Failed install attempt for FreeBSD 10 RC1 powerpc64

[Nathan Whitehorn]

On 01/13/14 00:11, Erik Larsson wrote:
> 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

The idea is that we shouldn't override user boot preferences. The
bootinfo.txt is set with the tbxi type, so the regular OF boot chooser
can find it -- or, if you aren't dual-booting, it will be found
automatically.
-Nathan