Hello,

I have had trouble getting various BSD OS's to install on my PC.

It is an Intel Compute Stick. The problems have been with the fact that it only boots in UEFI - no compatibility mode and the fact that it has no HDD or SDD, just eMMC.

FreeBSD doesn't recognize the eMMC as a drive that it can be installed onto.

OpenBSD Ramdisc kernel shuts down the USB port.

NetBSD USB install media isn't bootable

DragonFly BSD install media isn't bootable

GhostBSD Ramdisk kernel gives a panic message.

I don't have much technical expertise. I need a BSD OS that just works with my hardware.

Any suggestions?

I believe those particular SoCs only have a 32 bit UEFI? This might be a problem for some OS, including windows, (but not for Linux). Not sure about the *BSDs...

OpenBSD only supports GPT/UEFI for amd64. So if you're trying to install from a i386 image, then it won't work anyway and it's possible that amd64 images won't boot using the 32 bit UEFI? This might also be worth mentioning in your thread over at daemonforums.org

I'm not sure if NetBSD has proper UEFI support yet? I certainly don't think there's anything built into install images.

DragonFly: https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/supportedhardware/

"The UEFI (with GPT) is also supported, but the installer has not been updated to work with UEFI, therefore one has to do manual installation and configuration"

FreeBSD simply might not have a driver for eMMC device if it can't see the device at all. And you may find the same situation with DragonFly even if you can get that install on the eMMC from another host (e.g. using a USB adapter).

So in view of all this and if it doesn't support legacy BIOS mode, which it probably does not, then you might be better off just sticking some Linux based OS on it...?

My Intel Compute Stick is 64 bit: x86-64 (amd64)

It still may have 32 bit UEFI, Intel does things like that, I do not know why.

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Per this long thread at daemonforums.org, it will boot the OpenBSD RAMDISK kernel (bsd.rd), but the USB hub gets disabled by the kernel. The TL;DR is that myway_1 will boot a pre-installed test image with an OpenBSD GENERIC kernel to see if there is a different result.

Have you tried PC-BSD, now TrueOS?

Technically it is possible to install OpenBSD on some device the installer can handle and then transfer it to the USB stick. Some Linux USB can be used to install 32-bit UEFI bootloader in case OpenBSD does not support it. To my knowledge FreeBSD does not have a driver for eMMC yet.

Yes, I tried it. It doesn't show up the Internal eMMC drive when I get to the part of the installation process where I select the drive to install to. Same problem as FreeBSD. It wants to install only to the same USB stick that the installer is on or to another USB stick if I plug a second USB stick in.

This, in my experience, is going to be the norm. BSD development isn't NEARLY as fast as Linux, and there were quite a few linux distros up until about 2 years ago that couldn't handle devices with eMMC's. Still a few out there that can't, if memory serves.

Yes, I believe you are correct. It needs mixed-mode UEFI.

And that makes support even harder. Not many os's successfully support that out of the box (key word is successfully).

In certain areas this is true, in others not so much.

Speed of development, or lack of, is irrelevant here however. With hardware support, what matters is if your hardware is supported. The fact that Linux supports more hardware or has more drivers is irrelevant if no one is really using that hardware.

With this kind of hardware it needs someone to actually take an interest in it and develop a driver and actually write and submit some code. In the case of OpenBSD at least someone is working on it, with respect to FreeBSD this doesn't seem to be the case. And one some might readily assume that "FreeBSD supports more hardware", again this is an example where this is clearly not the case.

For clarity, the issue for this SoC for OpenBSD is not EFI, and not the bootloader.* Its the SoC's USB hub.

The kernel boots, I've seen photos of a dmesg(8), they're in that thread I linked above. However, once booted the OpenBSD kernel reports a problem communicating with the SoC's internal USB hub, and disables it. This makes communicating with that running kernel difficult, since this SoC requires a USB-attached keyboard.

Keep in mind, while we may have lots of systems that operate without keyboards, those systems have network interfaces. Not this SoC, from looking at those dmesg() photos. For OpenBSD, it appears any NIC would require a USB dongle. And USB is inoperative while the hub and kernel refuse to speak to each other.

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* OpenBSD's EFI partition includes both 32-bit and 64-bit bootloaders, though IIRC it only boots 64-bit kernels.