First installation issue

mcgiwer

mcgiwer

Hello. I had decided myself today to test out for the first time the FreeBSD distribution.

Unfortunatelly, sonce start, I seem to had appointed some installator bug that I'm unable to bypass.

I had already created required partitions before running the installator.

When I got to the partitioning screen of the instalator and choosing "Manual" to verify the partition, I noticed that the mounting points were not assigned. Assigning of "boot" and "swap" was correct but after I assigned the root ("/") and clicked "ok", a error pop-up had appeared informing that the instalation step got aborted.

The only choices avaliable wete either exit thr installer or restart it and return to first screen

And thid problem seem to be looped.

Could anyone help me out?
 
You might start with the handbook https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/bsdinstall/ Then section 2.6.5. It's a bit different than a Linux installation. I'd say for a first time user, if you're giving it a whole disk, use auto ZFS, if giving it a portion, use UFS.. You'll find it easer to do the partitioning at install time than you will making partitions then installing. After you get a bit mroe experienced, you can try the partitioning first method but for a first time, it's much easier to follow the handbook. I would strongly recommend, if you're giving it the full disk, to use auto ZFS. There's some advantages to it such, as boot environments where if an update goes bad, you can boot right into the old system.


But if only using a portion of the disk, for a first install, use UFS. You can use ZFS for installing on part of a disk, but it's a bit more work.
 
scottro said:
You might start with the handbook https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/bsdinstall/ Then section 2.6.5. It's a bit different than a Linux installation. I'd say for a first time user, if you're giving it a whole disk, use auto ZFS, if giving it a portion, use UFS.. You'll find it easer to do the partitioning at install time than you will making partitions then installing. After you get a bit mroe experienced, you can try the partitioning first method but for a first time, it's much easier to follow the handbook. I would strongly recommend, if you're giving it the full disk, to use auto ZFS. There's some advantages to it such, as boot environments where if an update goes bad, you can boot right into the old system.


But if only using a portion of the disk, for a first install, use UFS. You can use ZFS for installing on part of a disk, but it's a bit more work.
Click to expand...
Hello and thanks for the answer. It seem that my message has become missread. Let me attempt to clarify it.

. I have already 3 partitions created before install:

* type: freebsd_boot - successfully assigned mount point: "/boot"

* type: freebsd_swap

* type: freebsd_zfs - attempt to assign the mountpoint "/" had crashed the install step and fallen into partial loop in with the user can restart from beginning the installer or exit it
 
mcgiwer said:
FreeBSD distribution
Click to expand...
FreeBSD ain't no "distribution".
It's FreeBSD.
You may skim through the FAQs first. Takes you less then five minutes. Since they are not some BS made up by some marketing morons those are actually worth reading, and clear up and clarify a lot of unkown things and misunderstandings newcomers to FreeBSD often have.
As scottro pointed out, don't complicate things unnecessarily.
When I suspect new people here coming from Linux I often get this feeling they start to complicate things before they even started at all, because they are used to everything must be some weird endless tinker shed. Not every open source OS is a glutton for masochists. Compared to all Linux I experienced, FreeBSD is easy and reproduceably understandable by logically traceble structures, learnable, not by guessing in the dark, but by comprehensible documentation like The Handbook, The Man Pages, Wiki et al.) 🤓
And use a RELEASE version, no STABLE nor CURRENT (why, it's in the FAQs.) (How did I supposed to know that? Guess! 😁:cool:)

Don't bother about partitioning the disk. At least not for the start. A common newbie error for example is to chose a way too large overkill swap partition ("2x RAM" - BS! We are not in the 1990s anymore.) And you wouldn't be the first one asking here in a few weeks how to resize all the partitions again, because their estimated sizes were poorly chosen.
Just stick to the default UFS scheme the installer suggests, and you'll be fine. At least until you are used a bit to the system, and know what you need for what and why. Don't put the cart before the horse. First things first. First get used to the system, its installation, config, how many storage capacity is needed for what et al etc. before start finetuning while not knowing what to finetune why and how.
You need think of what to place where, and how to partition disks manually yourself - if even at all - when you decide to use FreeBSD as your main production driver, at the earliest. Which means, you want to do a clean and fresh new installation for that, have an idea what to store where and why, and already got a backup routine set up.
Unless this is the case, just to take a peek at the system and look around a bit, even for the most single user desktop machine cases, simply use a RELEASE version with its default settings the installer suggests, and you'll be fine.
Anything else is highly probable to end like I've read here so many times: Newbies mess things up by complicating things for nor reason before they even started on the system, and then complaining what a complicated mess FreeBSD was, while in fact it's not. First taste, then salt. But not salt before tasted it and then complain about it's too salty. 😁😎🤓

Enjoy, and welcome to the show!
 
The beginning, is always the most difficult part. It's most easy when your primary drive is empty and has no partitions.
Or spin up a Virtualbox on linux or Windows to try things out.
E.g. drop into single user mode , list disks and partitions etc ...
 
Don't know why, but when I clicked to auto-partition with UFS, withever partition scheme (GPT or MBR) I had choosen, every time I ended up with error popup:

Operation not supported by device. provider
Click to expand...

🤔

I also would like to ask about an potential error in the installer regarding partitioning as ZFS:

I had in an earlier attempt choosen to auto-partition it as ZFS without slices (since I had just only one disk) and the installer refused to continue, writting that is zero disk avaliable from one required, despite of that is already one disk avaliable.

Any idea why that had happened? It's like installer had lost or forgotten about the avaliable disk that was selected 🤔
 
I second what drhowarddrfine said.
It's not clear, what you're trying to do, but forget MBR!

For the main system's drive you boot and run your system from MBR is obsolete for over fifteen years. It's been only used for some ancient machine, or some single partition USB flashdrive or sd card you format with some FAT filesystem to be used as some interchangeable datastorage.
A common default FreeBSD installation on a today's machine comes with at least 4 partitions - no matter if you chose UFS or ZFS:
- UEFI
- boot
- swap
- / (root)
MBR can handle two (2) partitions: a primary one, and an extended one, which then can contain several more partitions.
Simply just use GPT.
 
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