BE Loader Menu (was Re: rcs)

Teske, Devin Devin.Teske at fisglobal.com
Wed Oct 9 17:05:22 UTC 2013


On Oct 9, 2013, at 9:42 AM, Kris Moore wrote:

> On 10/09/2013 12:33, Allan Jude wrote:
>> On 2013-10-09 12:23, Freddie Cash wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 9:12 AM, Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 6:41 AM, Julian Elischer <julian at freebsd.org>wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 10/9/13 2:35 AM, Freddie Cash wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Alfred Perlstein <bright at mu.org> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> You're right on the money, to be honest this is one of the reasons why
>>>>>>> I've switched to using OSX as my desktop OS.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> zsh, vim, screen by default.  and upgrades work.  At the end of the day
>>>>>>> I'm spending time doing work, not mucking about my workspace to make it
>>>>>>> usable for development.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think this was brought up at BSDCan in the discussion about making
>>>>>>> FreeBSD a more featured development platform.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Speaking of... has anyone tried PCBSD?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> PC-BSD isn't much different from FreeBSD.  The installer is GUI and
>>>>>> support
>>>>>> ZFS, there are some GUI setup tools on first boot for X, there are some
>>>>>> GUI
>>>>>> tools to select binary drivers for X, and there ​​are working pkgng repos
>>>>>> available.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I had a lot of issues with PC-BSD 9.0 and 9.1 as I was trying to do
>>>>>> things
>>>>>> "the FreeBSD way" which broke a lot of things that were done "the PC-BSD
>>>>>> way" (aka don't manually edit config files used for booting).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ​Switching to the "rolling-release" (aka PC-BSD 9-STABLE) and moving all
>>>>>> my
>>>>>> config file edits into <filename>.conf.local fixed my issues.  Things
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> been running smooth, and I finally understand the beauty and simplicity
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> freebsd-update + pkg.  OS gets updated once per month, packages get
>>>>>> updated
>>>>>> twice per month, no more compiling things from source.  It's like using
>>>>>> Ubuntu/Debian but with the power and features of FreeBSD.  :)
>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>> When they went to a ZFS-only system, using GRUB, with no alternative,
>>>>> then I'm afraid they lost me.
>>>>> I want a root filesystem on UFS for reliabailty and simpleness.  I can
>>>>> debug it's media if needed.
>>>>> Before then I really liked it (though ther eis not enough information on
>>>>> how it works interneally if you want to use it.
>>>>> hopefully that will come.. and I LIKE PBIs  FreeBSD should adopt PBIs for
>>>>> sure.
>>>>> With PBIs you could make even quite base items separately installable.
>>>>> versioning problems go away.
>>>>> 
>>>> There's no GRUB in a default install of PC-BSD 9.0, 9.1, or 9.2.  Even on
>>>> a ZFS-only setup (which is what I run).  It's using the FreeBSD loader,
>>>> with custom artwork and menus.
>>>> 
>>> ​Hrm, it seems they've changed things with the 9.2 installer.  It does use
>>> GRUB2 (ewwww!) for the boot loader, and integrates support for ZFS boot
>>> environments (via beadm) into it.  :(  Shame they didn't use the BE support
>>> in the FreeBSD loader for this.  Wonder if my 9-STABLE-based PC-BSD install
>>> will get "upgraded" to GRUB?
>>> 
>> The reason they went to grub2, is that the way the freebsd loader menus
>> work, it loads the kernel before it draws the menu. This means if there
>> is a problem with your kernel (probably the most valuable time to have
>> boot environments) then the menu never comes up, and you cannot select
>> which BE to boot from. Grub doesn't rely on a FreeBSD kernel until after
>> you select which BE to boot from.
>> 
>> Kris and I discussed it at length with Devin Teske, and while he has
>> demonstrated being able to populate a lower menu with the ZFS datasets,
>> I am not sure if the other issue can be resolved.
>> 
> 

I'm late to the party again ;D (didn't realize the rcs thread had turned BE)

Both problems can be solved.
The loading of the kernel *after* choosing your boot device is trivial.
We've been doing it at $work for *years* (almost a decade?)

I can put that in, whenever. Probably at the same time as implementing
the live/dynamic BE menus for selecting the root device.



> Yea, GRUB is not my first choice, but ATM this is the "cleanest" way we
> can do ZFS BE's. However if you don't like ZFS / GRUB, you can always
> use regular FreeBSD and just grab our toolchain from
> sysutils/pcbsd-utils* in ports or use our PKGNG repo:
> 
> http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Turn_FreeBSD_into_PC-BSD%C2%AE
> 
> I'm planning on using GRUB to do UEFI booting for 10.0 as well. But when
> the FreeBSD loader matures to the point of having support for all these
> features, I'll gladly move us back.
> 

I had not been pushing hard on finishing the BE Forth because I knew that
it would be a greater value add if we actually had "Boot from ZFS" finished
first. Would be easier to test, that is, if I actually had a system booting from
ZFS -- which is what Allan, jmg, and myself are hopefully working toward
for FreeBSD 10.0-R. (smiles)
-- 
Devin

_____________
The information contained in this message is proprietary and/or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please: (i) delete the message and all copies; (ii) do not disclose, distribute or use the message in any manner; and (iii) notify the sender immediately. In addition, please be aware that any message addressed to our domain is subject to archiving and review by persons other than the intended recipient. Thank you.


More information about the freebsd-current mailing list