From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sat Nov 14 10:30:35 2020 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C8E352E5E9B for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2020 10:30:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mout.kundenserver.de (mout.kundenserver.de [212.227.126.135]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange ECDHE (P-256) server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256 client-signature RSA-PSS (2048 bits) client-digest SHA256) (Client CN "mout.kundenserver.de", Issuer "TeleSec ServerPass Class 2 CA" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4CYBSB1hz4z4lq2 for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2020 10:30:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de ([178.5.233.82]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (mreue009 [212.227.15.167]) with ESMTPA (Nemesis) id 1MJV9M-1ktMLK40cq-00JroP; Sat, 14 Nov 2020 11:30:27 +0100 Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2020 11:30:26 +0100 From: Polytropon To: David Christensen Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Booting multiple BSDs. Message-Id: <20201114113026.5e093b5f.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: <3e235e4f8da5018abbd1d05a1976c7a9@riseup.net> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K1:qHzn9QO+W8yQGjxV6OrIxxPeQAifI3g9sVwcuB2I+KutaFp0QbL 6G2hXJFVuBuJ14oYjeVZmqelG+ZTYHbH9TZmPwDkd1gm00vU0bD6njFszWSRG5zVHDTxSxr 5irAYv5+K2vgHBtKSvM4llvVEH5dMahJAW5ROvAgA9Hm1EdSq4qS56Qt8aHQSXiz8FOcglq auAvEr6F6p4B51yh3jNYw== X-Spam-Flag: NO X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V03:K0:wlqbHMhdCEg=:4+xT3+t3gCXrHPpCkSci6e 8RUyjBDxJX3uWrQk1sE2aRyylL+MALdOUkKkFis6yvMDjyTw4Vr0cQvJuCHPEwyoyxYt6QtKX y3B0NXasUiRaArRJM1NVW645tDwKYl9bx8+ok+wFlhYzCzGiWoqL6lXyxtZUQwKTLlzxmY0po Xzxehz7MQWaXiS8BDTVupBW71aJ3JUAB6035ogEkqRT/ZXmqESoTwjFDU6qMTT+Ms7Afc6x71 Op06SaM7R88rKTUdFkVVPv3oFPGvweztkjnw3FTTqyGvXSBjtONWogl/aMXHczgAJLi78ByBH 3e+qVBhv4qPEyg+ptSD6eoZ5j5/SXdKeyK1PF/LSDz5XA9aMAcMlaFx82P5iW9wgMxsUeZbdG uZse8glLTEqw0xFqYsNeso8gtpqU7O9N5wJLKSsXfgOa4Agv33Y1sTehghnSP X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4CYBSB1hz4z4lq2 X-Spamd-Bar: / Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=none (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of freebsd@edvax.de has no SPF policy when checking 212.227.126.135) smtp.mailfrom=freebsd@edvax.de X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-0.60 / 15.00]; HAS_REPLYTO(0.00)[freebsd@edvax.de]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; TO_DN_SOME(0.00)[]; MV_CASE(0.50)[]; HAS_ORG_HEADER(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_SHORT(-1.00)[-1.000]; RCPT_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; RECEIVED_SPAMHAUS_PBL(0.00)[178.5.233.82:received]; RCVD_TLS_LAST(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; RBL_DBL_DONT_QUERY_IPS(0.00)[212.227.126.135:from]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ASN(0.00)[asn:8560, ipnet:212.227.0.0/16, country:DE]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000]; REPLYTO_EQ_FROM(0.00)[]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[edvax.de]; AUTH_NA(1.00)[]; SPAMHAUS_ZRD(0.00)[212.227.126.135:from:127.0.2.255]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_SOME(0.00)[]; MID_CONTAINS_FROM(1.00)[]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[212.227.126.135:from]; R_SPF_NA(0.00)[no SPF record]; RWL_MAILSPIKE_POSSIBLE(0.00)[212.227.126.135:from]; RCVD_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; MAILMAN_DEST(0.00)[freebsd-questions] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.34 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2020 10:30:35 -0000 On Fri, 13 Nov 2020 19:02:29 -0800, David Christensen wrote: > I am confident that there are several boot managers, likely one for each > of those four OS's, that can find multiple bootable OS drives/ slices/ > partitions and allow you to boot the OS of your choice. First of all, it's important to understand the different stages of OS booting, as well as the previous stage, likely involving UEFI. In order to select (!) from multiple operating systems, certain things must be neatly prepared or nothing will work as intended. There is a nice write-up by Manish Jain that deals with multi- booting FreeBSD, Linux, and "Windows", but in case you do not want a "Windows", leave out the corresponding parts - it will work in a similar way with multiple BSDs or Linusi, Linuxens, or Linuxera. ;-) Document here: https://github.com/bourne-again/TripleBoot-UEFI/blob/master/00-TripleBoot-UEFI.pdf In case you do _not_ have UEFI (i. e., you're using BIOS-based systems), tools like Grub2 can be really helpful as boot manager. It's easy to configure. > But, my > experience is that keeping them all running is an exercise in "infinite > bug propagation" "Get the worst out of all worlds!" :-) It doesn't matter if you have a multi-OS setting based on bare metal or in VMs - each OS you run will require a certain amount of attention if you want to actually _use_ it for a specific purpose instead of just "booting it". > I would remove three of those drives and run one OS at a time. In ye olden times, when BIOS was the thing in PC world, some BIOS vendors had a drive management option integrated: You could simply logically switch off drives, so they were still powered on, but not detected anymore, so the only drive (and maybe the data exchange drive) active were recognized, and the OS was thinking it was the only one available. Go to BIOS, switch off disk 1, switch on disk 2, and reboot - a totally different OS boots, with no possibility to interfere (!) or to "repair" (!!!) other system's disk content. Today, you have PF12 boot selection. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...