Failed upgrade on Mac Mini

[romeyn]

I've been running OPNsense on an Apple Mac Mini 3,1 (Late 2009 / A1283) since version 15.  Yesterday I followed the instructions on the GUI update screen: I went to console, logged in as root, selected #12, typed 17.1, and hit [RETURN].

The computer downloaded some files and rebooted...to a black screen.  Nothing.  I waited 15 minutes and then force-rebooted to a black screen.  (A friend told me his upgrade process took about 2 minutes.)

So I reinstalled 16.x from CD, ran #12 a couple of times until I got the 17.1 prompt again.  Typed 17.1 again and [RETURN].  This time I get video, but the boot sequence crashes.  Here's a pic:

http://digirom.potsdam.edu/opnsensecrash.jpg

Am I doing something wrong?  Should I download the 17.1 image and install from that instead?

[mr.rosh]

try with the 17.1 image, fresh newinstall, see what happens. also check n confirm if you have ahci enabled for sata dsisk, and bios, is it native bios or eufi?

[romeyn]

I burned a 17 DVD (32-bit, because the 64-bit wouldn't be seen at all).

First I was confused because I had no video.  Then a colleague suggested I use the Mini DisplayPort jack instead of the Mini-DVI and THAT worked.  The first boot attempt (multi-user from menu) hung after a time.  I did not note where.  I force-rebooted, re-selected Multi-User (1) and it froze again, but in a different spot.  Picture: http://digirom.potsdam.edu/opnsensecrash1.jpg

Thoughts?

[weust]

I believe I have this model Mac Mini as well. Can try it out later this weekend.
Core 2 Duo with 9400M videocard, right?

[weust]

64bit ISO has weird behavior.
Using a DP cable I can boot the EFI, but after some loading the screen switches to something that makes the display go into standby.
DVD-ROM player even slows down, and after a time-out spins up again and loads more. But still no display, so no idea what it's doing.

Booting the Windows part of the DVD results in being able to choose between 1 and 2, but USB isn't detected so no keyboard input.

Haven't tried 32bit as this was my very last DVD-R. Took me 16 years or so to get through a spindle of 25 :-)
No idea if it will boot from USB in this case.

Have you tried booting a FreeBSD 11 install CD?

[romeyn]

On a lark, I tried re-installing 16.x and upgrading, this time with video connected to Mini DisplayPort instead of Mini-DVI in case I missed some prompt the first time around.  Nope--it starts the upgrade process, but crashes as in my original post.

I have not tried booting from/installing FreeBSD.  I really want this to work.  I have a dopey ol' Cisco router in place right now, and it doesn't seem to be PnP friendly and incompatible with some other things I'd like to accomplish.  Maybe it's time to find a different computer with which to accomplish this.

If I go the FreeBSD route and install OPNsense on top of it, won't I be stuck maintaining both the OS and OPNsense?

[weust]

An Intel NUC might be a better choice then.

[franco]

We're currently working on making the proper switch to the FreeBSD 11.0 way of booting, namely "vt" driver. Things look good so far, but it was more work than expected circling through installer issues as well.

We are hoping to release new images for 17.1 based on 17.1.3 or 17.1.4 in a few weeks. If you want I can provide a test image in the meantime. It would help our efforts considerably.


Thanks,
Franco

[weust]

Since I have the exact same machine, I can try it out too.

[franco]

I have one too, not sure which model. Should go look for it...

[romeyn]

Hi...yes, I'll happily test your image!

[franco]

So here it is... This is a test image, it installs the opnsense-devel package:

https://pkg.opnsense.org/snapshots/OPNsense-201703110854-OpenSSL-cdrom-amd64.iso.bz2

The new config importer (during early bootup) is still a work in progress, but the VT parts look good so far. Interested in knowing what difference this makes...

[weust]

Downloaded the file, but as reported in some other topics, it's difficult to dump to USB stick.
At least, with rufus on Windows.
Need to look the topics up again.

I used my last DVD recordable on the last try, so might be a while before I can try again :-)

[franco]

Sorry, silly me: https://pkg.opnsense.org/snapshots/OPNsense-201703120533-OpenSSL-vga-amd64.img.bz2

[weust]

Thanks for that. I actually meant that writing the ISO file to USB stick used to work, but is difficult now.
No idea why. I normally run I na VM, so don't bother reading up on it :-)

I will check the img file.