# Failed FreeBSD installation, please help.



## northbsd (Jan 7, 2015)

I have decided to learn FreeBSD, therefore I have invested $400 for a Intel NUC Intel D34010WYK, 8GB memory, 64GB mSATA SSD.

I've run into problems when I am installing FreeBSD today.

Here is the info:

I am a 18 years Windows user and 5 years Debian user, but very very new to FreeBSD.
In order to make a good installation, I have went through lots of video instructions on Youtube and FreeBSD user manual.
I have tried both "FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-memstick" and "FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-uefi-memstick" on a USB drive to make the installation.
I am able to reach the very beginning of FreeBSD installation page that ask me do a "single user" or "multiple user" boot , I just clicked the "enter" to do the multiple users installation, then I will inevitably run into the following page:
Here is the image:
As soon I click enter, I run back to the very beginning of Intel NUC page where I could select "F2" or "F10" etc....
Therefore I am very confused.  Please help.


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## junovitch@ (Jan 8, 2015)

Can you write down and post the "List of geom(8) managed devices" that shows at the bottom?

Can you try to type in ufs:/dev/ada0s1 at that prompt and see what happens?  Maybe the USB device hadn't settled to where the OS could read it as a valid device when it first prompted to boot from it.  Putting that in may help.

After a quick search for NUC's I did find some discussions regarding USB issues that need the latest BIOS to resolve.
https://communities.intel.com/thread/46549


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## northbsd (Jan 8, 2015)

Thanks for the help, Junovitch.
Based on your suggestion, I have update the BIOS of this NUC to the latest version, and also I only used the USB 2.0 drive for the installation.

I have followed your suggestion by typ_ing_ in `ufs:/dev/ada0s1`, there is error 22 after that.  Please take a look on the attached image.

And in the 2nd attached screen catch, you can see the list of geom(8) managed devices.



 



Please help me out.  There has never been any problems for any FreeBSD installation on Youtube, however, these unexpected problem happen to me all the time whenever I want to learn anything new.


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## wblock@ (Jan 8, 2015)

FreeBSD 10.1 memstick images still use the old "dangerously dedicated" partitioning.  So that would be ufs:/dev/da0a.

However, some USB devices take a little while to appear.  Typing . (a dot) and pressing Enter gives some time for USB devices to be detected.  That might need to be done several times, and still might require entering the ufs:/dev/da0a path.


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## northbsd (Jan 8, 2015)

Thanks, wblock@.  I did exactly what you have suggested and I received error 19 message.
Here is the screen catch for the error message:





What should I do next?  What did I do wrong? Please help.


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## junovitch@ (Jan 9, 2015)

My apologies on the device name.  I seen ada0s1 in the screenshot and figured that would be worth the try.  I didn't think to look at the memstick layout.  So /dev/da0a is correct.  I'm curious if some earlier advice on the topic is going to be applicable.



wblock@ said:


> ENODEV (intro(2)), probably.  But what it means is likely just device not ready or accessible.  USB devices can fail to be ready because of needed quirks (usb_quirk(4)) or just being slow to be recognized.  RAID controllers might spin up each drive separately and not be ready in time.  IDE or SATA, no idea.
> 
> The two timeout sysctls that can be set in /boot/loader.conf are
> 
> ...



You can specify this during boot by hitting 3 for escape to loader prompt when you get the FreeBSD boot screen.  Once that comes up, enter the following commands.  Hopefully if adding the delay gives the time needed to probe the USB device, it should find the root device to mount.
`set kern.cam.boot_delay="10000"`
`boot`


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## northbsd (Jan 12, 2015)

to: junovitch

I have tried everything you have suggested, however I still receive the same error message shown by the image I have uploaded above.

to: wblock@

I have tried your suggestion, however the message I received is

```
mounting from ufs: dev/da0a failed with error 19.
```
Please help me out.  I really want to learn FreeBSD.


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## gogamoga (Jan 12, 2015)

Try with USB2 Stick + Adjust BIOS appropriately + Try with both UEFI and old images (And adjust BIOS to Legacy/UEFI as well).


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## northbsd (Jan 12, 2015)

gogamoga, may you please give me some detail on what you said?  I mean how to adjust BIOS appropriately?  More detail please. 

Please give me more detail about "adjust BIOS to Legacy/UEFI as well", I don't understand what you mean.

Thanks.


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## gogamoga (Jan 12, 2015)

I don’t own an Intel NUC so I can’t really guide you through the BIOS tuning but I can make
some assumption based on:


junovitch said:


> ...
> After a quick search for NUC's I did find some discussions regarding USB issues that need the latest BIOS to resolve.
> https://communities.intel.com/thread/46549


and on the "NUC BIOS settings glossary" available from http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-034407.htm
(The link to glossary comes from the same forum thread linked in the quote.)

BIOS -> Boot -> Legacy Boot (Check for legacy, uncheck for UEFI)
BIOS -> Boot -> USB Boot (Check)
BIOS -> Devices -> USB Legacy (Check)
BIOS -> Boot -> USB Optimization (Uncheck !!!!! Might be the reason for your problems)
BIOS -> Devices -> USB Port x (Make sure everything is Enabled and don't touch otherwise you risk locking yourself out of BIOS and bricking your NUC before getting OS on it)

Hopefully this will get you to boot the installation.

P.S.
Future disappointment to expect:
Your NUC has i3 4th Gen CPU (HASWELL) with Intel HD 4400 Graphics,
Which is currently Not Supported in 10.1-RELEASE. https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics
For you that means - sluggish X perfomance with VESA Driver. Sorry for the bad news


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## protocelt (Jan 12, 2015)

If you can't get FreeBSD installed, maybe consider installing Windows or Linux on the hardware and installing FreeBSD in a VirtualBox or similar Virtual machine to learn the ropes. By time you become comfortable with using it, you may then be able to install it to hardware.


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## northbsd (Jan 13, 2015)

Thanks, gogamoga.  I will try out your suggestion.  I have bought this Intel NUC D34010WYK based on the very first review of this unit on amazon, by Steven Wilson on November 13, 2013.   Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-D34010W...972&sr=8-1&keywords=D34010WYK#customerReviews
"Steven Wilson" said on the review that he has installed FreeBSD 9.2 amd64 on Intel NUC D34010WYK.  I take it for granted that the 10.1 release would support all the hardware that 9.2 has supported. 

How sluggish X perfomance it would become?


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## gogamoga (Jan 13, 2015)

9.2 did not support HASWELL either. Chip is way too new. Linux has support for it. FreeBSD will soon have too.
Theoretically, you could make it work.

Get 11-Current
Patch Kernel
Build kernel without sc(4), vga(4) and vesa.
Build x11/xorg-minimal with Intel drivers
run `Xorg -retro -verbose`
If there's no kernel panic - you are good to go
Look here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/intel-hd-4600-support.48624/
Thats about all the info you have.

Also, from the article you mentioned:


> Although this is primarily marketed as a desktop/HTPC machine, I bought it to act as an unobtrusive home server to run local file sharing, game servers, and other miscellaneous tasks that required more grunt than my old netbook could spare



He didn't say anything about running X on it, its purely server.

P.S.
VESA perfomance is unbearable. You wont be able to use a browser without getting annoyed.

As protocelt suggested - It would be less painful just to get Linux distro running on it and run FreeBSD in VirtualBox

P.P.S
Assuming that you will be able to boot and install anything on this box.
I am 99% sure its completely BIOS issues. And judging by the posts from the Intel NUC Forum thread mentioned in posts above - Everybody has USB Issues with this box, and it has been going on for over a year without resolution from intel.

IMHO - Return this shit to Intel, take your money and go buy yourself Parallella Card.
(https://www.parallella.org/)
You will get really nice toy to play with and great opportunity to learn.
If you decide to go for parallella, make sure to get *PARALLELLA-16 EMBEDDED PLATFORM* version (With Z7020 FPGA !!!!!)
Only the FPGA worth more than this NUC.


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## northbsd (Jan 13, 2015)

thanks gogamoga for all the suggestions.  I have tried all the BIOS ideas you suggested on post #10.  I always run into the same scenario shown on the first image I have uploaded.  I have decided to learn FreeBSD, that's why I have invested more than $400 for this unit and hoping to become an avid user of FreeBSD eventually.  I feel very frustrated that I could not even install the OS and also the Intel NUC has already passed the return window.  Do you know any other Intel NUC or any PC that has better compatibility with FreeBSD?  Does the parallella card support FreeBSD?


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## gogamoga (Jan 13, 2015)

Stop investing money first of all. Stuck with NUC - squeeze everything from it.
Parallella does not support FreeBSD yet, but it will eventually (I am in a process of building a cluster of those cards)

If you keep failing with installation - don't dare to give up. First steps are always painful but it will come through eventually.
As a last resort - you could take the NUC apart, Extract the SSD, plug it into different machine and install the system from there.
Then plug it back into NUC.

P.S.
Another thing you can try is PXE boot - https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-diskless.html

P.P.S
As you are young and just coming up, I would still advise you to look towards the future. And future is moving towards embedded stuff and ARM chips. Those NUC are just a lame attempt of Intel to enter the Embedded market. Intel is struggling with low power cpus and they are desperate to grab a piece of the market where Samsung and the likes rule atm. So those NUCs are basically beta testing at your expense.

Course of action:

Go to: https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/arm.html
Do research and calculate your budget that you are willing to dedicate to learing.

https://seeed.com (or ebay or whatever other supplier you find)
Pick yourself nice low power board (You could go with cheapo RasPI)
Start hacking
Future of your generation will be embedded, so prepare NOW!


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## northbsd (Jan 13, 2015)

PXE boot looks so difficult to me.  It's quite daunting for me to get it done.  You are right about the arm embedded system, however I really would like to learn FreeBSD on PC level first.  Thanks for the help anyway.


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## protocelt (Jan 14, 2015)

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is trying different install media. I have had many instances that when using USB flash devices for installation, I would get results similar to the original post. It may not be the case here, but for me,  this was fixed each and every time by using a different USB flash drive until I found one that worked. I also noticed that generic off brand USB flash drives seemed to work better than well known brands(Lexar, Kingston, etc), although I have no idea why. I have several different flash drives I've amassed over time. Of the few actual USB hard drives I've tried, none of them have ever worked for installing FreeBSD on any of my computers.


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## northbsd (Jan 15, 2015)

Can anybody install freebsd FreeBSD 10.1 on my mSATA SSD drive for me?


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