Failed install attempt for FreeBSD 10 RC1 powerpc64

[Erik Larsson]

Hi,

Nathan Whitehorn wrote 2014-01-05 15.10:
> On 12/14/13 02:45, Erik Larsson wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I just tried installing FreeBSD 10 RC1 powerpc64 on my PowerMac11,2
>> (2x2.3 GHz). The disc created from the ISO booted fine, and I was able
>> to install FreeBSD onto a UFS filesystem on my second hard drive (I
>> couldn't find an option to install to ZFS), but after a reboot the
>> system boot setting 'boot-device' in nvram had not changed (it booted
>> the previous default OS instead).
>>
>> I fixed the nvram value myself to point at the instealled .elf file
>> and made another attempt at booting. It loads the .elf file, the
>> screen flashes into black and then it exits back to openfirmware.
>> Seems to crash somehow.
>>
>> Does anybody have an idea what to try next to make the install succeed
>> and boot?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> - Erik
>>
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> In case this never got answered, you probably want to boot bootinfo.txt
> instead of boot1.elf. Holding option should also let OF figure out the
> right thing to do.

Thanks, I actually did figure this out. Currently running RC4 on this 
machine and it's working quite well (without X at least...). A .txt file 
seemed like an unlikely boot file and AFAICR it wasn't blessed properly 
with 'tbxi', but when installing RC4 it got properly blessed.

Just curious... why isn't the installer setting the nvram 'boot-device' 
value (or at least offering to set it, like it probably asks whether to 
install boot code to MBR on x86 BIOS hardware)?

Best regards,

- Erik