Suggested option for the DVD Installer

[Allan Jude]

On 2014-11-20 05:03, Rob Diamond wrote:
> Hi Guys,
> 
> I would like to suggest an option for an MBR install on the current 10.1
> DVD installer image. Some background:
> 
> I'm a refugee from the Linux systemd wars.
> 
> I have been running Gentoo for 10-15 years, but finally got fed up with
> the problems of keeping my system up to date. If I left the system for a
> couple of months then any attempt to upgrade something/everything would
> block because of intertwined dependencies and the fast pace of updates
> to packages. So a few months ago, after trying various other Linux
> distros I installed Linux Mint. It's dead easy to install, sound, video,
> printers work pretty well out of the box. But I hate the complexity of
> everything, and the way it's starting to look like Windoze:
> 
> - grub2, with its unreadable config file and convoluted set-up and
> update (Yeah, I know I could RTFM, but I don't want to waste a couple of
> hours working out how to change some settings when I'll forget in a
> couple of days).
> - the "quiet, splash" default boot option, with the mindless jiggling
> logo instead of being able to see what's going on.
> - the byzantine complexity of systemd (Yeah, I know I could RTFM, but I
> don't want to waste a couple of months working out how to change some
> settings when I'll forget in a couple of seconds).
> - etc, etc
> 
> BTW I'm NOT a FreeBSD noob. I started off installing 386BSD on a PC-AT
> (if there's anyone here young enough to remember that !), and I've got
> the Walnut Creek CDROMs for FreeBSD 2.0 and 2.2 in my bottom drawer.
> 
> However, I had a problem getting FreeBSD to install on my "test" PC. The
> motherboard is a few years old, and the BIOS has no clue about GPT
> partioning. I first tried the default install, but (and it takes a long
> time to boot and install off DVD) after rebooting my BIOS couldn't find
> an OS. I tried Googling for a clue, but as usual the problem is that
> there's way too much information out there and most of it is not
> current. So next I tried partitioning with gpart and setting up an MBR
> disk, but I kept getting complaints about the partition not being 4k
> aligned. So then I tried using the "Expert mode" patitioning, but I put
> a swap partition first, so.. no boot. Finally I found something that
> said to make sure "/" was the first partition, and (after re-booting and
> installing for the umpteenth time) I was in business.
> 
> It would have been much easier if there was a default MBR partioning
> option, with a label saying something like "MBR partitioning for older
> hardware", which would give installers a clue, and which got the user
> going with the first (or second) install.
> 
> We can't afford to put people off by making it difficult to get their
> first installation running - once you have a working system it's easier
> to learn about various aspects of the OS. But expecting inexperienced
> people with older hardware to be able to work out how to partition an
> MBR disk is unrealistic. They'll just give up and go back to something
> like Ubuntu.
> 
> My 2 cents worth.
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Rob Diamond.
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The installer does support MBR, for both UFS and ZFS installs

This section of the handbook shows the partitioning stage for the main
install option:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html#bsdinstall-part-guided

So, select the disk (top item), choose modify and pick 'mbr', then
choose 'create' and accept the defaults (this will create the freebsd
wrapper partition). Now press the down arrow to select that partition,
and select create again. This will create a freebsd-ufs partition, set
the mount point to / and modify the size to be slightly smaller than
your entire disk (by the amount of swap you want to have). Create 1 more
partition for swap with the remaining space, change the type to
'freebsd-swap'.

Then select finish, and you should be good to go.

-- 
Allan Jude

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