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title: Installing FreeBSD on a PC Engines APU4C2 |
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description: > |
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Installing FreeBSD on a PC Engines APU4C2 |
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created: !!timestamp '2019-08-08' |
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time: 11:08 PM |
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tags: |
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- FreeBSD |
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--- |
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I recently upgraded my internet connection, and needed some additional |
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performance, so I purchased a [APU.4C2](https://www.pcengines.ch/apu4c2.htm). |
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When I tried to boot it up, I would get to loading the kernel, but then |
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I would not get anything. |
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After a quick search I found Dr. David A. Eckhardt's post on |
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[How to Install FreeBSD 12.0 on a PC Engines apu2 Machine (apu4c4)](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~davide/howto/apu4c4.html). |
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The instructions require mounting the memstick image on a FreeBSD box, |
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but I don't have one hand for mounting the image. Once I knew what I |
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needed to do, I realized I didn't need to mount the image to set the |
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options needed. |
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First on boot, I hit F10 so that I'd be presented with a boot menu. |
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Strictly this isn't needed, but helped me time the next part. I then |
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selected the USB drive that had the memstick image, and as soon as I |
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selected the image, I immediately started hitting space bar. This |
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dropped me into the first stage boot loader: |
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``` |
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Select boot device: |
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1. USB MSC Drive Generic STORAGE DEVICE 0566 |
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2. ata0-0: SATA SSD ATA-11 Hard-Disk (15272 MiBytes) |
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3. Payload [memtest] |
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4. Payload [setup] |
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Booting from Hard Disk... |
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- |
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FreeBSD/x86 boot |
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Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/loader |
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boot: |
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``` |
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This is the point to enter in the line that would normally go into |
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`boot.conf`: `-h -S115200 -v` |
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Once that is entered, this proceeded to the loader boot loader. I |
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selected `3` to escape to the loader prompt. This allowed me to enter |
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some of the commands that would go into `loader.conf`. Note that the |
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commands w/ a `.` in them need to be preceded w/ the `set` command: |
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``` |
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Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help. |
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OK boot_serial="YES" |
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OK console="comconsole" |
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OK comconsole_speed="115200" |
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OK set kern.cam.boot_delay="15000" |
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OK set kern.cam.scsi_delay="15000" |
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OK set hw.igb.enable_msix=0 |
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OK set hw.pci.enable_msix=0 |
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OK set hint.ahci.0.msi="0" |
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OK set hint.ahci.1.msi="0" |
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OK boot |
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``` |
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And as you can see, I finally booted the kernel using "`boot`". |
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This started the install process and things proceeded as normal. I |
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decided to use GPT instead of MBR for the partitioning scheme. It is |
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not a big deal which one is picked. I also did the recommended settings |
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so that upon reboot the above settings would keep. I do plan on |
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attempting to flash the bios and see if I can't get MSI and/or MSI-X |
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working, as that would be a huge advantage for interrupts. |
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One option for reducing CPU heat is to run powerd. The powerd daemon |
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will monitor CPU usage, and dynamically adjust the frequency of the CPU |
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to match the current load. |
