Solved Trouble installing on Sun Ultra 40

I have a Sun Ultra 40, the dvd drive does not work but the USB do. I can install of USB Raspian x86 Linux, Ubunutu 18.04, Solaris 11.4 and Linux Mint. What I cannot install is FreeBSD. The system just freezes when it reaches the USB boot point.

I have tried all the 12.1-RELEASE versions same story.

The Ultra 40 is an amd system with a bios.

any idea on how I install FreeBSD ?

Thank you
 
Can you provide an image of the frozen installation screen?

it is just the boot screen, show mem check, bios and cache mem check. never makes it to the mouse check. Just sits there. Really nothing to show.
 

Attachments

  • D6FE7C8B-EB60-4210-AA1A-17ACC0A88160.jpeg
    D6FE7C8B-EB60-4210-AA1A-17ACC0A88160.jpeg
    359.7 KB · Views: 376
How could you install solaris 11.4 if it's not supported on your platform? I'm asking out of curiosity, because I have t5240 and I cannot install solaris 11.4 there.

From Oracle Release Notes

You will not be able to upgrade to Oracle Solaris 11.4 on any of the following platforms. See
Oracle Solaris 11.3 Support (Doc ID 2382427.1) for information about keeping these systems
up to date with critical fixes for Oracle Solaris 11.3 until you can upgrade the hardware:

- Platforms based on UltraSPARC T2+ CPUs: Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140, T5240 and
T5440, Sun Blade T6340, Sun Netra T6340, and Netra T5440
- Sun Ultra Workstation models: 20, 20 M2, 40, 40 M2
 
How could you install solaris 11.4 if it's not supported on your platform?
The Ultra brand was revived in 2005 with the launch of the Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 with x86-64-architecture.

x64-based Ultra systems remained in the Sun portfolio for five more years; the last one, the Intel Xeon-based Ultra 27, was retired in June 2010, thereby concluding the history of Sun as a workstation vendor.
 
How could you install solaris 11.4 if it's not supported on your platform? I'm asking out of curiosity, because I have t5240 and I cannot install solaris 11.4 there.
It installed with out effort. Keep in mind this system is just a high end PC. The problem with 11.4 is the lack of pkg. to download and build all the tools is too much. Hoping freebsd would of been a good replacemen.
 
it is just the boot screen, show mem check, bios and cache mem check. never makes it to the mouse check. Just sits there. Really nothing to show.
Nothing seems to be booted. This just looks like a POST screen, so it apparently already hangs before it even begins to boot.
 
Nothing seems to be booted. This just looks like a POST screen, so it apparently already hangs before it even begins to boot.
Yep, it is at the point where the biOS is testing the usb. It must be the way FreeBSD img is written to the usb, that causes it to hang. Linux and Solaris have no problem. Hipster did not work either. I am not going to try NetBSD or OpenBSD, they complain when building src abour vulnerablities. I could dd the img on the the second drive, boot the drive and install on the first. Will give it a go in the morning.
 
FreeBSD doesn't do anything "special" or different from any other OS. But it does beg the question, which image are you trying?
I have tried all the 12.1-release img usb, cd, dvd. I am thinking it might have to do with the BSD file system, and the boot area of the img which is dd onto the usb.
 
I have tried all the 12.1-release img usb, cd, dvd.
Try the amd64 memstick images. How are you writing them to USB?

I am thinking it might have to do with the BSD file system
No, that doesn't even come into play. Depending on the image you used it's just a plain MBR partitioning, with either a master boot record or an EFI boot. The filesystem is accessed when the first stage of the boot has succeeded and you're not even getting that far.

While googling for information on this thing I noticed it may have Secure boot, make sure that's disabled. Also turn off Ultra fast boot.
 
This is how it looks with Linux on the usb
 

Attachments

  • 01EDD65C-6548-4E27-B3C2-0DB1F5F44810.jpeg
    01EDD65C-6548-4E27-B3C2-0DB1F5F44810.jpeg
    501.7 KB · Views: 157
I looked at the usb drive under fdisk on Linux first img is FreeBSD, second is Linux Debian
 

Attachments

  • 78B79FB8-B585-4A7F-9EE6-7E6FFFEF3F0E.jpeg
    78B79FB8-B585-4A7F-9EE6-7E6FFFEF3F0E.jpeg
    486.2 KB · Views: 158
  • BCBE219E-1324-4808-AACA-723F56BED1D9.jpeg
    BCBE219E-1324-4808-AACA-723F56BED1D9.jpeg
    435.1 KB · Views: 141
Note , when you installed linux you can use linux grub/kfreebsd to boot freebsd/netbsd/openbsd.
PS ,does it boot devuan/voidlinux ?

yes it boot voidlinux.

Are you saying from the grub installed on my 1st ssd drive can then be used to boot from the USB?
 
I have finally got it to post to the FreeBSD boot screen. This is how I did it.

I dd a new image form the second partition on the USB.
Next I fdisked the USB and wiped all partitions.
Then I created a new partition.
then I dd the new image back to the USB.
Then left me only 1 partition on the USB which I could boot into.

make sense?
 
Installed and operational. That was the fast installation I have every done.

it might be worth while for somebody to visit the usb img that is released and have it create a single partition when it is dd to the USB.
 
I lack some experience here, but I have a Sun Ultra 20 M2 I want to put FreeBSD on and am running into the same issue. I was wondering if you could give me more detailed instructions for how to create a bootable usb that will work.
I have finally got it to post to the FreeBSD boot screen. This is how I did it.

I dd a new image form the second partition on the USB.
Next I fdisked the USB and wiped all partitions.
Then I created a new partition.
then I dd the new image back to the USB.
Then left me only 1 partition on the USB which I could boot into.

make sense?
 
Back
Top