Hardware Question

A

Angrenost

External hardware has me a bit concerned (see below) as I have zero experience with FreeBSD, it all works with W10.

I'm thinking I'll buy a new Boot drive (SSD) to play with the install, disconnect all the other drives and attempt a build to get the hardware running,
I think it's the safest thing to do. I'm sure it will take more than one afternoon because there is a long list of hardware. I have a spare USB keyboard.
I'm thinking the install using a DVD and the USB Blu-ray/DVD drive, if it doesn't work I have a USB Stick.

If you have advice it would be appreciated. :)

External Hardware:
Logitech G613 keyboard wireless.
ASUS CHAKRAM Gaming Mouse P511 wired.
ASUS 16x USB 3.0 External Blu-ray Drive
HornetTek 3.5" Dual Bay USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure two hard drives.
Samsung C24F390 23.5" Full HD (1920 x 1080) 60Hz Curved Screen Monitor, two of them.
Audio Technica ATH-G1WL wireless headset.
Sony NW-A55 Digital Music Player
Audio Technica ATH-CKR300BT headset
HP Color LaserJet M255dw
Canon Scanner Lide 110 USB

PC Build
Thermaltake View 51 Tempered Glass eATX Full Tower, lots of fans and some lights.
ASUS Crosshair VI Hero
CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz 8 Core AM4, Wraith Prism Cooler
Mem - Crucial Ballistix Gaming 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 PC4-25600 CL16
GPU
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super
HD
M4-CT128M4SSD2 (2018) [boot W10]
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD 3D TLC NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5"
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD 3D TLC NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5"
 
It's really difficult to make detailed comment with that load of equipment.

I would not use optical media nor the extra SSD. I would get an empty USB 3.1 (blue) thumb drive (at least 32 GB, preferably 64 GB), plug it into a USB 3.1. or 3.2 (blue or red) port, get the FreeBSD release media on any old USB thumb drive (very easy to do), boot from the release media, and install FreeBSD onto the empty USB 3.1 thumb drive. The USB 3.1 thumb drive will be quite good enough to boot and test the system, without disturbing any of the existing infrastructure. It will also be very convenient to switch from Windows to FreeBSD -- put USB drives first in the boot order, and pull the USB 3.1 boot thumb drive if you want to boot Windows.

You will have to read the handbook for things like printers, scanners, and Nvidia GPU.

My guess is that most of your hardware will work fairly easily. But some might take more work. e.g. I have a Canon LIDE 210 scanner that I still use with a Windows 8.1 notebook. I tried using graphics/sane-backends several years ago, but could never get it to work as well as the native Canon Windows drivers. Of course, that was several years ago...

Bottom line is, try it out, and come back with any issues...
 
I find custom FreeBSD USB sticks quite enjoyable.

I have built a couple. One is 256GB M.2 mSATA stick, but others are 64GB and even 32GB memsticks.
I have desktops on some and they really make good rescue tools.

So lets say I want to burn an image to an eMMC. I bootup my USB Stick and dd the image to the eMMC.
I also use it for flashing NanoBSD images to eMMC.
Many times when I get a 'new' device my first stop is USB Live stick with smartctl. Check those POH numbers.

Recently I got some headless gear with no console and my USB sticks worked via SSH using ifconfig_DEFAULT.
I have many USB stick configurations. EFI version, i386 version and amd64 versions and even serial console.
Granted upgrades take longer. I wouldn't try a desktop over USB2. No swap on USB.

I run my normal Xfce4 desktop on USB3 sticks and its only slightly slower feeling.
Considering that its a portable install I really don't mind.
Really nice to have such hardware independence. On par with Ubuntu LiveCD.
 
Phishfry said:
Installing onto a spare or new drive is not a bad idea.

You really never explained how you plan on using these:
Click to expand...
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD 3D TLC NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5"
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD 3D TLC NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5"

They are the existing drives with music and games.
 
SirDice said:
USB memory sticks typically have limited writes, and tend to die a lot.
Click to expand...
cracauer@ said:
I had pretty extreme slowdowns with full OSes on simple sticks. Plus they die easily.
Click to expand...
I'm suspecting that your experience is of USB 2 flash drives. Modern thumb drives (USB 3.1 and later) aren't cheap, but their performance is excellent, and they generally come with appreciable (three to five year) warranties. Some of them (e.g. AXE) are just SSDs with a USB interface.

The OP is not yet committed to FreeBSD. My view is that a good thumb drive is sufficient to test the waters, and would always be handy regardless of where things end up. If things go well, then a zroot can always be mirror'd to new media...
 
gpw928 said:
The OP is not yet committed to FreeBSD. My view is that a good thumb drive is sufficient to test the waters, and would always be handy regardless of where things end up. If things go well, then a zroot can always be mirror'd to new media...
Click to expand...
You can also install GhostBSD on a USB you've already purchased and use it for a few days. That way you will normally know whether FreeBSD appeals to you or not.

I wouldn't have him specifically buy a USB and then upgrade to an SSD. This way he will be charged twice.

I'd test it with GhostBSD for a few days on a USB you've already bought. And after that I would buy the Crucial MX500 500GB SSD to install it permanently.
 
I have also had disasters with usb sticks.

Dr. Rolf helped me build a OneWire monitoring program with rrdtools. It was exactly what I wanted.
Because my OS was on BBB eMMC I wanted to use USB stick for the frequent database writes.
USB in this case failed badly. It usually lasted around 2-3 days and then USB drive would drop offline.
Completely ruining my first project. Very disheartening.

Last year I bought a lot of 50 Innodisk 16GB USB3 sticks and they are unbreakable. No looking back.
The quality of the drive is essential.

Regardless USB Thumbsticks should not be used for permanent use.
 
Trying to keep all this in one place.
I've done my new build.
I have two NVMe drives for W10 (so much data).
I have two identical SSD 500gb (same brand and model).
One SSD for Fedora installed
One unused
When I attempt to install FreeBSD I can't tell which SSD is Fedora and which is unused.

This is my train (mostly train wreck) of though.
Disconnect one drive restart in windows, if the unused disk shows up in Disk Manager, I restart, boot to the FreeBSD DVD and Install it to the SSD.
If it's the Fedora disk it will not show in Disk Manager in windows so I have to do the dance of cables so I have the unused disk.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top