# FreeBSD on Intel xserve



## blah44 (Aug 26, 2014)

Has anyone had any success with FreeBSD 9/10 on an Apple Xserve, Intel versions? Specifically Xserve2,1 and Xserve3,1?

Amongst the Linux web sites around the world there is a ton of conflicting information about whether or not you need some BIOS emulation, what disk partitioning is supporting, if you need REFit or something else. I am going to have at it later this afternoon but thought I would check here to see if anyone else has gone down this path yet, for any words of wisdom.

Thanks!


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## blah44 (Aug 29, 2014)

Well, I got Linux up and running, no big deal as long as you pick an image with EFI+AMD64. Booted right up with the alt-option key menu, installed and running happily.

So is FreeBSD expected to work with this EFI configuration? It is hard for me to tell. One FreeBSD wiki page suggests it should, another FreeBSD wiki page suggests it should not yet run and needs more development -
https://wiki.freebsd.org/UEFI
https://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCode2012/IntelEFIBoot

I also may be missing some of the concepts when it comes to EFI/UEFI, so please feel free to explain to layman level if need be.


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## usdmatt (Aug 29, 2014)

As far as I'm aware the work has been completed but it's not available in release versions yet. It is in head though and there are snapshots for UEFI machines. I don't know if it'll get into 10.1 or not. None of the commits seem to mention 'MFC', which usually shows the commit will be merged into earlier branches.

Try something like 'FreeBSD-11.0-CURRENT-amd64-20140701-r268111-memstick-uefi.img' from the FTP location below (or a mirror) and see what happens. That should be a UEFI capable installer for a USB memory stick. If it actually works like it's supposed to it should boot just like Linux did.

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snaps ... AGES/11.0/


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## blah44 (Sep 16, 2014)

Hah, looks like the July images have cycled off and there are no longer UEFI images. Guess it was not working very well?


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## usdmatt (Sep 16, 2014)

Interesting, I don't know why they'd stop producing UEFI snapshots of CURRENT; It's even more important to provide the ability to test if it has problems.

They do appear to have UEFI images for the new 10.1 BETA though. I'm under the impression 10.1 will be the first proper release with UEFI support, unless it really doesn't work properly and they decide to hold it back. Judging by the message lists it does appear to have a fair few rough edges still.

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-I ... md64/10.1/


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