Vista / PC-BSD 7 / EasyBCD

G'day

First off, system specs:
Vista, 320 gig hd (C: Drive - First Bios disk) Vista Boot Loader
PC-BSD, 160 gig HD (Boot: - Second Bios Drive) No FreeBSD Bootloader.
EasyBCD will find the Operating systems as shown, but I cannot set the bsd drive, when I select it and save changes, EasyBCD defaults back to the C: Drive
Bootloader shows the 2 operating systems, selecting Vista works fine, selecting PC-BSD results in a boot sector error.

Previous system was XP - FreeBSD 7.0, booting with GAG (hence no bootloader on the FreeBSD Drive)

Only new to Vista, could this be a permission thing ? ........ I'm running EasyBCD as Administrator.

Thanks guys

Braveheart
 
I think this has to do with PC-BSD 7. I have tried several times myself to get it working with EasyBCD and it failed everytime. I think Guru needs to take a look and see on this one. I think they did something to their bootloader.
 
I downloaded the PC-BSD 7 release, it's sitting on my desktop as we speak - just have to get around to installing it though...
 
Guru just a heds up on the PC-BSD bootloader. They use version 1.5 of the loader. But for some reason it doesnt seem to be pixked up by EasyBCD. It wasnt picked up by GRUB either. I had to install this last on my triple boot cause of that. While i can control Vista/Kubuntu with EasyBCD PC-BSD will not let me.
 
Mahmoud,

I was wrong. It isnt the FreeBSD loader. It is the BTX loader it uses. I just reinstalled it and you have to use the F1-F5 buttons to choose your OS. I still think this is a beta distro. It isnt that easy to work with or get working.
 
PC-BSD 7 went final on the 18th of September - I've only heard rave reviews and I see a lot of interest growing in it.

If it's BTX that would explain why EasyBCD can't boot it. I'll need to see about adding support for PC-BSD.
 
Well i can say that my experience with PC-BSD has been less than spectacular. The installer runs great. The overall feel of the Distro is great. But i must say that some things just are not right.

To get any sort of flash you HAVE to install Wine. From there you have to install Flash for Windows and Firefox or Opera. That is the only way you can use any sort of flash based web site.

Gratned i know this is a problem with Adobe not making flash for BSD but if they are able to get IE6 in PBI (Their installer format) form then why cant they get Flash?

As for the PBI's, yeah they leave a lot to be desired.

pbiDIR - Your PC-BSD software

That is the only site they have with "Official" PBI downloads. Yet at least half of them i have downloaded from there dont work. Things like MSN, Azureus, among other such popular apps dont downlaod right from any mirror and give a error upon install.

There is also a big lack of information. Like how to install any form of driver. They tell you to go to the nvidia site to get the drivers for my Video card. Umm nvidia's site is flash based....I dont have Flash and Firefox Windows version installed...So how do i navigate that site?

Not to mention this is all based on KDE 4.1 which itself is buggy. I run dual monitors. KDE 4.1 doesnt work right with Dual Monitors. It puts the "task Bar" on the wrong monitor. I have even asked about this:

PC-BSD Forum View topic - Dual Monitor setup

Of course the very first response made me a happy camper to see such high regards to those of us who are trying BSD for the first time. :smile:

Maybe it is my lack of experience with BSD. Maybe it is just cause i dont like KDE 4.1 just yet and dont know how to work with it. But i have Kubuntu KDE3.5 installed and it works flawlessly. But i cant get this one even configured right to run....

Yes Mahmoud it is a BTX loader. Will take a shot with my camera if needed.
 
My only problem with PC-BSD 7 from what I've seen/heard/read is KDE. If there was a gnome version I'd have it installed by now.
 
Maybe it is the KDE 4.1 that is causing these issues on PC-BSD. But i wanted to try KDE so i went with Kubuntu. Since i already knew Ubuntu it should be to hard to switch right?

I have found that Kubuntu KDE 4.1 is still rather buggy. I had issues with that like i did with PC-BSD and my configuration of dual monitors. I even signed up at the Kubuntu forums and got no responses to my topic there.

But once i switched to Kubuntu KDE3.5 everything was fine. It is configured and working perfectly. That is my first desktop screenshot in that thread i started in the Water Cooler. It works just fine. I have actually found KDE to be much easier to work with than Gnome. IT took me all of but an hour to install and get Kubuntu configured and working as where it would have taken me at least 2 hours to get Ubuntu that way.

I wouldnt say that KDE is the problem. I would say that the version of KDE they use is. KDE 3.5 is fine. They use KDE 4.1 which still isnt stable like 3.5 is. Plus if i am not mistaken you can get Gnome running on it. But it takes work...
 
It's not about getting Gnome on it - if that was the intention then I had FreeBSD 7 (which doesn't ship with a UI in the first place) w/ Gnome installed; it's more a matter of their shipping it with support Gnome software.

Personally, I think KDE4 is a huge improvement over 3; both in terms of looks and functionality.

But I'll have to reserve final judgement until I've actually installed the damn thing :smile:
 
Well it may be a huge inprovement. But from what i have seen and used of the 2 version Version is far more stable and will allow you to do what you want.

Maybe it was because i was new to Kubuntu KDE4 when i installed it and had trouble and i started to figure things out with Kubuntu KDE3. But from my experience. KDE 3 is far more stable for use daily.
 
Hi Guys

So what's the difference between FreeBSD 7 (which works) and PC-BSD which does not ? ...... the BTX Boot Loader ?

Both ran KDE 4 (FreeBSD ran 4.0.3) and PC-BSD uses the new 4.1.

Can the FreeBSD 7 BTX be used on PC-BSD ?
I have both here on DVD, FreeBSD 7 was home made from 3 cd iso's, PC-BSD was a 2gig dvd .iso d/l

I can still get PC-BSD running using a bootable GAG cd, it lives on (bios) drive 2.

Thanks

Braveheart
 
PC-BSD uses the BTX leader which is not compatible with EasyBCD and BCD just yet. FreeBSD doesnt use this loader. It uses a different one. Which is where the compatibility issue comes in.
 
G'Day Makaveli213

Do you want my Xorg.conf ? (PC-BSD)
I'm running 2 video cards, 2 monitors, I'll have to remember the options for 1 card 2 monitors tho ........ afaik, it's just one line in each Device section.

and PC-BSD just had an update, KDE 4.1.2, and a buch of fixes, just short of 700 meg.

Thanks

Braveheart
 
I dont currently have PC-BSD installed. But if you wish to attach it or just post up how you edited it for future reference that would be great. Right now i am getting ready for a release that will require that partition.
 
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