From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 15 18:27:56 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6C8F0AA3 for ; Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:27:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from burnttofu.net (burnttofu.net [IPv6:2607:fc50:1:9d00::9977]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 305841686 for ; Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:27:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from schuylkill.es.net ([IPv6:2001:400:14:1:a1f9:817a:1df7:dbd6]) (authenticated bits=0) by burnttofu.net (8.14.7/8.14.5) with ESMTP id s0FIRq0d021881 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 15 Jan 2014 13:27:53 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from michael@rancid.berkeley.edu) Message-ID: <52D6D32A.9010506@rancid.berkeley.edu> Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 10:27:54 -0800 From: Michael Sinatra User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Volker Nebel , freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Booting FreeBSD on a Macintosh? References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.4.3 (burnttofu.net [IPv6:2607:fc50:1:9d00::9977]); Wed, 15 Jan 2014 13:27:54 -0500 (EST) X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:27:56 -0000 On 1/15/14 3:01 AM, Volker Nebel wrote: > Dear all, > > looking for a good a computer I bought a Macmini 6,1 with Intel Core i5 > last summer, then installed Ubuntu (for amd64) on it and now came back > to FreeBSD (already running on my laptop). Having installed this, the > macmini does not boot anymore, unfortunately. It only shows a blinking > question mark in a folder symbol. > I searched the web for hints and found half a dozen of pages > describing how to run both, Mac OS and FreeBSD. One page recommanded to > issue > "gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gtpboot -i 1 ada0" after the > installation and before reboot, but this didn't help. I found the hint > to use FreeBSD for i386 - same result. (And it did boot Ubuntu for > amd64.) Someone else recommanded to use MBR partitioning scheme instead > of GPT, but the Partition Editor of the FreeBSD Installer returns "Error > Invalid Argument" when I try to Create a partition of type freebsd-boot > and size 64k or 512K. > Can anybody help? How can I install FreeBSD 9.2 on a Macmini and boot? Surprisingly, the way I have gotten it to work is to use a good, old-fashioned BSD-style disklabel. I just installed FreeBSD 10-RC1 on a Mac Mini, but it was the oldest possible Intel version (a 1,1). If you install 9.2 the way you would install 8--use an MBR partition with BSD disklabel on slice 1, you should get it to boot. I am not close to the machine right now, and it's powered off, but I can fire it up and send you the partition/label parameters. Again, this is a very old 1,1 (still, it's an EFI system, but it's only 32-bit), but the same scheme might work on your system as well. michael