BIOS installation issue!! (yes, I set MBR & used Active Partition)

[DanT]

I am at my wits end with trying to install Opnsense 20.7 on any of the three legacy biosbased PC systems I have. I saw the Reddit and Github posts about writing the image to usb and then using Active partition manager to change the boot type to MBR and set the EFIsys partition active.  I've tried this with the vga, dvd and serial amd64 images, and used Rufus, win32diskwrite, physdiakwrite and etcher... and I get consistently one of two results:
1) some kind of kernel panic and I get dumped to a db> prompt -OR-
2) I get thru the initial menu and the system starts loading the live disk and then gives me a black screen before I ever get the login prompt.

So, I have tried these Active Partition Manager steps on the vga and serial (DVD is just written, and returns a message that the image is not bootable) with the 4 different image write tools on three different legacy systems ... I've lost count of how many permutations that is ... but no success on any attempt!!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
-Dan

[littlepepper]

What kind of legacy machine you are talking about??  Are they 64 bit compatible? 20.7 needs 64bit. If your CPU are 32bit get the 20.1 version and give that a try.

[DanT]

Hi, yes, all three systems are x64 based systems.
1) Core 2 Quad, Q6600 8 GB RAM
2) Phenom II x4 965, 12 GB RAM
3) Core 2 Quad, (I forget the processor number) extreme, 3.3 GHz, 8 GB RAM.

I also tried turning off ACPI and turning on Safe mode from the boot menu, but no success with that either.

Thanks,
-Dan

[littlepepper]

What about your SATA compability settings? Set it to the most basic / compatible setting.

[DanT]

When you say "basic" settings, you mean set the SATA mode to "IDE" vs RAID or AHCI? Sure, I've kept it in IDE mode.  I set all the BIOS settings to the "failsafe" settings.  Just for reference I just tried PFsense, and it installed with out blinking.  So, really not sure what the problem could be with the OPNsense installer.

Thanks,
Dan

[littlepepper]

Opnsense is based on a version of FreeBSD called HardenedBSD. It sounds like pfsense would be a better fit for you.

[DanT]

That's too bad. I was really preferring OPNsense based on the features and ethos.  Why do you think PFsense would be a better fit for me? Just based on the ease of installation on my target system?

Thanks,
-Dan

[littlepepper]

Yes using pfsense sounds like the path of least resistance in your case.

Opnsense is based on a FreeBSD variant called HardenedBSD http://dk-01.installer.hardenedbsd.org/pub/HardenedBSD/ The issue is it is still a variant, and it is different. Pfsense AFAIK is still based on FreeBSD.
Download a copy of Hardened if it doesn't boot, you know it is the issue with the basic OS.

The issue is always user base, Linux has the most users hence got the hardware support, FreeBSD is a lot smaller and Hardened even less. It is just where to apply limited resources to.

For the AMD, I would think a Linux distro like IPFire might be better optimized for it.

[DanT]

I appreciate your candor. I will look into IPfire as I will be rolling forward with my AMD system. And when I'm ready to retire my 4th gen is UEFI system, I will give OPNsense another try.

Thanks again!
-Dan