# installation on extra Mac HD



## mark1411 (Mar 24, 2012)

List members:

    I have an extra 1 TB HD in my Intel Mac running Lion. I would appreciate any advice regarding installing FreeBSD on this extra HDD. I looked through previous posts, didn't find much directly useful. Thank you in advance for any thoughts. - Mark


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## wblock@ (Mar 24, 2012)

The easy way is to install VirtualBox, set File/Preferences/Default Machine Folder to the external drive, then create a FreeBSD guest and run it from there.


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## mark1411 (Mar 24, 2012)

Mr. Block,

    Thank you very much for this information.

    1) My extra HDD is actually internal to the Intel Mac, not an external HDD. Does this change anything?;

    2) Do you recommend buying commercial install disks for this installation, or is there something free available? I did look through the installation pages of the Handbook; they seem oriented to Windows computers. 

    Sorry about these basic questions. Thank you for any thoughts.

     - Mark


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## wblock@ (Mar 24, 2012)

mark1411 said:
			
		

> Mr. Block,
> 
> Thank you very much for this information.
> 
> 1) My extra HD is actually internal to the Intel Mac, not an external HD. Does this change anything?;



No.  It doesn't have to be on a separate drive, one of the nice features of using a VM.  Another is that both operating systems can run at the same time.



> 2) Do you recommend buying commercial install disks for this installation, or is there something free available? I did look through the installation pages of the Handbook; they seem oriented to Windows computers.



Commercial disks aren't required.  freebsdmall.com is still around if you want to do that.  Many people just download the ISO image from freebsd.com.  VirtualBox guest VMs can use ISO images directly, so no actual CD is needed.  I don't understand what you mean about Windows, the two install chapters just explain how to squash Windows to make room for FreeBSD.

Links:
https://www.virtualbox.org/
http://www.freebsd.org/where.html
http://pcbsd.org/ (FreeBSD with a preinstalled KDE desktop)


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## mark1411 (Mar 26, 2012)

Mr. Block,

I successfully installed the file below on a VM machine on my extra HD: FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso. Was this the correct file? If not, how do I fix it? Are there any books you'd recommend on FreeBSD?

Thanks again.
- Mark


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## wblock@ (Mar 26, 2012)

The DVD is fine, but you could have downloaded the much-smaller CD or even bootonly image.  Doesn't matter now.  For books, the first on the list has to be the Handbook.  And of course there's a lot of books and articles at Books and Articles Online on the web page.  And Absolute FreeBSD is famous.


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## mark1411 (Mar 26, 2012)

Mr. Block,

   Incredibly helpful, thanks very much.

     - Mark


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