I spent lots time to try install FreeBSD on my old asus notebook K42Jv with UEFI: i5-520m, 8GB memory, IGP and nvidia 335m, but all failed.
The notebook can run arch linux, ubuntu linux, windows 7-10, even include tianocore's Shell_Full.efi with UEFI boot, so I believe it's support freebsd too.
1. hang rate > 95 percents
I use 10.4-uefi-memstick and 11.1-memstick version. The partition layout of version 11.1 include efi and freebsd-boot, I think it's the reason haven't uefi version.
The very strange thing is that almost every boot will hang after print out 'masks 0x00ff0000, 0x0000ff00, 0x000000ff, 0xff000000' without switch display mode.
In very rare cases, someitmes I modify the partition table or adjust the EFI entry under Linux, and the try to start, it can enter the correct installation interface.
I can't master the rule at all, because even if don't do anything, reboot it immediately then would hang at masks line again.
2 installer can't create correct efi partition.
Although the chance is very small, sometimes it can be installed. However, the installer will not recognize the existing EFI partition. Whenever I create a freebsd-ufs partition, it will automatically generate a 200M efi partition for me. The worst part is that this efi partition does not work correctly. The installer not only didn't create any EFI entry, it did not even create the correct file in the EFI partition.
3 Strange efi partition
Since the installer always creates its own EFI partition, my partition table is often similar to:
sda1 600M EFI
sda2 60G Ext4 (My Linux root partition)
sda3 8G swap (Linux swap)
sda4 200M EFI (FreeBSD)
sda5 60G freebsd-ufs
sda6 8G freebsd-swap
The second efi partition is very strange, there is only one file /EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI, version 11.1 will have one more STARTUP.NSH, but none of them work. Even if I mount with the rw option, I can't write to the partition again. I tried to copy the file(s) to my own efi partition and added the entry with efibootmgr by:
efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/sda -p 1 --label 'FreeBSD' --loader '/EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI'
but it only started efi correctly, not the boot succeeded. I guess it is missing the necessary boot file, or there is no correct entry parameter telling the loader where to find the root directory.
How should I install in UEFI mode?
The notebook can run arch linux, ubuntu linux, windows 7-10, even include tianocore's Shell_Full.efi with UEFI boot, so I believe it's support freebsd too.
1. hang rate > 95 percents
I use 10.4-uefi-memstick and 11.1-memstick version. The partition layout of version 11.1 include efi and freebsd-boot, I think it's the reason haven't uefi version.
The very strange thing is that almost every boot will hang after print out 'masks 0x00ff0000, 0x0000ff00, 0x000000ff, 0xff000000' without switch display mode.
In very rare cases, someitmes I modify the partition table or adjust the EFI entry under Linux, and the try to start, it can enter the correct installation interface.
I can't master the rule at all, because even if don't do anything, reboot it immediately then would hang at masks line again.
2 installer can't create correct efi partition.
Although the chance is very small, sometimes it can be installed. However, the installer will not recognize the existing EFI partition. Whenever I create a freebsd-ufs partition, it will automatically generate a 200M efi partition for me. The worst part is that this efi partition does not work correctly. The installer not only didn't create any EFI entry, it did not even create the correct file in the EFI partition.
3 Strange efi partition
Since the installer always creates its own EFI partition, my partition table is often similar to:
sda1 600M EFI
sda2 60G Ext4 (My Linux root partition)
sda3 8G swap (Linux swap)
sda4 200M EFI (FreeBSD)
sda5 60G freebsd-ufs
sda6 8G freebsd-swap
The second efi partition is very strange, there is only one file /EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI, version 11.1 will have one more STARTUP.NSH, but none of them work. Even if I mount with the rw option, I can't write to the partition again. I tried to copy the file(s) to my own efi partition and added the entry with efibootmgr by:
efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/sda -p 1 --label 'FreeBSD' --loader '/EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI'
but it only started efi correctly, not the boot succeeded. I guess it is missing the necessary boot file, or there is no correct entry parameter telling the loader where to find the root directory.
How should I install in UEFI mode?