Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

From: Karl Denninger <karl_at_denninger.net>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:03:02 -0500
On 3/16/2020 17:33, Chris wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:24:24 -0500 Karl Denninger karl_at_denninger.net said
>
>> On 3/16/2020 17:23, Chris wrote:
>> > I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
>> > I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
>> > boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
>> > usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
>> > install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
>> > new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
>> > my UEFI BIOS sees it.
>> > I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
>> > and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
>> > to expect consistent results over the long haul.
>> > Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
>> > to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
>> > there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
>> > versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
>> >
>> > Thank you!
>> >
>> > --Chris
>> >
>> Refind perhaps?
> Thanks for the reply, Karl! :)
> I've used that before for FreeBSD/MacOS combos. I'll look at it again.
>
> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
>
> Thanks again!
>
Refind will find all the bootable EFI "elements" in the EFI partition
and menu them.  The question then becomes whether multiple efi loaders
can be told to each use a *different* partition to load the kernel from
(and thus the loader file, which in turn can tell it where the root
filesystem is.)

Reading through the man page it appears they may not be.  You could of
course interrupt it and manually select that, but I suspect that's not
what you want to have to do.

I use refind on a dual-boot (win10/FreeBSD) system but not with multiple
independent FreeBSD versions.

-- 
Karl Denninger
karl_at_denninger.net <mailto:karl_at_denninger.net>
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/

Received on Tue Mar 17 2020 - 02:03:35 UTC

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