Win + BSD -or- BSD + Win?

[diortemew]

Greetings, fellow community dwellers. I am going to reinstall Windows soon and wish to erase all partitions and drives minus my backup drive. Since I want to try FreeBSD I want to go ahead and install it as a dual-boot into Windows. The documentation states that I should consider putting the EFI in with a Windows then install FreeBSD, and that it is also possible, albeit more difficult, to do it FreeBSD first, then Windows. Should I put Win first, what is the best way? I have limited internet speeds, but unlimited data. So getting the downloads will take time, but doable, but I also have an issue getting the wi-fi adapter working from USB.

I feel it is better to install via DVD, at least from following the documentations, as I can install the wi-fi drivers directly from the DVD itself when that step arrives. I can likely read from the disk than I can download, or maybe the internet is faster, but either way, this will take a long time. I am okay with this, for I am patient.

I want to get all of my ducks in a row. My plan is to install Windows first, per the documentations recommendation, then FreeBSD to a second SSD for dual-booting. The documentation is a little scarce on the 'how' for the dual-boot, so I seek your guidance and council. What should I have in front of me when it comes time for this install? My Wi-Fi adapter is a TRENDnet TEW-624UB, but I also have an ASUS USB-AC51, which I could not get to work last time via USB drive install. I will be burning the DVD soon, and possibly start the install process tonight if time permits. I want to do this right. Any epic suggestions?

 

[bsduck]

The easiest setup for dual booting is to use UEFI directly. You do not need any special configuration, just install Windows on one disk, FreeBSD on the other, and you will be able to select the OS you want by pressing a key at boot time (for example F9 on my computer). If you do not like having to press a key for booting the non-default OS and rather have a selection screen that shows up automatically at boot, you may want to set up GRUB or rEFInd. I have never done this myself but you can easily find documentation on the web.

About your wifi adapter: if it is not recognised by the installer, it means there is no driver for it in the base system, so you will not be able to install it from the installation media, no matter whether it is a DVD or a USB stick (installation media contains only the base system, not the things distributed as ports). You may find a corresponding driver in the ports collection, otherwise it is probably not supported by FreeBSD.

 

[rootbert]

I suggest FreeBSD only, with Windows in a bhyve VM and access the VM via remote desktop.

 

[phalange]

I want to do this right. Any epic suggestions?

Not sure it was epic, but I had this config too without any problem. Windows was existing and I installed FreeBSD to another SSD. The FreeBSD installer 'behaves' meaning it doesn't (didn't in my case) write anything to the Windows boot partition. I used ZFS which Windows just ignored so the FreeBSD boot drive didn't appear in Windows or get that hideous 'format' nag. And as mentioned above, at boot time, I just tapped F11 to get the UEFI's built-in boot menu.

 

[diortemew]

Thanks everyone. I was just using F8 to get into it. But I wanted to add another storage device for web development and uninstalled it and installed it on my old Dell AIO. Unfortunately, after getting it installed I can't get it to install a GUI. I should have kept it on here, first, but I have already removed the SSD and replaced it with another and reformatted the one I removed. Yay me!

I suggest FreeBSD only, with Windows in a bhyve VM and access the VM via remote desktop.

Weird, it was my understanding that FreeBSD was unable to do virtualization. This is a welcome surprise. Maybe I'll leave my Dell AIO without a desktop environment and SSH into it to practice my CLI skills and brush up on working on the network. I don't know yet, I am still very much happy with Fedora and it will be difficult to leave behind. I love the idea of having one OS that does one thing and does it well. FreeBSD has been fun. Oddly enough, when I tried ZSH on the Dell AIO ZSH failed. I ended up with UFS. Meh.

My ultimate goal is to finish my front-end development training and master it for a year or so before I move to back-end for a full-stack repertoire. FreeBSD looks like it'll work in that regard, but like I said, Fedora is so powerful and I'm not 100% on jumping ship just yet. I need to master FreeBSD more to ensure I don't sink with the ship.

Again, thank you all. Once I get the AIO up and running I'll get in there and do some more learning to pull myself over into the new world.

 

[rootbert]

Oddly enough, when I tried ZSH on the Dell AIO ZSH failed. I ended up with UFS. Meh.

You meant ZFS, right? Did you do an automatic install on ZFS or manual? Most of the time I have encountered a problem was a missing zfs_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf

 

[diortemew]

You meant ZFS, right? Did you do an automatic install on ZFS or manual? Most of the time I have encountered a problem was a missing zfs_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf

It was automatic. It's just a single drive so I let FreeBSD do the walking on that part. Is the manual part difficult? I am molded to the Linux way of doing things, not sure if the usual folder setup in Linux is the same here. I'll have to pull up the documentation later, see what I build for UNIX. And I definitely don't know how to setup the zswap. I still have a lot to learn. Why I moved it to a separate system; so I could do just that. *edit* fixed typo

 

[rootbert]

ZFS in general is not really difficult ... it just needs some out-of-the-box-you-know-about-plain-filesystems thinking, but once you grasp it it is really simple especially compared to what is working behind the scenes. Setting up ZFS in general is not hard, but setting up a proper root filesystem with ZFS manually is not trivial (and you really want to have boot environments, they are awesome). All in all you will be pleased about the documentation ... the handbook is a great base which leads you to the right and detailed man pages.