
Click to expand...

You're right. This needs to be reported as a bug, the sooner the better. Do you want to, or should I?
 
I know I need to learn the bug reporting activity someday but, for the sake of expediency and force of your reputation, I believe you better do it.. Thanks!
 
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