Boot installation issues on an old i386 system

[pvswie]

Hi,
I spend a lot of time trying to install FreeBSD on an old i386 system (Intel ATOM N270).
Booting the following ends shortly after start of boot in a software interrupt 6 (invalid opcode) error:
- FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso
- FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
The same error with the 12.4 ISO images.

I finally succeeded booting (and installing) by using the FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img
I did not try any other installation media.

Q1: Is this an incompatibility issue with the N270 or is maybe the ISO image not build for i386 (but instead for 64-bit, the FreeBSD ISOs boot perfectly fine on a 64 bit (AMD) machine)?

After having created the memory stick on the N270 it works perfectly.

My next attempt was to install the same on a quite new notebook (Lenovo X1 2023).
This notebook boots perfectly from the ISO (i386) images but the memory stick created on the N270 fails to boot. The format I chose when installing it is MBR.
Q2: Is this format not suitable for a bootable system on very new computers. Is there any other format that is?

Kind regards,
PvSwie

 

[SirDice]

or is maybe the ISO image not build for i386

If it says 'i386' that's the 32 bit version for i386 CPUs. It does require at least a Pentium class CPU if I recall correctly.

: Is this format not suitable for a bootable system on very new computers. Is there any other format that is?

MBR should still work but I'm going to recommend GPT in any case. Even on really old hardware this should work just fine.

Don't use ZFS on 32 bit though, stick to UFS on these old systems.

 

[pvswie]

pvswie said:
or is maybe the ISO image not build for i386

If it says 'i386' that's the 32 bit version for i386 CPUs. It does require at least a Pentium class CPU if I recall correctly.

I have no clue as to how to determine whether the N270 is a pentium class CPU.
Despite: What I consider weird is that the installation ISO fails to boot on the N270 where the memstick.img boots just fine and the installed system also runs just fine. Why would the ISO result in 'invalid opcode'. Why are the CPU requirements for the ISO higher than those of FreeBSD itself or the memstick.img