Solved Unable to boot installer

D

drobban

Hi you all!

Im unable to boot the installer. Tried both 13.3 installer and 14.0 for amd64.

When I start with standard option the system hangs on boot with last message
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0

Running the installer with verbose activated it halts with a completely different message.

The thing is, I managed to install FreeBSD on my system once, but I cant remember how I managed to do that. 😅

Perhaps someone is able to tell me why it hangs with the help of my hw-probe; https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=54d6c96d25
 
elgrande said:
Stupid question: How did you create the probe when you cannot boot FreeBSD?
Click to expand...
Its not a stupid question. But as write above.. I managed to install the system for a "long"(isch) time ago, but I cant remember having trouble starting the installer then.

I had a little mishap yesterday during a zpool-upgrade(8) and managed to bork my boot related "stuff" somehow. So while trying to rescue the situation I tried to use the freebsd-14-memstick image. During this process I was unable to boot the memstick image.

Well, now that situation is handled and done with - managed to import my drives on other hardware and restore the efi-partition that way.

So evidently the hardware works just fine with FreeBSD-14.0-p3 as I am using it write this message and create the probe results.

But something f's with the boot into the installer and live. That is what Im trying to find out reason to --- And it would be great if it was possible to reinstall if (god forbids it) that would be necessary in the future.
 
Okey. finaly found the problem I think.

After some trial and error, I disabled the internal network interface - if_re.
Added a line to the file;
/boot/device.hints
INI: 
hint.if_re.0.disabled="1"

Cant explain why that makes any difference, but it did.
Im using that exact network driver right now while writing this post, so I know it otherwise works just fine on a running system.
But anyhow. Thought it could be nice to inform future people with similar problems what my solution was.
 
It's probably more useful to post the boot screen than that probe stuff. I'd look at how the driver is being loaded; is it compiled in? Loaded by loader.conf or the device manager? Modules and compiled in drivers often work differently, and order of loading often matters also. If you're not savvy at how all the drivers interact, it's prudent to compile in the ethernet you're using.

That being said, the re driver is a piece of garbage and RE chips are likewise. It's hilarious they put a Realtek chip on that MB; it's like driving a Maserati with donut tires. Get yourself a used intel card for $15; it's not even clear the newer Realtek chips have ever been tested in FreeBSD.
 
Barney said:
It's probably more useful to post the boot screen than that probe stuff. I'd look at how the driver is being loaded; is it compiled in? Loaded by loader.conf or the device manager? Modules and compiled in drivers often work differently, and order of loading often matters also. If you're not savvy at how all the drivers interact, it's prudent to compile in the ethernet you're using.

That being said, the re driver is a piece of garbage and RE chips are likewise. It's hilarious they put a Realtek chip on that MB; it's like driving a Maserati with donut tires. Get yourself a used intel card for $15; it's not even clear the newer Realtek chips have ever been tested in FreeBSD.
Click to expand...
Well the re driver works just fine, but not while booting to the installer.

The bootscreen didnt give any hints of the network interface driver being a problem.
 
Barney said:
"works just fine" because I don't care about stuff like throughput or efficiency.
Click to expand...
dude... whats your point. the question was regarding booting. If you want a discussion about the driver effeciency.. I would suggest you take that discussion to a thread that cares.

Best regards
David.
 
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