Re: How to boot FreeBSD14 without EFI?

On 14/01/2024 08:35, Dewayne Geraghty wrote:
> I pulled the release i386 and amd64 iso's from 
> https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/ 
> <https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/> and both 
> require EFI to boot.
> 
> Then I proceeded to download the source for releng14 and did the usual 
> build and install steps for an amd64 vdi (virtualbox setup on a Windows 
> host).  However I've been unable to boot from either an MBR or a GPT 
> scheme.  Clearly I'm missing something. Does anyone have the incantation 
> to boot without EFI on either i386 or amd64?
> 
> I added WITHOUT_EFI to /etc/srcconf and rebuilt GENERIC but more is 
> required...
> 
> Also the loader no longer provides vidconsole as a console device.  Has 
> vidconsole been replaced with eficonsole?

I'm booting an older hardware 14-STABLE machine using bios boot, no 
problem.  It works exactly as it used to do in 13 or previous.  There 
should be no need to use WITHOUT_EFI if building from source: all that 
does is save a few kilobytes by not generating /boot/*.efi.

Pretty sure I could boot from the 14.0 installer on a USB stick on that 
machine too, although I upgraded it from an earlier version rather than 
re-installing it.

As part of the disk setup in the installer, you're given the choice of 
which boot style to use and whether you want to create an EFI partition. 
  IIRC the default is to setup MBR and gptzfboot and not create an EFI 
partition, but there are about 4 different combinations to choose from.

Double check your installation media and the settings in your BIOS -- it 
should be possible to make it work.

	Cheers,

	Matthew