Thought I would begin learning FreeBSD so I want to put it on my laptop. I used Gparted to shrink the last partition on my drive so that I could install FreeBSD and then use Grub to dual boot different OS's. I went ahead and downloaded both disk 1 and disk 2 .iso from the FreeBSD site (this is all I need for the full install , correct?). When I boot up disk one and select the option where it says "Boot FreeBSD" (think it is the first option that defaults when time runs out) I get this:

Everything stops and it tells me to hit any key to reboot. I also tried downloading just their "Boot" disk .iso and I get the exact same error message.

Wondering if it is not detecting the SATA 80GB drive in the laptop. I was reading over the BSD handbook and noticed that one can look through all the lines of code where it is locating hardware. I'll boot it up again and see if I can see if it is identifying the hard drive or not.

Couldn't tell if it detected the HD or not. Since my laptop keyboard isn't a fullsize, some buttons I have to use a Function key to operate. The scroll lock is one of those buttons so I can't read all of the information from the hardware probe.

FYI, this is a new Toshiba laptop (2 months old). 80GB SATA drive, 512MB of RAM, 1.73ghz CPU. I currently have SuSe 10.2 running smooth as can be on it now.

Biggen: try to boot in SAFE MODE, if that does not help You can try 7-CURRENT snapshot, .iso images are also avialable.

Will do... Can I install from safe mode?

Any ideas on what the problem could be? If a snapshot works then great, but I'd like to use a stable release if possible. I'll report back as soon as I can give it a try...

Thanks!

This can be SATA or other motherboard subsystem problem.

Yes You can install from SAFE MODE.

You can use SAFE MODE all the time, it just disables some standart things like DMA for disks and ACPI.

SAFE DOES:
1. do not load ACPI module
2. sysctl hint.acpi.0.disabled=1
3. sysctl loader.acpi_disabled_by_user=1
4. sysctl hint.apic.0.disabled=1
5. sysctl hw.ata.ata_dma=0
6. sysctl hw.ata.atapi_dma=0
7. sysctl hw.ata.wc=0
8. sysctl hw.eisa_slots=0
9. sysctl hint.kbdmux.0.disabled=1

Still a no go. Doesn't work with Boot with safe mode or Boot with ACPI disabled. Looked through the BIOS and there are no ACPI options at all to disable.


Grrr... Looks like FreeBSD just doesn't want to work on my laptop..

Try NetBSD then, it runs on everything, maybe even on Your laptop

Yeah I guess I may have to. Just subscribed to one of the freeBSD mailing lists so we will see what I can get out of that.

Didn't really want to go with NetBSD as I have heard that the originators have been fighting and feuding for a while. Is it as secure and usable as FreeBSD?

Yes, and VERY stable, now 4.0 version is totally rewritten, also recently NetBSD devs have made several hackatons [IRC sessions] and fixed tons of bugs. You should definitely try NetBSD. ... or OpenBSD.

There is also DragonflyBSD, based on FreeBSD 4.8 with many diffrent improovements and with NetBSD pkgsrc.

I give up...

NetBSD 3.1 boots up then freezes when I get to the initial install screen when I have to select my language. Can't do anything from there... If *BSD is giving me this much trouble before I can even get one byte to the hard drive, imagine the problems I'll have once I actually have it installed.

For whatever reason, my laptop just does not work with BSD. Kinda sucks since I was eager to begin learning a new O.S. Guess I'll stick with Linux and try another distro... :-(

Try Gentoo, it is HEAVY based on FreeBSD or Arch, also BSD based.

You can also go for Slackware + pkgsrc.org.

BTW, I am impressed that anything runs on this laptop ;p

Suse 10.2 installed just fine. No problems at all. Just tried to install Slack and it froze right when I got to the command line where I pick the Keyboard mapping (1 for Default US). I don't know what the hell to do. I know that Slack is using an old kernel (2.4.x) but Jesus, this is ridiculous.... I wish I could tell what the hell is choking everything out. Is there a way to tell what EXACTLY is causing the problems here?

BTW, this laptop is only about 2 months old. 1.7ghz processor, 512MB or RAM, 80GB SATA drive. Its not like it is outdated or anything...

You will not have almost ANY problems with an old laptop, only the new ones create most problems.

I would confirm that. Eight months ago, I was unable to install Solaris and FreeBSD on my brand new desktop. Now both are doing just fine. Except for the lousy video card, which will only do vesa.