pfSense

Well fo' real. I have been trying to get help and receiving help, but (perhaps not technically advanced and specific enough and) I am not getting anywhere with this. :(

I'm just really REALLY frustrated with Linux because over the past 5 years I have had nothing but problems one after the other. It is so difficult and hard to get support and find solutions that work. (Unless you're dishing out some good $$$.)
 
Cerulean said:
I'm just really REALLY frustrated with Linux because over the past 5 years I have had nothing but problems one after the other. It is so difficult and hard to get support and find solutions that work. (Unless you're dishing out some good $$$.)
Click to expand...

And a lot of people have had just the opposite experience with Linux. There is a ton of free support out there. Just skimming through your other thread it seems to be hardware related.

Do you have to have pfSense? Maybe try Untangle.
 
Makes me think of the HDD controller settings....for both the HD and the CDROM.
What type of cd-rom is it? See if you can flip that to a legacy mode if you can.

Also, just a note, when downloading the ISO for any *nix distro....when you burn it to CD, burn it in the slowest mode possible...like 2x or 4x. Many many many times I've burned the ISO to CD at default/higher speeds...and during the install I will have issues. I then remember "ah shit..I forgot to slow down the burn settings"...I'll go and burn the ISO to CD again in slow mode...yeah I have to wait an extra 3 or 5 minutes...but then the install goes smoothly.
 
Makes me think of the HDD controller settings....for both the HD and the CDROM.
What type of cd-rom is it? See if you can flip that to a legacy mode if you can.
Click to expand...
They are both IDE. The motherboard has two SATA ports, but it is not possible to boot from SATA devices nor do I have any SATA power adapters on board. :(

There is no "legacy mode" unfortunately.

Also, just a note, when downloading the ISO for any *nix distro....when you burn it to CD, burn it in the slowest mode possible...like 2x or 4x.
Click to expand...
By default, I will always naturally burn everything at the slowest possible speed permitted when it comes to optical disks. I have been like this for several years; mostly a sort of OCD for "maximum reliability."

Do you have to have pfSense? Maybe try Untangle.
Click to expand...
Their website looks good, but the interface to the software itself looks like someone was smoking crack or something. :eek: (No offense, heh.) It looks over-simplified and as if someone tried way too hard and missed the appropriate level of webdesign function. :(
 
Cerulean said:
Their website looks good, but the interface to the software itself looks like someone was smoking crack or something. :eek: (No offense, heh.) It looks over-simplified and as if someone tried way too hard and missed the appropriate level of webdesign function. :(
Click to expand...

i don't care for untangle's interface to the software either... the whole "rack" thing... i mean i get the idea for it but i really don't care for it... seems kind of flakey to me too, i get errors when clicking around too fast consistently...

that said it's the ONLY UTM i deploy ( and i have almost 20 of them out there) it's just a good thing it's reliable and "set it and forget it" enough that i don't have to log into it that often :p
 
From your other post it looks like you are able to run it from the live CD so I don't think it is your media. The only thing I can think of is maybe the Tyan board you have has an unsupported component or it is bad. Maybe the HDD controller as YeOldeStonecat has suggested.
 
Using the IDE only....check
Burning at slowest....check

Hmmm....can you go into the BIOS and disable the onboard SATA ports? Just to ensure that they're out of the way?
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Using the IDE only....check
Burning at slowest....check

Hmmm....can you go into the BIOS and disable the onboard SATA ports? Just to ensure that they're out of the way?
Click to expand...
They are disabled. :p



Everything below are BIOS defaults unless otherwise stated.

  • Advanced
    • CPU Configuration
      • Ratio CMOS Settings: 255
      • HyperThreading: Enabled
    • IDE Configuration
      • IDE Legacy COnfiguration: P-ATA Only
      • S-ATA Running Enhanced Mode: No (default is Yes)
      • P-ATA Channel Selection: Both
      • Only if S-ATA Running Enhanced Mode is not No -- S-ATA Ports Definition: P0-3rd./P1-4th.
      • Only if S-ATA Running Enhanced Mode is not No -- Configure S-ATA as RAID: No
      • Channel 0 Master: Hard Disk
        • Type: Auto
        • LBA/Large Mode: Auto
        • Block (Multi-Sector Transfer): Auto
        • PIO Mode: Auto
        • DMA Mode: Auto
        • S.M.A.R.T.: Auto
        • 32Bit Data Transfer: Disabled
      • Channel 1 Slave: ATAPI CDROM
        • Type: Auto
        • PIO Mode: Auto
        • DMA Mode: Auto
      • Hard Disk Write Protect: Disabled
      • IDE Detect Time Out (sec): 15 (default is 35)
      • ATA(PI) 80Pin Cable Detection: Host & Device
    • Floppy Configuration
      • Floppy A: Disabled (default is 1.44 MB 31/2")
      • Floppy B: Disabled
    • SuperIO Configuration
      • OnBoard Floppy Controller: Disabled (default is Enabled)
      • Serial Port1 Address: Disabled (default is 3F8/IRQ4)
      • Serial Port2 Address: Disabled (default is 2F8/IRQ3)
      • Only if Serial Port2 Address is not Disabled -- Serial Port2 Mode: Normal
      • Parallel Port Address: Disabled (default is)
    • ACPI Configuration
      • ACPI Aware O/S: Yes
      • Advanced ACPI Configuration
        • ACPI 2.0 Features: Yes (default is No)
        • ACPI APIC support: Enabled
        • AMI OEMB table: Enabled
        • Headless mode: Disabled
      • WOL S4&S5 Support: Enabled
      • Power Button Instant Off: Disabled (default is Enabled)
      • After Power Failure: Always Off
    • Event Log Configuration
    • Remote Access Configuration
      • Remote Access: Disabled (default is SMDC)
    • USB Configuration
      • USB Function: Disabled (default is 4 USB Ports)
      • Only if USB Function is not Disabled -- Legacy USB Support: Enabled
      • Only if USB Function is not Disabled -- USB 2.0 Controller: Enabled
      • Only if USB 2.0 Controller is not Disabled -- USB 2.0 Controller Mode: HiSpeed
      • USB Mass Storage Device Configuration
        • USB Mass Storage Reset Delay: 20 sec
    • OnBoard Devices Configuration
      • Onboard ATI Video: Enabled
      • Onbaord 82551 LAN: Enabled
      • Remote Boot OS by 82551: Disabled
      • Onboard 82546 DualPort LAN: Enabled
      • Remote Boot OS by 82546: Disabled
    • Hardware Monitor
      • Auto-Control Fan's Speed: Disabled
      • Chassis Instrusion Detect: Disabled
    • Back Plan Fan Speed
  • PCIPnP
    • Plug & Play O/S: Yes
    • PCI Latency Timer: 64
    • Allocate IRQ to PCI VGA: Yes
    • Palette Snooping: Disabled
    • PCI IDE BusMaster: Enabled
    • IRQ3: Available
    • IRQ4: Available
    • IRQ5: Available
    • IRQ7: Available
    • IRQ9: Available
    • IRQ10: Available
    • IRQ11: Available
    • IRQ14: Available
    • IRQ15: Available
    • DMA Channel 0: Available
    • DMA Channel 1: Available
    • DMA Channel 3: Available
    • DMA Channel 5: Available
    • DMA Channel 6: Available
    • DMA Channel 7: Available
    • Reserved Memory Size: Disabled
    • Extended BIOS Data Area: Enabled
  • Boot
    • Boot Settings Configuration
      • Quick Boot: Enabled (default is Disabled)
      • Quiet Boot: Disabled
      • AddOn ROM Display Mode: Force BIOS
      • Bootup Num-Lock: On
      • PS/2 Mouse Support: Auto
      • Wait for 'F1' If Error: Enabled
      • Hit 'DEL' Message Display: Enabled
      • Interrupt 19 Capture: Enabled
      • Primary Display Device: Auto
    • Boot Device Priority
      • 1st Boot Device: PM-WDC WD1600AAJB-00J3A0
      • 2nd Boot Device: SS-ATAPI-CD ROM-DRIVE-56MAX
    • Hard Disk Drives
    • ATAPI CDROM Drives
  • Security
    • Boot Sector Virus Protection: Disabled
  • Chipset
    • Intel E7500/E7501 North Bridge Configuration
      • Chipset Memory Remap Feature: Enabled
      • CAS Latency: Auto
    • South Bridge Configuration
      • MPS Revision: 1.4
    • Intel PCI-64 Hub 2 Configuration
      • PCI Bus Frequency: Auto
    • Clock Gen. Spread Spectrum: Disabled

Now, before I wrote this up and was actually preparing to write this up, I attempted to install pfSense through Advanced/Expert installation. Through this, I formatted and partitioned the harddisk, and set / to be 1024M and swap to be 8192M (this I did differently from all other installs, although I have tried partitioning the harddisk as 16GB before but without changing these values for / and swap here). This time it actually fully successfully booted into pfSense without a problem.

I am going to try this again but partitioned to 100% (it worked like this in previous paragraph) with 16GB on / instead of 1GB, and 8GB on swap. I am also going to enable 32Bit Data Transfer on the harddrive. (EDIT: Added a third one as storage to be * (remaining capacity of primary partition).) Success.

Trial 2: partitioned 100%, / to be 32GB, swap to be 8GB, storage to be *, BIOS settings unchanged from first trial... Success

Trial 3: partitioned 100%, / to be 64GB, swap to be 8GB, storage to be *... Failure

FreeBSD must have a thing about large capacities.
 
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