Installer crashes on amd x2 250

[dravelz]

I've been trying switch from pfSense (works fine) to OPNSense but i can not install it, every time i boot from my usb it tries to launch the installer and half way through when all the usb devices show up it goest to a full black screen and reboots, it doesn't show any error.
I've tried different usb disks and ports aswell, and i dont have anything plugged in to usb other than my keyboard.

my specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon x2 250
RAM: 2gb DDR3
HDD: 80gb SATA
Nics:
AR8131 x1
REALTEK RL8111 x2
IC PLUS IP100A x1

[dlasher]

had the same problem this weekend, similar age of machine (x4 620). Had to install 17, then upgrade repeatedly to get to 20.1.9 (i386).

after much screwing around, I've determined there's an issue with that generation of CPU's and the present installer. Seems to be related to : https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=235017

[dravelz]

thanks for the information i'll try it.

[dravelz]

where can I download the iso for version 17? can't find it anywhere on google and I don't know how to build from source.

[opnfwb]

I would start with the earliest available version on the official mirrors, which is OPNsense 19.7.

https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/opnsense/releases/19.7/

Start there and see if the install completes, then upgrade to the latest. I would recommend against using the i386 install. Download and attempt to use the AMD64 version first, it will have a much longer lifespan. i386 is no longer supported after OPNsense 20.1.

[dlasher]

I would start with the earliest available version on the official mirrors, which is OPNsense 19.7.

https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/opnsense/releases/19.7/

Start there and see if the install completes, then upgrade to the latest. I would recommend against using the i386 install. Download and attempt to use the AMD64 version first, it will have a much longer lifespan. i386 is no longer supported after OPNsense 20.1.

It's a circle.

The amd64 installers won't get past the "mounting" point on the Athlon x2/x4/x6 CPU's.  We're bumping up against a bug in FreeBSD12.1.  FreeBSD12.2 works fine, but.. isn't supported for OPNSense yet.

Same issue? Common thread is the x2/x4/x6 CPU's - all same behavior

* https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=19180.0
* https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=16728.0
* https://github.com/opnsense/core/issues/3438

[opnfwb]

I would agree with you, this seems to be a long standing issue. I suggested starting on the 19.x series because that was based on FreeBSD 11.x. However based on the links you provided, it appears a lot of people also see this issue on the 11.x installs too. Sorry I don't know of a reliable source of mirrors that provide older versions.

EDIT: On 2nd thought, would it be possible to just install OPNsense on a different system and swap the drive over to the older Athlon x2 system? That should get around the install bug, yes?

[dlasher]

EDIT: On 2nd thought, would it be possible to just install OPNsense on a different system and swap the drive over to the older Athlon x2 system? That should get around the install bug, yes?

tried it, no, once the "real" OPNsense boots, it dies at the same place, mounting drives.

However, I've been scouring the internets, and I found something to try, and MAGIC SAUCE, it works?
(By works I mean, I booted a hard-drive with a 21.1 install on a NON-AMD machine, set the tunables, then moved the drive back over to the AMD machine, and it now works)

Set in the UI as:
System: Settings: Tunables
vm.pmap.pti 0
Page Table Isolation (Meltdown mitigation, requires reboot.)

Adding those to the boot options would allow us to work around it at install time, I think like this:
* boot installer
* (3) escape to loader prompt
* "set vm.pmap.pti=0"
* "boot"

(going out to the garage to try this now)

Confirmed : Disabling vm.pmap.pti is the winner

I have an embarrassing amount of older AMD hardware, so I was able to test with x2, x4, x6, semperons, opterons, phenoms, and some newer FX-4000, FX-6000, and FX-8300 series (which work fine btw, gave me a control group)

to successfully install, you need to :
1. Disable it at the (3) loader prompt, install as normal
2. disable it at the (3) loader prompt on first boot
3. set it either in the UI via "System: Settings: Tunables", or add it to /boot/loader.conf.local (create the file if it doesn't exist)
4. Reboot - make sure it works.
5. Profit


Now we just need this added next to "Safe Mode" as a boot option, and future generations would be set.