FreeBSD and Debian can't dual boot.

crazygulugulu

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Hello. I just allocated 190gb of space in the FreeBSD installation and formatted it as a UFS file system. There was a problem after completing the setup.
After FreeBSD restarted, the debian linux GRUB screen was coming up. I have never been able to boot FreeBSD from the hard drive. Resetting USB, turning off secure boot option from BIOS,
The methods I tried adding the FreeBSD option to the /etc/grub.d/40_custom section. Can you help me please?
 


G'day @crazygulugulu and welcome to linux.org :)

I don't use FreeBSD but either of @stan or @blackneos940 may be able to assist.

By my mentioning them, this will be brought to their attention.

Good luck.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
There was a problem after completing the setup.
Can you describe this problem any better?

I am a newbie to FreeBSD and have never tried to dual boot with Linux. I run FreeBSD in a virtual machine (VirtualBox) and it runs quite well. I find it more convenient to run both OS'es at the same time instead of having to switch one off and wait for the other one to start.

Google revealed a couple of things that may or may not help....

1. YouTube video installing FreeBSD with existing Debian (2016)
2. FreeBSD Forum thread has a lot of helpful discussion (2017-2019)

The final comment on the FreeBSD Forum thread recommends rEFInd to boot dissimilar systems. That may well be good advice in your case also, but I am not familiar with using rEFInd myself. The forum thread also provides various methods for configuring /etc/grub.d/40_custom... so maybe it will have one that works for you instead of what you have previously tried. Good luck!
 
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I am a newbie to FreeBSD and have never tried to dual boot with Linux. I run FreeBSD in a virtual machine (VirtualBox) and it runs quite well. I find it more convenient to run both OS'es at the same time instead of having to switch one off and wait for the other one to start.
I can run FreeBSD in Virtual Box.
My problem is FreeBSD booting from usb in installation.
1. YouTube video installing FreeBSD with existing Debian (2016)
2. FreeBSD Forum thread has a lot of helpful discussion (2017-2019)
I will watch this video. Thanks for your quote.

Edit: The first video is for legacy mbr. But my machine is GPT/UEFI.
 
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I can run FreeBSD in Virtual Box.
My problem is FreeBSD booting from usb in installation.
I don't know quite what you mean. What is the problem? Not booting at all?


Edit: The first video is for legacy mbr. But my machine is GPT/UEFI.
I have FreeBSD 12.2 installed on a GPT/UEFI laptop as the only OS. This is in UEFI mode, but I do have Secure Boot disabled. There is a FreeBSD Wiki article (here) that indicates they are not yet ready to run with Secure Boot enabled.
 
I don't know quite what you mean. What is the problem? Not booting at all?
Yes. Problem was FreeBSD couldn't boot.
But I solved problem :D.
Problem was an error during partitioning disks.

And I changed from FreeBSD to ghostBSD. GhostBSD is better than FreeBSD for new BSD users :D.
 
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But I solved problem :D.
Always happy to hear that report... congratulations! Yes, GhostBSD is very nice and I've played with it in the past too. You might also be interested in Nomad BSD which is for running on USB only, and not installing to a hard drive. It is interesting, but I do not like to run updates on it.
 
You might also be interested in Nomad BSD which is for running on USB only, and not installing to a hard drive. It is interesting, but I do not like to run updates on it.
You are right. NomadBSD is beautiful and good BSD distro.
But I want to install BSD on my SSD. And NomadBSD has only live session.
 
Folks, NomadBSD is installable on hardware :)
I made an account here to tell you!

It can run persistently on a USB, but also be installed. It's beautiful as well. Try live first to test if your machine is compatible.
GhostBSD is of course also recommended AND has a live system too.

It brings joy to my heart to see Linux users curious about real Unix too.

We are quite active on Telegram, find us!

 
Look, the thing isn't if GRUB recognizes your FBSD installation. The point is the grub.cfg that you should have.
Here are a couple, I really hope that this helps you. Since it didn't it for me... Anyways, it's just matter of time (and search) to find the right configuration.
The first you should, is run # nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom
Now, add one (or all) of the below:

menuentry "FreeBSD 13" {
insmod ufs2
set root= (hd0,2)
kfreebsd /boot/loader
}

menuentry "FreeBSD-13.0 Release" {
set root=(hd0,gpt2)
chainloader /boot/boot1.efi
}

menuentry "FreeBSD" --class freebsd --class bsd --class os {
insmod ufs2
insmod bsd
set root=(hd0,2)
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
kfreebsd_loadenv /boot/device.hints
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
set kFreeBSD.hw.psm.synaptics_support=1
}

menuentry "FreeBSD-13.0 Release" {
set root=(hd0,gpt2)
chainloader /boot/boot1.efi
}

menuentry "FreeBSD 13" --class freebsd --class bsd --class os {
insmod ufs2
insmod bsd
set root=(hd0,ufs2)
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
kfreebsd_loadenv /boot/device.hints
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
set kFreeBSD.hw.psm.synaptics_support=1
}

menuentry "FreeBSD 13.X" --class freebsd --class bsd --class os {
insmod ufs2
insmod bsd
set root=(hd0,1)
kfreebsd /boot/kernel/kernel
kfreebsd_loadenv /boot/device.hints
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s2a
set kFreeBSD.vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
set kFreeBSD.hw.psm.synaptics_support=1
}

Then,run
# grub-update /dev/sdLN
(Where "L" means your drive, for example, sda; "N", means the partition: 1,2,3...)
* If you're able to use grub2, do the same, just adding the "2" at "grub".
& run # os-prober
Make # chmod u+x /etc/grub.d/40_custom

If something fails, repeat the steps, changing the order. It is very important that you edit 40_custom, or the GRUB won't recognize because of yes the FreeBSD partition.
Right now I can't help you too much. I'm gonna try OpenBSD. Distrohopper life, whatever.

Report if something went wrong.
Bye.
 
The thread is more than a year old. They've likely resolved the issue or moved on.
 

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