HP Compaq 6005 Pro Small
Despite being old, these computers have a very good configuration, even for today's times.
I'm a fan of old computers, the constructions were very robust, sturdy, well made and have proven themselves over time. Giving new life to equipment is a must, there is a lot of good quality electronic "junk" out there. In Brazil, quality computers and hardware cost a lot of money.
Practically everything I have for personal use and work is already a bit old.
I got 25 of these HP Compaq computers and I know that with free software, we have the ability to customize, adapt and with so many options of what to do, give new life to the computer and keep it running well.
I noticed the BTX Loader problem, found this 15-year-old bug report, saw that even today there are people looking for information about the problem, so I started an extensive work to find out if in any version of FreeBSD, if at any time the loader worked correctly.
I tested practically all the i386 and amd64 versions from series 4 to 15 (current), including the dot versions. It either crashed or the screen froze with artifacts, some versions even made the computer emit memory error beeps.
This batch of computers came with firmware 1.15, I updated to 1.17, which apparently is the latest. It really was quite a long job, because I wanted to run my favorite system on these machines, without any glitches, with all the loader options.
I came to the conclusion that this computer can't boot with the loader in any version of FreeBSD. Clearly there is some non-standardization in the BIOS firmware.
I came up with a solution, it's not complete yet because I need to add single mode, see if I can still load a functional old kernel (BE) with ZFS, but starting and running the system successfully is already something. I was able to successfully install and run FreeBSD 14.2 on 4/26/2025. I initially tested it with UFS partitions, but I'll try it with ZFS soon and post the details here.
You can install the base system on another computer, whether AMD or Intel, it doesn't matter, since the AMD64 base has support for both platforms in the kernel.
Of course, after installing it, you must adapt the drivers, firmware, etc.
This HP Compaq uses a BIOS/Legacy/MBR boot system, and does not have UEFI support.
I know it exists, but I've never used it, but the next step is to study whether it's possible to load OpenBIOS, CoreBoot, LibreBoot, etc... to see if it would get around the problem and allow me to use the Loader with all its features.
But for now, the solution was this:
I installed FreeBSD 14.2 on another computer, and installed grub2-pcbsd via pkg (since I saw that the grub2 package was referring to EFI, I intuitively chose pcbsd. It might work on the standard grub2, but I haven't tried it).
I followed the grub installation step by step, which is highly documented and very simple.
At first, I didn't create the configuration file, because I wanted to test it and see which parameters I would need to use to boot successfully. The commands were these:
(USF file system, freebsd-boot partition, root partition and swap) You should adapt the commands and information for your respective partitions.
At the grub prompt>
grub> set root=(hd0,1)
grub> insmod ufs2
grub> insmod bsd
grub> kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
grub> set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a
grub> set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
grub> boot
I did it manually because I was testing the options, I took pictures with my cell phone until it worked and I was successful! After that, all I had to do was create the grub.cfg configuration file with the following options:
set timeout=5
set default=0
menuentry "FreeBSD" {
set root=(hd0,1)
insmod ufs2
insmod bsd
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
}
I updated the base system, the packages, installed wayland and uploaded sway.
It works very, very well!
I still want to see if I can add the options to enter single mode, and also test it on ZFS and see if I can make the menu with the kernel rollback (BE).
I'm also studying the possibility of changing the BIOS firmware to a free one, and maybe using the default loader, which is certainly much better, but for now, that's it.
There is still some polishing to do on the system, and a few things to configure, but if this is your favorite system, this is a way to get around the Loader problem.
I'll be back soon with news about booting on ZFS and whether it is also possible to use a free boot system.
See you next time
:wq!
Despite being old, these computers have a very good configuration, even for today's times.
I'm a fan of old computers, the constructions were very robust, sturdy, well made and have proven themselves over time. Giving new life to equipment is a must, there is a lot of good quality electronic "junk" out there. In Brazil, quality computers and hardware cost a lot of money.
Practically everything I have for personal use and work is already a bit old.
I got 25 of these HP Compaq computers and I know that with free software, we have the ability to customize, adapt and with so many options of what to do, give new life to the computer and keep it running well.
I noticed the BTX Loader problem, found this 15-year-old bug report, saw that even today there are people looking for information about the problem, so I started an extensive work to find out if in any version of FreeBSD, if at any time the loader worked correctly.
I tested practically all the i386 and amd64 versions from series 4 to 15 (current), including the dot versions. It either crashed or the screen froze with artifacts, some versions even made the computer emit memory error beeps.
This batch of computers came with firmware 1.15, I updated to 1.17, which apparently is the latest. It really was quite a long job, because I wanted to run my favorite system on these machines, without any glitches, with all the loader options.
I came to the conclusion that this computer can't boot with the loader in any version of FreeBSD. Clearly there is some non-standardization in the BIOS firmware.
I came up with a solution, it's not complete yet because I need to add single mode, see if I can still load a functional old kernel (BE) with ZFS, but starting and running the system successfully is already something. I was able to successfully install and run FreeBSD 14.2 on 4/26/2025. I initially tested it with UFS partitions, but I'll try it with ZFS soon and post the details here.
You can install the base system on another computer, whether AMD or Intel, it doesn't matter, since the AMD64 base has support for both platforms in the kernel.
Of course, after installing it, you must adapt the drivers, firmware, etc.
This HP Compaq uses a BIOS/Legacy/MBR boot system, and does not have UEFI support.
I know it exists, but I've never used it, but the next step is to study whether it's possible to load OpenBIOS, CoreBoot, LibreBoot, etc... to see if it would get around the problem and allow me to use the Loader with all its features.
But for now, the solution was this:
I installed FreeBSD 14.2 on another computer, and installed grub2-pcbsd via pkg (since I saw that the grub2 package was referring to EFI, I intuitively chose pcbsd. It might work on the standard grub2, but I haven't tried it).
I followed the grub installation step by step, which is highly documented and very simple.
At first, I didn't create the configuration file, because I wanted to test it and see which parameters I would need to use to boot successfully. The commands were these:
(USF file system, freebsd-boot partition, root partition and swap) You should adapt the commands and information for your respective partitions.
At the grub prompt>
grub> set root=(hd0,1)
grub> insmod ufs2
grub> insmod bsd
grub> kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
grub> set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a
grub> set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
grub> boot
I did it manually because I was testing the options, I took pictures with my cell phone until it worked and I was successful! After that, all I had to do was create the grub.cfg configuration file with the following options:
set timeout=5
set default=0
menuentry "FreeBSD" {
set root=(hd0,1)
insmod ufs2
insmod bsd
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
}
I updated the base system, the packages, installed wayland and uploaded sway.
It works very, very well!
I still want to see if I can add the options to enter single mode, and also test it on ZFS and see if I can make the menu with the kernel rollback (BE).
I'm also studying the possibility of changing the BIOS firmware to a free one, and maybe using the default loader, which is certainly much better, but for now, that's it.
There is still some polishing to do on the system, and a few things to configure, but if this is your favorite system, this is a way to get around the Loader problem.
I'll be back soon with news about booting on ZFS and whether it is also possible to use a free boot system.
See you next time
:wq!