Installing FreeBSD 12.1 on old legecy bios laptop

  • Which model? Year of manufacturing? How did you write the image to the stick (Windows/Linux/BSD)?
  • Verify the checksum of the downloaded image and the USB stick.
    grep 'amd64-memstick.img)' CHECKSUM.SHA256-FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64
    sha256 FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img
    sha256 /dev/da0s2a
    Or if you have a good GUI: right mouse -> checksum. Adjust the /dev/daX number of your stick! On Linux, the letter for the partition might differ.
  • Try setting "ACPI off" and/or "safe mode" in the boot menu.
    Very often this is due to a buggy ACPI implementation in the BIOS. Unfortunately, strict conforming implementations are rare.
 
Hello there;
checksum was ok; tested the the whole thing again made a new usb disk with dd from both .iso and .img file. But the result was the same.
single boot has exactly the same problem `loading kerenl...` and then nothing.
I tested 12-RELEASE, 12-SNAPSHOT and 13-CURRENT all with the same issue.
if I shutdown ACPI then I can boot. but after loading kerenl the new screen will come up and there is kernel panic:
saying it needs ACPI table to proceed.
C-like: 
---<<BOOT>>---

panic: running without device atpic requires a local APIC

cpuid = 0

time = 1

KBD: stack backtrace:

#0 0xffffffff80c00d75 at ??+0

#1 0xffffffff80bb53fb at ??+0

#2 0xffffffff80bb5273 at ??+0

#3 0xffffffff811f21f3 at ??+0

#4 0xffffffff80b4d55f at ??+0

#5 0xffffffff8036c02c at ??+0

Uptime: 1s



I used dd to make the usb disk both from OpenBSD and a Mac.
on another test I did use BalenaEtcher utility.
in any case the result is the same.
Thank You.
?
 
  • set the BIOS options according to the FreeBSD handbook (section Installation)
  • Maybe you should 1st try 11.3-RELEASE, you can go to STABLE and/or CURRENT later
    With ZFS: easily
  • Has any BSD or Linux ever been installed successfully on that laptop?
 
Yes; It was something that I saw with 11.4 release.
I pressed Esc to stop the countdown and I saw a massage telling me I have to type boot to start the boot sequence.
 
  • You do not have to do that.
    With <ESC> you get into the loader(8)'s CLI (command line interface) console.
  • You can simply press <ENTER>
  • It might be good to get more verbose boot messages: In the boot menu, type <O> <V> <ENTER>
    (Options->Verbose) (or the numbers of these menu entries)
    This can help to identify the problems that your laptop has. dmesg|less shows these, you already know that.
  • You can search the internet for s/th like "Dell <model> Linux boot" or exchange "Linux" with "BSD" in your favorite search engine to find any quirks you might need to set in the BIOS.
  • E.g. it might help to set the TRM security chip to inactive or disable.
 
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