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    PFSense 2.3.2 on Alix 2d3 hardware - won't boot

    Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
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    • T
      tyrrvk
      last edited by

      Hi -
      I've got an Alix board (PCEngines) 2d3 that I succesfully ran monowall on for years.
      Seeing that Monowall is no more, I decided to try PFSense.

      Purchase a new 16GB CF card, to replace my old 256MB one, and that's when things got tough.
      Took me forever to get the BIOS on the ALIX board to .99m.  I think I got it upgraded, at least when it boots now, it shows bios v .99, not .99h. (shrug).

      Load the nano-bsd 4gb image on to the card, boot up and watch serial console.
      see two boot options, 1. pfsense and 2. pfsense - and it appears to start booting.

      Instead of text however, I just see ########################### characters filling the screen.

      Essentially I see this:

      PC Engines ALIX.2 v0.99
      640 KB Base Memory
      261120 KB Extended Memory

      01F0 Master 044A CF 4GB
      Phys C/H/S 7785/16/63 Log C/H/S 973/128/63

      1  pfSense
      2  pfSense

      F6 PXE
      Boot:  1############################

      Does anyone have any ideas?  Do I need to change my ALIX settings to use LBA or something?  Is 16GB CF too big?  should I not load the 4GB nanobds (no vga) image on a 16GB card?

      Thanks.

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      • P
        phil.davis
        last edited by

        You need to use the non-VGA nanoBSD image (the one without VGA in the name). That will be the serial image. It looks like you have done that.
        Use the 4GB version, it does not matter that your CF card is bigger.
        The default config has the serial set to 115200. So you will see initial BIOS output at 9600 baud. Then it switches to 115200 as soon as FreeBSD/pfSense-related output starts. So switch your serial terminal session to 115200 baud.

        I don't know how different 0.99 and 0.99h firmware are, but keep trying!

        Note that the pfSense 2.3.* release series is the last to support 32-bit and/or nanoBSD. I would install 2.3.3-DEVELOPMENT, because it has various changed things (compared to 2.3.2-p1) that make it more like what 2.4 will be like, as far as user-visible stuff is concerned.

        As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
        If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

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        • T
          tyrrvk
          last edited by

          Hi -
          Thank you for your post - it was really helpful.
          I figured out how to update the BIOS to .99m.  It does in fact show .99m when booting the ALIX2d3.
          So, first issue sorted out.
          I was still getting the weird characters upon booting PFSense, but after fiddling with the serial port settings - putting both my terminal program and ALIX to 11500 (whatever it is) I got text.
          Last error message was about long mode.
          I downloaded the i386 2.3 dev version (latest) threw that on my cf card and everything works perfectly!

          Thank you! :P

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