How to burn correctly the FreeBSD 7.2 ISO image in a USB stick. reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 00:13 Hello, I've found that FreeBSD 7.2 should have kqemu,so I want to try how much good it was. I've written the iso image to my USB stick ( /dev/sdj ) with this command : ​ dd if="7.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso" of=/dev/sdj ​ unfortunately it won't boot. Investigating what could have been happened,I've seen this situation on the USB stick : ​ https://preview.redd.it/9rfm259ju96b1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=we bp&v=enabled&s=4f97a01cfe4e1032644b7132ba7f25974a260cdd for sure that it can't boot. Why it burns the iso image like this ? How to fix it ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EstablishmentBig7956 · 2023-06-16 01:07 ``` dd if=ios of=destination bs=1M conv=sync status=progress ``` Though I never heard of /dev/sdj as a USB port. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2023-06-16 01:28 I'm pretty sure you have to use the [`FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64- memstick.img`](http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/amd64 /ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img) (or the [`.xz` compressed version](http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO- IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img.xz) ) of the file rather than the `.iso` version of the file. If you opt for the `.xz` version, you can either decompress it first and then write it: $ unxz FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img.xz $ sudo dd if=FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/sdj bs=1M Or you can pipe it directly to `dd` like $ xzcat FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdj bs=1M ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EspurrStare · 2023-06-16 03:00 Probably some missing driver. Just virtualize it . As long as you pass "host" cpu in qemu you can nest virtualize. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ChunkyBezel · 2023-06-16 06:58 >Though I never heard of /dev/sdj as a USB port. That just depends on how many storage devices there are in the (Linux) system. I've seen systems with so many storage devices that they start using two letters e.g. sdx, sdz, sdaa, sdab. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- timvandijknl · 2023-06-16 08:12 this is the way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 11:10 > xzcat FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdj bs=1M xzcat: 7.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso: File format not recognized ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 11:21 Here you find all the release available for the 7.2 that I want to install and try,phisycally : http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old- releases/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/7.2/ what's the right one ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2023-06-16 13:11 you're still talking `.iso` rather than either `.img` or `.img.xz`. The `.iso` file is for writing CDs/DVDs. The `.img` is for writing to disks like USB thumb-drives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 13:17 Did you give a look at this site ? http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old- releases/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/7.2/ there aren't img files for freebsd 7.2. Could work if I convert the iso image to img file ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blerzy82 · 2023-06-16 14:09 Some modern ISO images like Arch are weird hybrids that can boot from anything—el torito (CD), or UEFI or BIOS boot from a memory stick or hard drive. I’m pretty sure the FreeBSD ISO images just support CD/DVD boot, and an older one like 7 will just be el torito. (There is a reason the newer releases have ISO images and distinct memstick images.) You will need to either burn the image to a DVD and boot from that or boot a VM and go from there. (You could make your own memory stick image from the VM or perhaps even do a full install and migrate it to your physical system.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 14:25 > 7.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso I'm going to try this : geteltorito 7.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso > 7.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.img I hope it will work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blerzy82 · 2023-06-16 14:26 Interesting, let us know how it goes! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 15:14 Beside all : kqemu != kvm : what's the difference ? kqemu can accelerate the speed of an (old) OS booted with qemu ? Someone remember those old times,how it worked the qemu acceleration before the birth of bhyve ? Wasn't it satisfactory? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 16:44 $ geteltorito 7.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso > 7.2-RELEASE- amd64.disc1.img Booting catalog starts at sector: 235 Manufacturer of CD: The FreeBSD Project. Image architecture: x86 Boot media type is: no emulation El Torito image starts at sector 236 and has 4 sector(s) of 512 Bytes Image has been written to stdout. 7.2-RELEASE-amd64.disc1.img = 2.0 KiB (2,048 byte) not good. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blerzy82 · 2023-06-16 18:11 I haven’t dealt with any of this stuff in years but some of it’s coming back. The ISO image was made with —no-emul-boot so that boot image is just the stage0/1/2 bootloader which reads the full loader and everything else from the ISO filesystem when it executes. You could do something like [this approach](https://wiki.syslinux.org/ wiki/index.php?title=FreeBSD_disk_image_creation) but you’ll need a host FreeBSD system to build it from. Once you have a disk image you could write it to a flash drive instead of doing the PXE route. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2023-06-16 18:32 If all you have is a `.iso` file, you have to attach it in kqemu as a virtual CD device, not as a USB drive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-16 18:45 I want to install a version of FreeBSD phisycally on one of my disk and then I want to test it,to see how it was. Give a look at this directory : http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old- releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/8.0/ it seems that for FreeBSD 8.0 they have produced the memstick image. I'm not sure if kqemu was still present on FreeBSD 8.0. I'm scared that the 7.2 could be the one and only version of FreeBSD where it ran. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2023-06-17 12:23 then you either need to boot emulation that will give you access to the `.iso` file as if it's a CD/DVD, or you need to write the `.iso` to a physical CD/DVD and boot that. But it's not a USB disk image. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2023-06-17 13:20 I've found an old CD/DVD writer and I've burnt the iso image. It booted. Later I will install FreeBSD 7.2 physically on one of my disks :). To convert the iso image to img wasn't the easiest solution.