9.0 final on Mac?

[Rakor]

Hi there,

I saw the Interview on FLOSS Weekly and I was happy hearing that you are working on Mac-installations for 9.0. Do you think it will be without pain installing PC-BSD 9.0 (final) on an older MacBook Pro (C2D) or will it need some extra time...?

I would like to install a Free|PC-BSD on my Macs for a long time, but never had the balls testing it

Thx a lot for all your work for the BSDs!

[Rakor]

OK.... I am currently trying to install a copy of PCBSD9 Beta2 on my Mac Mini Core2. I selected the whole HDD and GPT just to begin in small steps. I don't know if the Mac can boot this stuff later but let's see.
An interesting thing is, that the installer seems to stuck every x seconds. It then takes no input from the keyboard or mouse, neither changes the shown screen. I found out, that I have to switch to the cmdpromt using Ctrl-Alt-F1 and switching back using Ctrl-Alt-F7 and the input devices and the screen are working for some seconds again. A little annoying but not that big thing.

So I'll tell you if I can boot that crap later. If it is working, the next step will be installing in a extra bootcamp-partition. And the crown of all that will be the installation on my MacBook Pro. I am really seeing forward having a Mac running a real BSD

[Rakor]

Ok, that was not the golden pot. I ended in a gray screen with a question mark. I think the mac needs a special bootcode. So let's start the installation of OSX and freeing some bootcamp-space.



.... Nothing is working at all... So I tried it using bootcamp... nothing. The installer tells me to delete everything and starting from zero. But I know this wasn't working... So I'll have some cups od coffee and think about it hoping you'll get it working in the final Would be great!

[mike4]

i boot all with grub from Ubuntu but i think pcbsd has grub as well? So maybe simply free space and do a normal install?

[WildEndeavor]

To install with the DVD ISO requires the disk to be ejected before reboot. On the MacBook Pro and other Apple machines I know of, it is near impossible to eject a DVD while installing an OS.

Consider the other issues; I seen links at the Free BSD showing how a thorough install of Free BSD goes on a MacBook Pro, and it requires a lot of work. Its worth it, but not as simple as just installing a DVD and having it all glorious.

The Apple MacBook Pro has a LOT of things that are meant to only work on OS X. The keyboard lights, fans, backlights, motion sensors, etc...

If you are trying to dual boot, expect to lose your OS X experimenting. Use the Virtual Box as much as possible to learn the system. But remember, installing on the VM and the HD on your Mac is two different animals.

KDE has a tool for partitioning; they use it a lot with OpenSuse. Some of the OS's I had luck with installing on dual boot are Ubuntu and OpenIndiana. I think the OpenIndiana has a similar partition scheme. What makes these, oh, and Solaris, useful is that they automatically command the eject DVD thing on reboot.

Do not give up on PC-BSD, keep using it on the VM until you get it wired. Cross reference the Free BSD forums, and work at it. The whole idea of operating a FreeBSD based computer is to liberate oneself from being used by the computer, and transitioning to being the one in charge. This requires a few commands here and there.

Like learning how to get the PortsJail working for me on PC-BSD was a very big deal. My first real computer command. And wow, it did things!!! Celebrated and everything!

Do not give up, but be it known, the MacBook was not intended to be easy to get away from. Invest in a refurbished desktop from Amazon or something, and tinker with it for FreeBSD and PC-BSD. We have seen on EBAY and Amazon all kinds of computers that are listed favorably on the HCL's ranging from $30 - $150 US, and on up of course. OS Disk and the FreeBSD and PC-BSD Malls have plenty books and disks to buy CHEAP to help you learn the way to get a good working system on your MacBook Hard Drive, but it takes work. Being redundant; dont quite, invest in a cheap used or refurbished computer listed in the HCL to continue using PC-BSD in the meanwhile. Its a great OS based on a very great OS, well worth sticking with!

[mike4]

I triple boot Ubuntu, Vista and osx86 with Grub. Osx86 is on the the first partition of the second disc.
For now I only try to install pcbsd with vmware as i don't need accelerated 3D.

[Rakor]

Hi there again!

Don't get me wrong, I am already running FreeBSD (since 7.2) on various machines, but all standard X86|amd64. So I hope I have the basics.

I just want to have it on my macs too. Why? Just because it's nice having it . I read something about installing the FreeBSD on MacBooks an I thought there must be an easier way. When I then heard in the interview that PC-BSD will (maybe) support booting on macs I wanted to give it a try. So i learned in the past days that PC-BSD has grown to a nice useable System with potential. Maybe my next Desktop to be installed will have a PC-BSD. Although some things are still strange to me (eg. the portsjail and the coexistence of libs).

CU
Rakor

edit:
I think I'll try the Grub-Method and I'll try a clean FreeBSD-Install using the hints from the FreeBSD-Wiki

[mike4]

with potential. Maybe my next Desktop to be installed will have a PC-BSD. Although some things are still strange to me (eg. the portsjail and the coexistence of libs).

What do you mean with portsjail and coexistence of libs??
Although I use Linux since 1998 I'm new to PcBSD, so thanks.

Yea PcBSD seems good when all those bugs are cleaned but the lack of apps won't make it a replacement for Linux or other OS.

[Rakor]

I had no problems with missing apps on FreeBSD. I use the ports-system for installing my apps and nearly everything is available.
Since PC-BSD is a full featured FreeBSD you can use the ports there either. What apps are you missing?

I am a little confused about the way programs and libs are handled. So I have the possibility to install apps inside a jail (the portsjail). So I a complete second FreeBSD installed inside the jail (using it's own libs). Then there are the PBIs which are installed in special directories (outside the normal FreeBSD-directories).

Then there is the Base-System (which is a FreeBSD-Base-System - with its own libs, and the third party apps - like KDE etc. with their own libs).

So thats confusing to me And I don't know what apps are included in the automatic update process... Only the ones in the base-system and the PBIs or the portsjail too? Maybe there are ports that I have installed in the base-system too (such as the guest additions of VirtualBox).

You know what I mean?

I needed some time to really understand the seperation of FreeBSD-base and the third party ports in a standard FreeBSD-Installation.... But with PC-BSD its even more complicated because there are more ways to install software. (I understand the behaviour of jais, but I don't understand the automagic of PC-BSD).

[mike4]

Nearly all my apps are "win-mac-linux" the rest I use is via Wine.
So I'd miss a lot...Blender, X-Plane etc. I only wanted to look into the Bsd state, but if it's that complicated, I might fall back to Freebsd in a virtual machine.