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

On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:03:02 -0500 Karl Denninger karl_at_denninger.net said

> 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.
Thanks for all the detail, Karl. I was also looking at those details. It
occurs to me that an *ideal* arrangement might be the ability to name each
efi loader according to it's target, or probably better; (name) the directories
that hold the loaders. It just seems wasteful/inefficient to create x number
of efi partitions for x number of OSs. Maybe boot0 could be coerced info
something similar? I'm currently looking at Clover (popular with the
"hackintosh" users) that seems to do something similar.

Thanks again!

--Chris
> 
> -- 
> Karl Denninger
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