DISCLAIMER:
Introduction
After a successful installation of FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE on a Dell OptiPlex Micro (MMF) 7010 (GPT+ZFS on NVMe SSD) I felt encouraged to do the "same" on an older Dell Vostro 3470 of mine which was running a fully updated FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE. The system uses UEFI firmware which to me seems always more troublesome in general, beginning by accessing its setup for making it bootable from an external USB device, such as a USB memory stick with a FreeBSD installer image (memstick) applied. Trying to keep my focus I won't cover the details of my hurdle on this specific issue, but just say I had to use its standard VGA output (not its HDMI output) and connect a standard ("non-fancy") USB keyboard as well. I've decided to perform a new installation because the old one wasn't displaying a nice loader menu and beasty logo despite console fonts being ok (after I had tweaked, in the past, the console display resolution to its maximum of 1920x1080). What I was seeing since my very first (initial) installation of FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE on the machine was an ugly character-only loader menu and logo "intermixed" with "extraneous" chars (such as unrecognizable symbols) similar to some sort of char codepoint misshapen. I don't know why it was so and I didn't care about it until attempting this new release of FreeBSD. Needless to say I've performed all backups I could before proceeding, including exporting a "data-only" ZFS pool on a secondary 480 GB internal (legacy) SSD; the primary 60 GB internal (legacy) SSD (
Installing FreeBSD
I didn't even bother trying to use the Auto (ZFS) of bsdinstall and went directly to the shell for carrying out most (but not all) of the steps of Installing FreeBSD Root on ZFS using GPT. I've done mostly the same I've successfully did for the aforementioned OptiPlex, except for a few steps of the ZFS file-system hierarchy creation which this time I've opted to:
Yes!
It works! In addition, now I see (as expected) a nice beasty loader menu as well, finally. I guess that from now on I shall adopt to myself this installation strategy for any subsequent major version upgrades, unless, of course, the bsdinstall is somehow changed in an incompatible way which I sincerely hope not, otherwise things could become harder or even impossible. Nevertheless, I like and consider very important the reasonable flexibility and freedom that FreeBSD provides since its installation process.
PS
So far I do have the unverified sense that FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE is generally faster or at least more responsive.
Introduction
After a successful installation of FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE on a Dell OptiPlex Micro (MMF) 7010 (GPT+ZFS on NVMe SSD) I felt encouraged to do the "same" on an older Dell Vostro 3470 of mine which was running a fully updated FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE. The system uses UEFI firmware which to me seems always more troublesome in general, beginning by accessing its setup for making it bootable from an external USB device, such as a USB memory stick with a FreeBSD installer image (memstick) applied. Trying to keep my focus I won't cover the details of my hurdle on this specific issue, but just say I had to use its standard VGA output (not its HDMI output) and connect a standard ("non-fancy") USB keyboard as well. I've decided to perform a new installation because the old one wasn't displaying a nice loader menu and beasty logo despite console fonts being ok (after I had tweaked, in the past, the console display resolution to its maximum of 1920x1080). What I was seeing since my very first (initial) installation of FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE on the machine was an ugly character-only loader menu and logo "intermixed" with "extraneous" chars (such as unrecognizable symbols) similar to some sort of char codepoint misshapen. I don't know why it was so and I didn't care about it until attempting this new release of FreeBSD. Needless to say I've performed all backups I could before proceeding, including exporting a "data-only" ZFS pool on a secondary 480 GB internal (legacy) SSD; the primary 60 GB internal (legacy) SSD (
ada0) is the one dedicated to the system and targeted for the installation.Installing FreeBSD
I didn't even bother trying to use the Auto (ZFS) of bsdinstall and went directly to the shell for carrying out most (but not all) of the steps of Installing FreeBSD Root on ZFS using GPT. I've done mostly the same I've successfully did for the aforementioned OptiPlex, except for a few steps of the ZFS file-system hierarchy creation which this time I've opted to:
- not create any of the following: system/usr/obj, system/usr/ports/distfiles and system/usr/ports/packages.
- not re-specify the redundant
-o mountpoint=/usr/portsat the system/usr/ports creation.
Yes!
It works! In addition, now I see (as expected) a nice beasty loader menu as well, finally. I guess that from now on I shall adopt to myself this installation strategy for any subsequent major version upgrades, unless, of course, the bsdinstall is somehow changed in an incompatible way which I sincerely hope not, otherwise things could become harder or even impossible. Nevertheless, I like and consider very important the reasonable flexibility and freedom that FreeBSD provides since its installation process.PS
So far I do have the unverified sense that FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE is generally faster or at least more responsive.