# Install on MacBook?



## fvs (May 16, 2018)

OK, I tried to install FreeBSD 11 on my macbook. Using it as the only OS.
Everything loaded as outlined in the instruction I followed in GreeBSD documentation.
After reboot no video, I have install xorg, gnome did alter .xinitrc /etc/rc.conf 
Has anyone installed FreeBSD on a old 2008 Macbook? Any tips.
Thanks


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## SirDice (May 16, 2018)

It's a little old (it references FreeBSD 8.0) but it might provide some additional info: https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleMacbook


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## fvs (May 17, 2018)

SirDice said:


> It's a little old (it references FreeBSD 8.0) but it might provide some additional info: https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleMacbook


Solved
After seeing Trev reply i tried it and it worked, See below.
I'm also running FreeBSD on a couple of late-2009 Mac Minis.

After much trial and error I have found that it is possible to install FreeBSD 10.3-Release (I installed the non-UEFI, amd64 version -- ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.3/FreeBSD-10.3-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso ) if you forgo the GPT partitioning scheme and instead use the MBR partitioning scheme.  This may work for your 2007 Mac Mini.

And here is the recipe for achieving this:


Boot the FreeBSD CD/DVD by turning on the Mac Mini and holding down the ALT/Option key until a Windows CD Icon appears. Choose that icon to boot. *Do not use the internal CD/DVD drive* for the FreeBSD disc as you will not be able to eject it. I found this out the hard way. Luckily I also had an external DVD drive so I could load the OSX installation and use Diskutil to eject the disk.
When the system has booted to the FreeBSD Installation Menu, choose Install.
Choose your default keymap.
Set your fully qualified hostname.
Select your distribution files.
Select the Guided Disk Setup option.
Select the "entire disk" option.
Change the Partitioning Scheme from the default highlighted GPT to MBR.
Accept the defaults if you don't mind having everything in the root partition, otherwise delete the default setup and create your own mount points and disk sizes.
Proceed with the rest of the installation as normal.
Eject the disc when the installation is completed.
Boot into an OSX installation DVD (I had a Mac Mini Leopard DVD handy), choose the language, then Utilities, then Terminal from the menu at the top of the screen.
In the terminal, enter  diskutil list and look for the FreeBSD partition (it will look like /dev/disk0sX)
In the terminal, enter  bless -device /dev/disk0sX -setBoot -legacy (where disk0sX is the identifier you found in step 4 above - if you have one internal hard disk it will be disk0s1 in all probability).
Exit from the terminal and Quit the installation process
Reboot and enjoy FreeBSD 10.3!
The only upside to using the MBR partitioning scheme is that FreeBSD boots much more quickly than when previously using the GPT partitioning scheme which had a delay of around 60 seconds before the Mac Mini would find the FreeBSD boot partition.

[Edit: You can then upgrade the system by recompiling from source if you want a later version 10.4-Release, 10.4-STABLE which I what I did. The  freebsd-update command may work to do a binary upgrade from the release version to the next release version but I've not tried it. Additionally you may have luck installing the 10.4 version first off using ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.4/FreeBSD-10.4-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso]


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## trev (May 18, 2018)

fvs said:


> Solved
> After seeing Trev reply i tried it and it worked, See below.



Excellent! Thanks for posting your success.


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## fvs (May 18, 2018)

trev said:


> Excellent! Thanks for posting your success.


trev, one more thing, can I upgrade to 11.1?, If so how ?
Thanks once more.


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## trev (May 20, 2018)

What I am doing is running 10-STABLE, so I simply upgraded the operating system from source (buildworld, buildkernel, installkernel, installworld etc).

If you're still on the 10.3-RELEASE version, then you should be able to use `freebsd-update`  to do a binary upgrade to 10.4-RELEASE, then to 11.0-RELEASE and finally 11.1-RELEASE. I've never done it, but I can't see why it would work here.


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## Junkie (May 21, 2018)

Well for the macbooks older than 2013 (Mid 2014 in my case) use the 11-STABLE + graphics/drm-stable-kmod . Only STABLE works good with Iris graphics chips. Small remark if you're using custom kernel - firmware module should be compiled into the kernel. In other case i915kms module will not work.


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## fvs (May 21, 2018)

Junkie said:


> Well for the macbooks older than 2013 (Mid 2014 in my case) use the 11-STABLE + graphics/drm-stable-kmod . Only STABLE works good with Iris graphics chips. Small remark if you're using custom kernel - firmware module should be compiled into the kernel. In other case i915kms module will not work.


OK, I'd like tp upgrade to 11.1 however my present 10,4 wont recognize my disks, I tried a stick and a CD in my usb port and a cd in an external cd payer.
It only boots in to 10.4 even if I try holding dow the alt key on strartup.
Any ideas?


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## Junkie (May 21, 2018)

fvs said:


> OK, I'd like tp upgrade to 11.1 however my present 10,4 wont recognize my disks, I tried a stick and a CD in my usb port and a cd in an external cd payer.
> It only boots in to 10.4 even if I try holding dow the alt key on strartup.
> Any ideas?


It will be boot normally with reFInd though macbook uses it's own version of UEFI which is incompatible with FreeBSD bootloader. And you need to update the FreeBSD to the version 11.2. It includes all the drm-next changes from the STABLE, or you could update it to the STABLE


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## SirDice (May 23, 2018)

trev said:


> If you're still on the 10.3-RELEASE version, then you should be able to use  freebsd-update to do a binary upgrade to 10.4-RELEASE, then to 11.0-RELEASE and finally 11.1-RELEASE. I've never done it, but I can't see why it would work here.


You can skip all the intermediary steps and jump straight to 11.1-RELEASE. But due to a bug in freebsd-update(8) you must make sure to run the latest 10.3-RELEASE patches (at least -p6) or else it's going to fail. 

https://www.freebsd.org/security/advisories/FreeBSD-EN-16:09.freebsd-update.asc


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