# Is it possible to install to eMMC drive?



## myway_1 (Nov 26, 2016)

Hello,

My computer has an eMMC internal drive. Is it possible to install FreeBSD to it? If not are there any other forks of BSD that enable this?


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## Phishfry (Nov 27, 2016)

I would simply boot up off the installer and use the shell and check that eMMC is recognized with `gpart show`. If so just install to it, with no swap.

I have an Arm platform, the Beaglebone which has a bootable eMMC. I like it.

What is your machine?


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## myway_1 (Nov 27, 2016)

My computer is an x84-64 (amd64). I tried to install FreeBSD on it, but the internal eMMC drive did not show up as a drive to which it could be installed.


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## Phishfry (Nov 27, 2016)

Not looking good unless you can hack on drivers. Maybe do a mailing list post to see if there may be loader hints needed.
Maybe do a dmesg output for people to look at.

A little more specific on the hardware as well. Is this an embedded box or a laptop.
On embedded boxes they seem to ride the emmc on the sd card bus.


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## myway_1 (Nov 27, 2016)

Thanks. It is a 1st generation Intel Compute Stick (system on a chip).


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## Phishfry (Nov 27, 2016)

Similar thread
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/55464


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## myway_1 (Nov 27, 2016)

Yes, I had seen that thread but I'm not sure I believe Al Poole!

Edit: Well it may be that Braswell is supported. My Intel Compute Stick is Bay Trail


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## Phishfry (Nov 27, 2016)

Yes but Al Poole was saying OpenBSD supports eMMC, in response to poster trying to write an eMMC driver, who was searching for guidance.
Many NetBSD/OpenBSD drivers are shared/ported to FreeBSD.


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## myway_1 (Nov 28, 2016)

Ah, hah! I didn't notice that he was referring to OpenBSD rather than FreeBSD. I tried OpenBSD but the strangest thing, it shuts off my USB hub during the boot process of the installer. I can't do it without the hub because my Intel Compute Stick has only one USB port.


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## Oko (Nov 30, 2016)

myway_1 said:


> Ah, hah! I didn't notice that he was referring to openBSD rather than freeBSD. I tried openBSD but the strangest thing, it shuts off my USB hub during the boot process of the installer. I can't do it without the hub because my Intel Compute Stick has only one USB port.


I think this is expected. I am quite sure I saw the post on tech@openbsd or misc@openbsd which explains why the OpenBSD behaves that way. IIRC it has to do with some magic numbers required by the device.


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