FreeBSD 10.0 ISO incompatible with WinSetupFromUSB

3guesses · Oct 5, 2014

Hi,

I have been trying out some Linux distros on my laptop and I thought I'd try installing FreeBSD, but I got the following message when I ran the installation:

Code:

Mounting from cd9600:/dev/iso9600/FREEBSD_INSTALL failed with error 19

Manual root filesystem specification:
  <fstype>|<device> [options]
      Mount <device> using filesystem <fstype>
      and with the specified (optional) option list.

(copied from a fuzzy photo of the screen so apologies for any inaccuracies)

I was attempting to install from the FreeBSD-10_0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1 ISO file stored on a USB memory stick and booted as a virtual DVD - this set-up had been created using the most excellent WinSetupFromUSB utility (it allows you to put multiple ISOs on USB and then selectively boot them as if burnt to CD/DVD, like YUMI but it supports installing Windows too). I have no idea what the installer is asking, and I suspect it's not really supposed to present this prompt. Can anyone help?

3g

wblock@ · Oct 5, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

YUMI is only going to work if it can deal with device labels for FreeBSD. Odds are that it cannot. There are USB images of FreeBSD along with the CD and DVD images. Download one of those and use it instead.

3guesses · Oct 5, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

So are you saying that I won't be able to include FreeBSD on my "multi-install" USB memory stick (ie I wiill need a dedicated memory stick just for BSD)?

3g

wblock@ · Oct 5, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

Unless the CD to USB reinstaller knows how to deal with FreeBSD, yes. I know there were similar utilities that could handle older versions of FreeBSD, but don't know if any of them can handle current versions.

3guesses · Oct 6, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

For such a mature and open product it is disappointing to learn it is so handicapped!

wblock@ · Oct 6, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

This is a lack in the CD to USB converter programs. If you want them to support FreeBSD, contact them.

Terri_Kennedy · Oct 7, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

wblock@ said:
This is a lack in the CD to USB converter programs. If you want them to support FreeBSD, contact them.

I think the issue in this case (and, indeed, in most cases where the installation media boots but then can't find itself) is incomplete emulation of the CD hardware. It also happens when loading a disk image via a number of remote management options / cards on systems as well. The image is loaded via the BIOS INT 13 code, but as soon as a FreeBSD device driver goes to talk to [what the BIOS told it was] the boot device, it doesn't see suitable hardware or emulation. This normally happens later on, since the kernel is (was?) loaded via BIOS calls. But this may have changed recently with the addition of EFI boot support.

In the case of the original poster here, it might be possible to achieve better results with the memstick image rather than the CD image.

wblock@ · Oct 7, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

I think YUMI takes apart the CD image into files. Then it writes them into directories on the USB stick and builds a menu. That can be done with FreeBSD, the program just has to be able to deal with the things that FreeBSD does differently. The volume label for the CD, for example, would have to be replaced with a path.

3guesses · Oct 10, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

I contacted the author of WinSetupFromUSB about this, and this was his response:

Until *BSD variants start using and supporting isohybrid-ed images, or some other way to boot directly from an ISO file, there is no much I can do to place multiple *BSD on the same USB.

I don't pretend to understand what this means, but it would appear that the problem does not lie with WinSetupFromUSB but rather the way in which the FreeBSD ISO image is implemented.

Terry_Kennedy: Yes, that seems like a good idea to try the memstick image although I think WinSetupFromUSB only supports ISO images (I'm no expert as you can tell, but I presume a .img file differs from an ISO file).

wblock: I did look at YUMI some time ago but had to reject it (from memory I believe it doesn't support Windows installation disk images).

3g

Terri_Kennedy · Oct 10, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

3guesses said:
I contacted the author of WinSetupFromUSB about this, and this was his response:

Until *BSD variants start using and supporting isohybrid-ed images, or some other way to boot directly from an ISO file, there is no much I can do to place multiple *BSD on the same USB.

Click to expand...

I don't pretend to understand what this means, but it would appear that the problem does not lie with WinSetupFromUSB but rather the way in which the FreeBSD ISO image is implemented.

This is getting pretty far away from my area of expertise, but a number of Linux distributions contain a utility called isohybrid which claims to "Postprocess ISO images for hybrid mode". It doesn't say anything about the images needing to be Linux images. Perhaps you could try running a FreeBSD ISO through that utility and see if it does anything useful. If it does, someone could investigate making a FreeBSD port of that tool.

If the developer of WinSetupFromUSB wants to make a clear case why isohybrid images are generally useful, perhaps either a developer will work on it, or one of the FreeBSD-related projects like mfsBSD might add it to their project.

wblock@ · Oct 10, 2014

YUMI could do it. I have no idea about others. For that matter, my own PXE article shows essentially how to set up booting to a menu, and then starting mfsBSD from that. YUMI automates that process.

I've seen customized FreeBSD install images that claimed to work on both CD and memory stick. They did not work in VirtualBox, which killed any interest I might have had. The nice thing about using those images with a custom builder is that it makes the builder easy to write: just load the image to RAM and boot from that. The bad thing is that it is not versatile, only supporting that format. YUMI's approach is better, and I think they supported previous versions of FreeBSD.

balanga · Oct 11, 2014

Re: Installer wants "Manual root filesystem specification"

3guesses said:
wblock: I did look at YUMI some time ago but had to reject it (from memory I believe it doesn't support Windows installation disk images).

3g

I have a YUMI USB pendrive and have used it several times for installing Win 7.

I couldn't figure out how to install FreeBSD from it though... at least, not yet...