Dual boot freebsd boot-loader

thedevbox · Sep 1, 2024

Hello,

Average/in-frequent FreeBSD user here. Long time forum user, and the forum has really helped me learn a lot.
Currently compiling FreeBSD-current on my laptop and I love it

I am aware of the existence and have dabbled in the past with the various FreeBSD derived systems out there.
I am also aware of the various other boot loader alternatives such as rEFInd

This is my first post, and as such am not sure if I am posting this in the correct channel.

I might be a bit lazy/ not good at searching, but I have not been able to find any relevant information so here goes...

I would love to see FreeBSD adopted/ used a lot more, as I believe it to be so much better and sane than anything else.

I believe there are a few pieces missing that might elevate FreeBSD to be better used/adopted.

- Linux started off with being very difficult to install and use.
- However, the one thing the various Linux communities got right was the boot loader LiLO and subsequently Grub.
- Whilst not easy to use/ setup as such themselves, they allowed for an average joe / newcomer to experiment and subsequently get better at it by allowing for dual-booting their windows installation with their flavour of linux.
- I sincerely believe FreeBSD would be better adopted and loved if there was a similar alternative that came with freebsd, either as the default bootloader being able to dual boot a standard windows/linux installation, or some mechanism which recognizes the existence of another OS on a user's machine and allows them so safely experiment and fall in love with FreeBSD.

Alain De Vos · Sep 1, 2024

What's your question ?

thedevbox · Sep 1, 2024

Question is:
Could/ should the freebsd installer, or the OS itself be updated to handle dual booting...

Ideas for the above:
- Recognising the existence of another OS on the system and setup the boot loader for dual booting
- This could be handled by the default boot loader being modified to handle the above, OR,
- Another boot loader being included as part of the installer which is installed and handle dual-booting the user's selected choice

Would this be a good idea as I believe any implementation which allows the dual booting of a system will lead to wider adoption

bsduck · Sep 1, 2024

Just install FreeBSD on a dedicated disk and it's very easy.

Otherwise it's not really complicated to install rEFInd. Installing a FreeBSD system requires quite a bit of manual work anyway, so this additional step shouldn't be much of a big deal.

Welcome to the Forums, by the way.

scottro · Sep 1, 2024

I have FreeBSD booting on a multiboot uefi system, using Grub.
With FreeBSD on the 4th partition.


menuentry "FreeBSD" {
insmod ufs2
insmod part_gpt
set root=(hd0,4)
chainloader /boot/loader.efi
}

thedevbox · Sep 1, 2024

Thanks for the replies.

I have used all of these solutions at different times of my FreeBSD career.

However it requires knowledge of various moving parts making entry for a novice rather difficult.

With a Linux bootable ISO, I can simply install it to a disk, and the bootloader will present me with the relevant choices (Still annoyed though that GRUB does not pick up FreeBSD by default though).

With FreeBSD (for a newcomer), I have to have knowledge of several different things (mostly not related to FreeBSD itself), making the entry point to FreeBSD all that more difficult.

A mechanism whereby simply installing FreeBSD, the bootloader picks up any other installed OSs (at the very least windows) would IMHO make FreeBSD much much more accessible to a broader audience.

cracauer@ · Sep 1, 2024

My Debian picks up FreeBSD and makes a chainload entry automatically.

What distribution do you use there? Some have the os-prober in grub-install turned off.

adorno · Sep 1, 2024

thedevbox said:
A mechanism whereby simply installing FreeBSD, the bootloader picks up any other installed OSs (at the very least windows) would IMHO make FreeBSD much much more accessible to a broader audience.

Curiously, long before EFI that's exactly how things worked. Back then I found both lilo and grub terribly annoying in comparison. I haven't had the need to set up dual boot for the last twenty years or so, so I'm not really up to date how things changed in that area.