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Actually, this is a FreeBSD issue - their forums are full of people describing similar experiences and there are all sorts of lengthy and over complicated "solutions" which essentially boil down to fixing up the basic FreeBSD installer so MBR boot on legacy kit works.

Some complete muppet at FreeBSD has decided that older hardware is irrelevant and you've inherited that decision by basing your system on the same flawed installer. Most people will scoff at my comments and write this off as a rant by an idiot. But if you Google as I did, you might notice that there are a fair few "idiots" out there. I guess we'll all use Linux instead, which installs in seconds on the same hardware and ...

I strongly suggest at least a warning to others to beware if using older MBR boot BIOS or, heaven forbid, an extra downloadable for USB images that gets the boot sectors and partitions right, without expecting you to take a Masters in Rocket Science and DIY. It's one simple fix and problem solved. I'm sure someone here could do it. My skill set lies elsewhere...

Hi, yes I tried this several times but the nano image crashes while trying to completely load. The serial image does exactly the same thing too, at what looks like the same point, FWIW. So I never get to a point where I can run the installer. Same issues with a stock FreeBSD install too.

However, Debian 10 (Buster = latest stable) installs without a murmur and sits there, taunting me...

Yes, it's old(ish) hardware but if it'll run Buster then why not FreeBSD ??? SystemRescueCD on USB stick boots perfectly too... Now if there was a way to boot an ISO from there, but it seems that FreeBSD/OPNsense ISO images don't support isoloop either - or so Google asserts, it could be wrong!

At this point I'm inclined to give up as this has now wasted hours. There is some sort of issue with FreeBSD here!

- tsg

Hallo

There's a fair few posts around this subject, but the issue remains unresolved in any sensible fashion. It seems that the same is true of a generic FreeBSD mini-memstick install as well. In short, the default GPT/UEFI stuff prevents older hardware from booting the VGA image from USB at all. For me, the curent nano and serial images (MBR) start to boot but don't complete.

I note (as others have) that pfSense does not seem to share this issue.

I have OPNsense deployed and want to stay with this, but if I spend hours trying to make it install because the FreeBSD checksum test decides the IMG is defective then it's tedious... Bootstrapping from a fresh FreeBSD has the same issue for me, so that workaround is no good either. If this is an issue inherited from FreeBSD then please put a large warning on your download page to tell people not to waste the next phase of their lives attempting the seemingly impossible...

Or put a sticky up with some simple instructions that don't assume Windows starting point or comfort using hex editors! I can replicate this issue on Linux (Debian), MacOS, and Windows, and agree that most "burners" can't resolve this either. They either don't accept the ISO image as valid, or hang. So that's no good either.

-tsg