Impossible to get a working bootable media for installation

[moocan]

Hello,

I'm totally loosed.
I'm using Ubuntu and I'm using dd with the following cli "sudo dd if='./19.1.i386/OPNsense-19.1-OpenSSL-serial-i386.img' of=/dev/sdb bs=16k status=progress" as specified in documentation.

I'm trying to install it on an appliance without vga and only a serial connection. This appliance has an HDD and a CompactFlash reader but no usb.
I tried using a HDD, a CompactFlash and get always a no bootable device.

That's not the first time i'm using dd. This appliance is starting without trouble using for example an ubuntu mini media transfered using dd on a CompactFlash.

So I tried with the vga-i386.img with same command iine to have a video output and tried to boot this device on another computer .... always the same result .... no boot sector ... no boot device.

PS: sha256sum of downloaded bz2 file are ok.

Any ideas ?

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards
Moo 

[moocan]

Hello,

I apologize for the inconvenience.
My Ubuntu kernel has been frozen. Never use an ubuntu other than an LTS :)

BUT after restarting then
sudo dd if='./19.1.i386/OPNsense-19.1-OpenSSL-serial-i386.img' of=/dev/sdX bs=16k
is working with a HDD BUT this does not work with a CompactFlash .... media not bootable !

I don't understand why the same dd command is working with a HDD but not with a CompactFlash.

PS: This time I tried the dd with 3 different computers with different Linux flavors after a fresh restart to avoid kernel freeze :)

Kind Regards

[jcrawford]

Does it support EFI boot?  I was trying to install on an older machine that didn't support EFI.  I had to go find a version of FreeBSD that I could boot into and install.  Then I installed OPNSense on top of that.  I wish I would remember how I resolved it, but I don't remember which FreeBSD version I ended up using.