Sanity Check on Mac Mini

Kevin Oberman rkoberman at gmail.com
Thu Mar 7 19:57:23 UTC 2013


On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:

>
> On 7 March 2013, at 06:42, Richard Kuhns <rjk at wintek.com> wrote:
>
> > On 03/07/13 01:59, Doug Hardie wrote:
> >> I have a new Mac Mini and have encountered the same problem reported
> last year by Richard Kuhns.  YongHyeon PYUN provided some patches to the
> kernel that resolved the problem.  However, without an internet connection
> its a bit tricky to get them into the system.  Here is the approach I
> believe will work, but wanted to check first before I really mess things up.
> >>
> >> 1.  Downloaded from current today via svnweb.freebsd.org:
> >>      sys/dev/bge/if_bgereg.h
> >>      sys/dev/bge/if_bge.c
> >>      sys/dev/mii/brgphy.c
> >>
> >>    I believe the patches are incorporated in today's versions.  The
> comments indicate such.  Thus I don't need to apply the original supplied
> patch.
> >>
> >> 2.  Put those on a flash drive.
> >>
> >> 3.  Install 9.1 release from flash drive onto the Mini disk.  Have to
> include the system source.
> >>
> >> 4.  Copy the files from 1 above from flash over the files on the disk.
> >>
> >> 5.  Rebuild the kernel and install it.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> -- Doug
> >
> > That's worked for me 3 times now.
>
> Thanks.  Well, I got 9.1 Release installed, but it won't boot from the
> internal disk.  It doesn't see the disk as bootable.  I installed using the
> entire disk for FreeBSD.  I used the i386 release.  Perhaps I need to
> switch to the amd64 release?


I would generally recommend using the amd64 release, but it may not get
your system to boot.

How is your disk partitioned? GPT? Some BIOSes are broken and assume that a
GPT formatted disk is UEFI and will not recognize them if they lack the
UEFI boot partition. UEFI boot is a current project that seems likely to
reach head in the fairly near future, but it's not possible now.

You may be able to tweak your BIOS to get it to work or you may have to
install using the traditional partitioning system. The installer defaults
to GPT, but can create either.

I have such a system (ThinkPad T520) and I have two disks... one that came
with the system and containing Windows, and my GPT formatted FreeBSD disk.
I wrote a FreeBSD BootEasy boot into the MBR of the Windows disk and it CAN
boot the GPT disk just fine. Not ideal for most, but it works well for me
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com


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