Installed FreeBSD now can't boot anything else

J

jl2035

This is the first time I'm playing with FreeBSD..

I installed FreeBSD on my laptop. Than I tried to install Xfce and Gnome but both didn't work. I'm watching youtube tutorials by 'bsdtutorial'. This guy seems very smart. However if I do all the steps he provided, I'm just not as lucky as he is... :\ Maybe because his tutorials are not on FreeBSD 9 but some older version I guess.

So I got pissed and now I want to reinstall or try PC-BSD. But I have a problem booting any live CD, FreeBSD or Linux. No matter what I do, it always boots into installed FreeBSD. So that's my main problem now. How the hell did this happen?

By the way it's an old HP Compaq laptop.
 
jl2035 said:
But I have a problem booting any live cd...BSD or Linux. No matter what I do, it always boots into installed FreeBSD. So that's my main problem now. How the hell did this happen?!
Click to expand...

Change BIOS settings to boot from CD/DVD first, then from HDD.
 
I run into this a lot myself. My solution is to install centos or something else to start over and then reinstall FreeBSD. Sometimes Gparted will wipe it off too.

However I think its alway the computer's fault.
 
I resolved this, but honestly I don't know how. I have to say that CD/DVD device had higher boot priority than HDD, but anyway it always booted into bsd FreeBSD.

So what did I do: I went into BIOS and hit "Check boot" or something like this. It seemed like it was going to take some time so I left it the whole afternoon. In the evening (when I came home) the check was done with no errors. Then I saved and exited BIOS settings and bam: I could boot from CD/DVD. I don't know how, because I didn't change anything in BIOS. Then I used some linux distro with gparted and erased all partitions and than I installed PC-BSD. Can't say it went ok. I'll start a new forum question about the problems I have there.

Thanks for your replies.
 
One of the first things I read when first using FreeBSD is that it's a BOIS itself. So when you're in the computer BIOS it's best practice to set it to defaults. However you might need to change a setting or two. My Toshiba can disable the start up boot options "F12". I need that one setting to get it to boot from a CD disk if boot priority is DISK0 and OS already installed.

Your might be Delete F10, F9, F2 (without the manual it's a real workout).
 
I'm lost again..

Now it happened again. I installed PC-BSD. First it looked very user friendly (of course I chose Xfce desktop), but than I found it very messed up. Wireless doesn't work at all (have no idea how to fix that) and a desktop is totally weird. Tray icons are just transparent (so looks like no icons).

I started a thread on the PC-BSD forums but no help from them. Check out to see the problem with tray icons and labels. I put a screenshot picture there.

http://forums.pcbsd.org/showthread.php?p=93926#post93926

So I decided to uninstall BSD and here I am. No matter what I do now it always boots up to PC-BSD. If I try the same thing I described before it doesn't solve the problem now.

One of the first things I read when first using FreeBSD is that it's a BOIS itself.
Click to expand...
So I learned one thing I hate on FreeBSD. I really don't know how could anyone benefit from this. Faster boot perhaps?

It really sucks to be a newbie.
 
jl2035 said:
So I learned one thing I hate on FreeBSD...I really don't know how could anyone benefit from this. Faster boot perhabs?
Click to expand...
The BIOS was only used by MS-DOS and similar operating systems. Modern versions of Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and a whole bunch more do NOT use anything in the BIOS.

The ONLY BIOS functionality that's still in use today is its ability to load a boot sector and starting it.

Your boot issues have nothing to do with FreeBSD. Things are messed up before FreeBSD ever gets control.
 
I think I opened an interesting thread... :)

Thanks for this info, but why this never happend on Linux? And how could I screw this up. I didn't change anything in BIOS. Before I found out that I have boot problems I didn't even touch BIOS. CD/DVD already had the highest boot priority.
 
I liked PC-BSD also but if you want to change the kernel or world it gets problematic for me.

Here my approach to Installing

I install FreeBSD from DVD now before I always used a cd. If you load a amd64 FreeBSD disk and have a stalled computer then you should be using the i386 disk. When the INSTALL process asked me to choose a default keyboard mapping I say "NO".

Components to Install:
I choose everything but additional documention. (you can get the scr later or even update it later but its just easier to have it there installed for some ports to build maybe.)

Here's my basic setup from /etc/rc.conf to help configure an installation.
Code: 
hostname="freec"
ifconfig_re0="DHCP"
sshd_enable="YES"
powerd_enable="YES"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="NO"

I add a user and when the installation asks if the user should belong to a second group type in "wheel". (the program will ensure you type it right)

Then when the installion is almost over and you can change things I choose to go to ee /etc/hosts and place in
Code: 
127.0.0.1 freec freec.development
under 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain on a added new line.

Then reboot to install the rest or you can install through sysinstall right away. and when finish type exit.

So now I'm in sysinstall:

I choose configure-packages-cd/dvd Then I go straight to X11 packages and select xorg and OK. INSTALL

if I select a WM at the same time I'll need to reinstall everything and avoid doing that for my mouse and keyboard to work.

Then we add this to rc.conf too.
Code: 
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"

from there follow instruction from 6.7 Desktop Environments

and install yours like we did for xorg.

PS:KDE4 is my choice for desktop right now because its got something for everyone in it.
 
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