Skipping "F1 FreeBSD" prompt on boot

[Sam Lawrance]

On 14/05/2007, at 10:41 AM, Pieter de Goeje wrote:

> On Sunday 13 May 2007, David Landgren wrote:
>> Sam Lawrance wrote:
>>> On 13/05/2007, at 6:15 PM, Matthew Seaman wrote:
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>>>> Sam Lawrance wrote:
>>>>> On 12/05/2007, at 8:59 PM, Matthew Seaman wrote:
>>>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Landgren wrote:
>>>>>>> I have a disk that has only FreeBSD on it, and so I would  
>>>>>>> like to
>>>>>>> skip the initial F1/FreeBSD prompt. boot0cfg -v ad0 says:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> options=nopacket,update,nosetdrv
>>>>>>> default_selection=F1 (Slice 1)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ... what do I have to do to say JFDI instead of prompting?  
>>>>>>> This is
>>>>>>> not the sort of thing I want to fiddle around experimenting,  
>>>>>>> so a
>>>>>>> little guidance would be most appreciated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr /dev/ad0
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You installed the FreeBSD boot sector stuff, which gives you the
>>>>>> 'press F1'  business.  Replace that with the standard mbr,  
>>>>>> which just
>>>>>> boots straight up.
>>>>>
>>>>> Rather than replacing it, you can use boot0cfg to set a really  
>>>>> short
>>>>> timeout instead; in case you might want that functionality one  
>>>>> day.
>>>>
>>>> Heh.  It's not like you only get one chance to rewrite the boot  
>>>> blocks
>>>> on any particular drive.  If anyone needs to (re-)install the  
>>>> FreeBSD
>>>> boot
>>>> blocks, then you can do very simply it by:
>>>>
>>>>    boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 /dev/ad0
>>>>
>>>> or even
>>>>
>>>>    fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 /dev/ad0
>>>>
>>>> Or if you need to boot from a serial console you can change / 
>>>> boot/boot0
>>>> to /boot/boot0sio
>>>
>>> Sure, but why get rid of it, when leaving it in with a short timeout
>>> costs you nothing.
>>
>> A fair point, but in this particular case, FreeBSD is the only  
>> thing on
>> the drive, and likely to remain that way until the disk dies of
>> mechanical failure. I just don't need that prompt, especially the
>> annoying beep it makes.
> The beep was removed since May 2006 (6.2-RELEASE, 6-STABLE, HEAD).
> A simple
> #boot0cfg -B /dev/adX
> should get rid of it.

I thought I remembered that!  Wasn't it removed to reclaim a couple  
extra bytes? :-)