Solved Partition Editor Will Not Allow Manual Partitioning (FreeBSD 10.1 Install)

A

aam4us

Hello, I'm trying to install FreeBSD 10.1, manually selecting the partition sizes. However, when I get to the place in the (graphical) install program where we can select the partition sizes and mount points (Add Partition), once I select the drive on which to install (ada0 in this case) the install program will not let me make any adjustments. I cannot change the size of a/the partition and I cannot add a mount point. I can highlight the Type, Size, Mountpoint or Label and bang on the keyboard like an angry chimp, but no input/entry is allowed what-so-ever.

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Clicking OK brings up an error message telling me that the partition that I'm attempting to create has no mount point. Continuing will just loop back to the whole unpartitioned drive. Essentially, the install program will not let me manually create partitions.

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If I use auto-partitioning, it'll give me an eif boot partition (of 800 KB on a 1 TB drive... I cannot chose 512 KB), a root partition (taking up most of the rest of the drive) and a swap partition of 3.5 GB. I've got 12 gigs of RAM and would like to be able to hibernate the system, but the install program will not let me make any adjustments. In each case, the swap space has been 3.5 to 3.8 GB, and the creation of separate /var, /home, /tmp or any other partition has not been allowed.

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Is there any alternative to going command line? Is this a known bug in the installer, or is it just my hardware/bios? Any and all help/suggestions is/are appreciated.

Install media and hardware:

Image: FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso
Target Hardware: Dell Inspiron 3847 Desktop, i5, 12GB RAM
BIOS: Aptio Setup Utility (2013) UEFI

Hard Drives Attempted:
1 - SanDisk SSD Plus 120 GB Solid State Drive
2 - Seagate HDD ST310005N1A1AS-RK 1 TB SATA
 
Personally, I would recommend setting MBR boot or "compatibility mode" in the BIOS. No EFI partition is needed then. Some systems are really dimwitted about GPT and might not boot that way, but it's quick to try, and a lot easier to test when installing a new system.
 
I set the BIOS to legacy mode. Same results. Can anyone (everyone) point to tutorials for partitioning and installing via the shell? Also, what are your favorites between gparted and fdisk(8) (or any other applicable tool)? Thanks in advance.
 
Another question: Will the GPT bootcode in the "Disk Setup On FreeBSD" instructions boot on an EFI machine (UEFI enabled and using legacy oprom)? If not, should I replace a file with boot1.efi? And if so, I'm curious as to whether "-b 40" should be altered to a different starting number as I noticed that EFI partitions have been mentioned as being 800 kb (or maybe I just saw that in the installer), vs. a 512 I've seen for FreeBSD in the past.

I noticed in the UEFI Boot Process that the files boot1.efi and loader.efi are listed, which started me wondering should I alter the code thus. `Guess I could/should just buy a box of tongue suppressors for the coding induced Tourette's Syndrome, and hack at it. :D

The boot process proceeds as follows:

UEFI firmware runs at power up and searches for an OS loader in the EFI system partition. The path to the loader may be set by an EFI environment variable, with a default of /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI.

For FreeBSD, boot1.efi is installed as /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI.
boot1.efifat is an image of such a FAT filesystem for use by bsdinstall
boot1.efi locates the first partition with a type of freebsd-ufs, and from it loads loader.efi. (This may be a different disk than the one holding the EFI system partition.)
loader.efi loads and boots the kernel, as described in loader(8).
 
The Disk Setup document is for standard BIOS booting. UEFI is a whole different world. Again, I recommend using CSM mode and doing a normal boot. UEFI booting only complicates the issue.
 
Solved the problem. It was an i-d-10-t error.

I was using the mouse to make selections, which the install program will allow for some things. Entering data into the Partition Editor is not one of them. When I used the tab, enter and arrow keys in the editor, everything went as expected. I was able to change partition sizes and manually enter mount points (efi, /, swap, /var, /tmp, /usr).

BIOS settings:
Secure Boot Control -> Disabled
Load Legacy OPROM -> Enabled
Boot Mode -> UEFI.
1st Boot Device -> UEFI: PLDS DVD+/-RW
 
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