# FreeBSD 9.0 i386 ZFS and bullet points



## dadda (Apr 9, 2012)

Hi,

I have been staring my self blind on faq, documentation and guides for installing FreeBSD 9.0 onto ZFS.

I won't list all of the material I have read nor the guides followed. But simply that I have not managed a successful setup. It always ends in different ways, with my limited skill set I have no way of debugging what is wrong.

So I'm pleading with you guys not for a guide to follow but a listing of things that needs to be done to end up with a successful installation of FreeBSD 9.0 (tips and tricks are welcome too).

Then I will read up on everything that I need to learn. I'm new to this community so please be respectful and reply with consideration.

Kind Regards, dadda


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## da1 (Apr 10, 2012)

check this out
Just pay attention to it as sometimes it happens that you miss 1 character and the whole thing goes to hell. Especially when you are unsure of yourself. One thing I can say about the article is that it does produce a bootable and working setup.

BTW: if you are installing on some weird hardware, it might be worth mentioning (ex: no way you can install FreeBSD+GPT+ZFS on a Lenovo T420s - only FreeBSD+MBR+ZFS).


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## Terry_Kennedy (Apr 11, 2012)

dadda said:
			
		

> So I'm pleading with you guys not for a guide to follow but a listing of things that needs to be done to end up with a successful installation of FreeBSD 9.0 (tips and tricks are welcome too).


Your post title mentions i386. ZFS wants lots of memory - generally more than the 4GB limit in i386. If you have a CPU that can't run FreeBSD's amd64 code, you may achieve a successful install but run into problems due to insufficient memory later on. Just a caution...


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## dadda (Apr 13, 2012)

da1: I tried that guide but ends up with a problem with the boot procedure it constantly asks for 
	
	



```
Manual root filesystem specification:
```
 and a prompt with 
	
	



```
mountroot>
```
What do I do now?

Terry Kennedy: Thank you for your notice.


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## vdubgeek (Apr 13, 2012)

da1 said:
			
		

> check this out
> Just pay attention to it as sometimes it happens that you miss 1 character and the whole thing goes to hell. Especially when you are unsure of yourself. One thing I can say about the article is that it does produce a bootable and working setup.
> 
> BTW: if you are installing on some weird hardware, it might be worth mentioning (ex: no way you can install FreeBSD+GPT+ZFS on a Lenovo T420s - only FreeBSD+MBR+ZFS).



I'll second, these are good instructions to follow.  I've succesfully installed FreeBSD 9 with ZFS root on 2 servers now using these instructions as a starting point.


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