# Installing multiboot FBSD 11.2 from .disc, need a little help



## anonkasion (Jan 8, 2019)

Hello,
I am installing FreeBSD-11.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso in a computer that currently has Windows 10 Ultimate installed; I have a part time job as a C# developer and as people get habituated to Vim shortcuts (me too) I guess because there's something about them that is difficult to forget, the same happens to me with Visual Studio when programming in C#. I am also studying sockets in C on my own, and I want a raw environment like FreeBSD to keep learning them, just to mention one of all the things I want to learn that it just too dumbed down in the distributions of Linux I tried for my liking.

As I understand, I had to shrink the partition where I would install all FreeBSD "partitions", which I already did with the Windows diskmgmt.msc; I think 225GB will be enough, I probably will install some Window manager, and the usual daemons that FreeBSD server uses.
I am following this guide: https://www.robertcina.com/2017/03/...s-10-and-freebsd-11-with-refind-and-easyuefi/ , which says the next step is to boot the computer from the boot CD I made; I am a little confused about the SATA/UEFI mode that my motherboard has, but I doubt that will be a problem.
Next, I should create the 3 usual partitions of FreeBSD, right? one labeled EFI one of 1mb (?), the swap one, called FreeBSD-swap, which, I don't know how big it should be (I have 8 GB RAM, so I guess 1GB is ok?), and the / called FreeBSD-ufs.

If everything went well, the system should reboot into Windows 10 again, and I should perform "reboot find manager" and a "EasyUEFI" programs, that I never used in my life before, and would like very much if you guys could explain to me if this is really necessary, why, and if I should keep following the instructions of the guide. Thanks in advance.

This is my first post as this user, but 8 years ago I used to admin some FreeBSD systems at Telmex Argentina and had another username here, which I don't remember neither the user nor the password. Just wanted to say I have some experience with the OS but the last years I have only used Linux which dumbed me dumb a lot, and lately I decided to try to install the best of "both worlds" (Windows and BSD). Peace.


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## johnblue (Jan 8, 2019)

anonkasion said:
			
		

> If everything went well, the system should reboot into Windows 10 again, and I should perform "reboot find manager" and a "EasyUEFI" programs, that I never used in my life before, and ...


I understand why multiboot is attractive but it is such a hassle when, comparatively speaking, you can install BSD as a VM and be done.


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## zhongyb (Jan 9, 2019)

anonkasion said:


> Next, I should create the 3 usual partitions of FreeBSD, right? one labeled EFI one of 1mb (?), the swap one, called FreeBSD-swap, which, I don't know how big it should be (I have 8 GB RAM, so I guess 1GB is ok?), and the / called FreeBSD-ufs.



The EFI partition already exists. You need to assign a drive letter in Windows 10 using diskpart, then copy files of rEFInd and EasyUEFI.


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## anonkasion (Jan 12, 2019)

zhongyb said:


> The EFI partition already exists. You need to assign a drive letter in Windows 10 using diskpart, then copy files of rEFInd and EasyUEFI.


Could you explain this a little bit more please? I never had to use any program like this before when I had Windows 7 and NetBSD.
Shouldn't I just need to reinstall the boot loader writing where is the Windows 10 partition or something like that?


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## anonkasion (Jan 12, 2019)

Bump, please help, I am installing FreeBSD 11.2 with Windows 10 today, could someone explain me why I need to use external programs to specify the boot loader to find FreeBSD? or can someone explain me how it works? I have reached the installation part where you make the partitions, no problem, but I didn't apply it yet because I unknown how the FreeBSD bootloader works.
Thanks again an sorry for the bump.


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## laffer1 (Jan 12, 2019)

When you used NetBSD and Windows 7, it was likely not using GPT but rather MBR.  Dual booting with MBR was a lot more mature than GPT booting.  With GPT, you need to install a third party boot manager/loader in the EFI partition to take over from the UEFI bios and then it will boot whatever OS.  Things are even more complicated if you are using secure boot because everything needs to be signed. 

Since the boot manager is third party, you need to install it however they recommend.  Another option would be something like Grub.  

I don't think you mentioned if this is a desktop or laptop. If it's a desktop, you could even add a cheap SSD and boot from the boot options menu in the bios if you are uncomfortable setting up the boot manager. 

In general, GPT setups have a partition marked for the boot manager.  All major OSes that support GPT do this, but the size varies.


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## anonkasion (Jan 12, 2019)

laffer1 said:


> When you used NetBSD and Windows 7, it was likely not using GPT but rather MBR.  Dual booting with MBR was a lot more mature than GPT booting.  With GPT, you need to install a third party boot manager/loader in the EFI partition to take over from the UEFI bios and then it will boot whatever OS.  Things are even more complicated if you are using secure boot because everything needs to be signed.
> 
> Since the boot manager is third party, you need to install it however they recommend.  Another option would be something like Grub.
> 
> ...



This is what I needed, thanks a lot for the explanation.
I also tried to shrink the Windows 10 partition but it failed, I defragmented it but it got stuck at 2% after optimizing and defragging, even if it failed, it succeeded shrinking the partition






I may build another computer to install FreeBSD... though I really don't want to… I don't like this GPT boot way at all


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## anonkasion (Jan 12, 2019)

Seems the CD wasn't burned well. Oh my lord, I always have some problem.


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## anonkasion (Jan 13, 2019)

Well, I think everything went as planned. I changed in the BIOS the boot order, and was able to select the free space I separated from the Windows 10 NTFS partition, to a ZFS one (if everything goes ok I will download a book about ZFS, it is massively useful). 
The installation was interesting. It installed packages while it would make the proper ZFS directories. When it finished successfully, after a reboot, the first thing I saw was "Missing boot loader", which was expected.
It was the moment of truth, if I configured the partitions correctñy (FreeBSD needs 3); I changed in the BIOS to boot back to the Windows loader and thankfully it worked. I installed TrueOS correctly. It's very late and I'm tired, tomorrow will install the boot loader.


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