Booting multiple BSDs.
Weaver
I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
rambling non-specifics and vague references.
Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
little more automated available?
Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
Harry Weaver
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Thomas Mueller
> I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
> multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
> rambling non-specifics and vague references.
> Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
> mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
> little more automated available?
> Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
> Harry Weaver
> --
> ⣾� \201� � \222� \200⣿�\201 Debian - The universal operating system
> ⢿�\204� \230� �� \232� \213� \200 https://www.debian.org
> � \210� ��\204� \200� \200� \200� \200
What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like hexadecimal codes.
I run FreeBSD and NetBSD, using GPT and no traditional BSD disklabels that would drive me crazy. I find OpenBSD not compatible on my system.
LiveUSB OpenBSD from liveusb-openbsd.sourceforge.net can't read or recognize my GPT-partitioned hard drive, and didn't recognize my Realtek Ethernet chip, 8111E/8168, haven't fully tested with wi-fi since I copied necessary firmware using FreeBSD.
I usually use Super Grub2 Disk, available on earlier versions of the System Rescue CD written to USB stick, but am trying to move over to UEFI boot, need to more deeply study what I can do at FreeBSD loader prompt or NetBSD boot prompt.
What/where is the gptboot you might want to install? Is it in FreeBSD ports, base system, or somewhere else? I notice FreeBSD >= 12.x has efibootmgr in base system, not avaliable in NetBSD base system or pkgsrc.
I notice /boot/gptboot in FreeBSD base system, that would not be a separate installation.
Tom
Weaver
>> What's the best way of going about this?
>> I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
>> multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
>> rambling non-specifics and vague references.
>> Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
>> mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
>> little more automated available?
>> Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
>
>> Harry Weaver
>
>> --
>> ⣾� \201� � \222� \200⣿�\201 Debian - The universal operating system
>> ⢿�\204� \230� �� \232� \213� \200 https://www.debian.org
>> � \210� ��\204� \200� \200� \200� \200
>
> What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after
> the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like
> hexadecimal codes.
Basically an image made up of dots.
> I run FreeBSD and NetBSD, using GPT and no traditional BSD disklabels
> that would drive me crazy. I find OpenBSD not compatible on my
> system.
>
> LiveUSB OpenBSD from liveusb-openbsd.sourceforge.net can't read or
> recognize my GPT-partitioned hard drive, and didn't recognize my
> Realtek Ethernet chip, 8111E/8168, haven't fully tested with wi-fi
> since I copied necessary firmware using FreeBSD.
>
> I usually use Super Grub2 Disk, available on earlier versions of the
> System Rescue CD written to USB stick, but am trying to move over to
> UEFI boot, need to more deeply study what I can do at FreeBSD loader
> prompt or NetBSD boot prompt.
>
> What/where is the gptboot you might want to install? Is it in FreeBSD
> ports, base system, or somewhere else? I notice FreeBSD >= 12.x has
> efibootmgr in base system, not avaliable in NetBSD base system or
> pkgsrc.
>
> I notice /boot/gptboot in FreeBSD base system, that would not be a
> separate installation.
Apparently it handles booting as part of the base install, and
automatically passes off to the bootloader, but if you hit any key
within 3 seconds, apparently it defaults to interactive mode and you can
select any partition to boot from. So, if it recognises the partitions
of other installations, I thought that might be one way of doing it if
you had multi-installs.
Cheers!
Harry Weaver
>
> Tom
Yuri Pankov
>> What's the best way of going about this?
>> I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
>> multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
>> rambling non-specifics and vague references.
>> Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
>> mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
>> little more automated available?
>> Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
>
>> Harry Weaver
>
>> --
>> ⣾� \201� � \222� \200⣿�\201 Debian - The universal operating system
>> ⢿�\204� \230� �� \232� \213� \200 https://www.debian.org
>> � \210� ��\204� \200� \200� \200� \200
>
> What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like hexadecimal codes.
Those look correct here -- ascii-like debian logo -- even in console (vt
with terminus font), are you using non-UTF-8-capable MUA yet?
Steve O'Hara-Smith
"Thomas Mueller" <muell...@twc.com> wrote:
> What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after
> the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like
> hexadecimal codes.
treating the content as UTF-8. They render as an array of dots to me.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith <st...@sohara.org>
Arthur Chance
> On Fri, 13 Nov 2020 08:59:19 GMT
> "Thomas Mueller" <muell...@twc.com> wrote:
>
>> What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after
>> the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like
>> hexadecimal codes.
>
> Your mail program is not parsing the Content-Type header and
> treating the content as UTF-8. They render as an array of dots to me.
>
--
The number of people predicting the demise of Moore's Law doubles
every 18 months.
David Christensen
> What's the best way of going about this?
> I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
> multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
> rambling non-specifics and vague references.
> Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
> mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
> little more automated available?
> Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
>
> Harry Weaver
stack of SSD's with one OS each. The only hassle is remembering to
reset the CMOS clock before and after running a Windows SSD.
In laptops with one drive, I install VirtualBox and have one VM for each OS.
David
RW via freebsd-questions
David Christensen wrote:
>
> In workstations/ servers, I install 2.5" SATA trayless racks and have
> a stack of SSD's with one OS each. The only hassle is remembering to
> reset the CMOS clock before and after running a Windows SSD.
cmos clock on local time.
Weaver
> On 2020-11-12 21:42, Weaver wrote:
>> What's the best way of going about this?
>> I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
>> multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
>> rambling non-specifics and vague references.
>> Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
>> mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
>> little more automated available?
>> Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
>>
>> Harry Weaver
>
> In workstations/ servers, I install 2.5" SATA trayless racks and have
> a stack of SSD's with one OS each. The only hassle is remembering to
> reset the CMOS clock before and after running a Windows SSD.
>
>
> In laptops with one drive, I install VirtualBox and have one VM for each OS.
This will be in a small tower with 4 different drives, each with a
different OS on each one.
I am just wondering if there's a bootable partition on each one, is
there a boot-manager that will pick up each one and give me a choice as
to which one to boot?
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
David Christensen
> On 14-11-2020 10:48, David Christensen wrote:
>> On 2020-11-12 21:42, Weaver wrote:
>>> What's the best way of going about this?
>>> I've search engined around and all I can find most of the time is
>>> multi-booting with Windows, which I ,left behind when XP came out, or
>>> rambling non-specifics and vague references.
>>> Is installing gptboot the go, then hitting a key to gain interactive
>>> mode, then choosing a partition to boot from, or is there something a
>>> little more automated available?
>>> Thanks for any time and trouble entered into.
>>>
>>> Harry Weaver
>>
>> In workstations/ servers, I install 2.5" SATA trayless racks and have
>> a stack of SSD's with one OS each. The only hassle is remembering to
>> reset the CMOS clock before and after running a Windows SSD.
>>
>>
>> In laptops with one drive, I install VirtualBox and have one VM for each OS.
>
> This will be in a small tower with 4 different drives, each with a
> different OS on each one.
> I am just wondering if there's a bootable partition on each one, is
> there a boot-manager that will pick up each one and give me a choice as
> to which one to boot?
of those four OS's, that can find multiple bootable OS drives/ slices/
partitions and allow you to boot the OS of your choice. But, my
experience is that keeping them all running is an exercise in "infinite
bug propagation"
I can afford US $45 mobile racks and US $20 SSD's. My time and mental
bandwidth are more valuable.
I would remove three of those drives and run one OS at a time.
David
Polytropon
> I am confident that there are several boot managers, likely one for each
> of those four OS's, that can find multiple bootable OS drives/ slices/
> partitions and allow you to boot the OS of your choice.
of OS booting, as well as the previous stage, likely involving
UEFI. In order to select (!) from multiple operating systems,
certain things must be neatly prepared or nothing will work
as intended.
There is a nice write-up by Manish Jain that deals with multi-
booting FreeBSD, Linux, and "Windows", but in case you do not
want a "Windows", leave out the corresponding parts - it will
work in a similar way with multiple BSDs or Linusi, Linuxens,
or Linuxera. ;-)
Document here:
https://github.com/bourne-again/TripleBoot-UEFI/blob/master/00-TripleBoot-UEFI.pdf
In case you do _not_ have UEFI (i. e., you're using BIOS-based
systems), tools like Grub2 can be really helpful as boot manager.
It's easy to configure.
> But, my
> experience is that keeping them all running is an exercise in "infinite
> bug propagation"
It doesn't matter if you have a multi-OS setting based on
bare metal or in VMs - each OS you run will require a certain
amount of attention if you want to actually _use_ it for a
specific purpose instead of just "booting it".
> I would remove three of those drives and run one OS at a time.
BIOS vendors had a drive management option integrated: You
could simply logically switch off drives, so they were still
powered on, but not detected anymore, so the only drive (and
maybe the data exchange drive) active were recognized, and
the OS was thinking it was the only one available. Go to BIOS,
switch off disk 1, switch on disk 2, and reboot - a totally
different OS boots, with no possibility to interfere (!) or
to "repair" (!!!) other system's disk content.
Today, you have PF12 boot selection. :-)
--
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
Weaver
Great!
Thanks for that.
Harry Weaver.
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
Thomas Mueller
> > --
> > �\200⣴� �� �⢶⣦� \2_ONE(0.00
> > > ⣾� \201� � \222� \200⣿�\201 Debian - The universal operating system
> > > ⢿�\204� \230� �� \232� \213� \200 https://www.debian.org
> > � \210� ��\204� \200� \200� \200� \200
> > What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like hexadecimal codes.
> Those look correct here -- ascii-like debian logo -- even in console (vt with
> terminus font), are you using non-UTF-8-capable MUA yet?
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
⠈
which is not what I'm running now.
Tom
Polytropon
> > > > Harry Weaver
>
> > > --
> > > �\200⣴� �� �⢶⣦� \2_ONE(0.00
> > > > ⣾� \201� � \222� \200⣿�\201 Debian - The universal operating system
> > > > ⢿�\204� \230� �� \232� \213� \200 https://www.debian.org
> > > � \210� ��\204� \200� \200� \200� \200
>
> > > What are those strange characters in the footer of your message, after the "--" line? I can't read them as anything rational: look like hexadecimal codes.
>
> > Those look correct here -- ascii-like debian logo -- even in console (vt with
> > terminus font), are you using non-UTF-8-capable MUA yet?
>
>
> ⣾â ⢠⠒⠀⣿⡠Debian - The universal operating system
> ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
> â ˆ
> which is not what I'm running now.
Looks like there is still more than one 2-to-1 byte mangling
involved, possibly crossing encoding borders. If you have
further questions, ask Senior Lampampatilde-Ampamsuppez who
lives in Schlatildefracterstrasse, Berlin... ;-)
The original message declares UTF-8 correctly, and also _uses_
UFT-8 encoded symbols in the signature. The following drawing
should be visible:
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋
⠈⠳⣄
If there is some back-and-forth nonsense ISO-8859-1 <-> UTF-8
and maybe some HTML guessing (some web mailers tend to do this
in order to "help"), useless multibyte sequences appear that
do no longer correspond to the originally used symbols.
--
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
RW via freebsd-questions
Polytropon wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Nov 2020 09:45:01 +0000, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> > > > > Harry Weaver
> > ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
> > ⣾â ⢠⠒⠀⣿⡠Debian - The universal operating system
> > ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org
> > â ˆ
> > which is not what I'm running now.
>
> Looks like there is still more than one 2-to-1 byte mangling
> involved, possibly crossing encoding borders. ...
What you saw was misleading, and has nothing to do with why Thomas
Mueller didn't see the Debian thing.
His client likely just has broken or missing UTF-8 and/or MIME support.
There's no excuse for that in 2020.
> The original message declares UTF-8 correctly, and also _uses_
> UFT-8 encoded symbols in the signature. The following drawing
> should be visible:
>
> ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦
> ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁
> ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋
> ⠈⠳⣄
That was visible to me in the post that you quoted from.
What happened was that Thomas Mueller pasted UTF-8 into a text/plain
body without an explicit character set. The relevant RFC says that this
should default to US-ASCII, which means that byte values above 7f are
undefined. This include all of the UTF-8 Braille.
My client, Claws Mail, identified the text as UTF-8 and displayed it as
such. UTF-8 can be identified very reliably is there are enough
multibyte characters.
Your client, Sylpheed, appears to have assumed the undefined bytes were
in ISO 8859-1, a common fallback. On replying, Sylpheed then converted
the quoted bogus text to UTF-8 which hopefully this reply preserves.
There may be a bit more to this, but any remaining weirdness is most
likely caused by Sylpheed. Note that some of the whitespace in the
quoted garbage above is from A0 bytes in the original UTF-8 being
treated as a "no break space".