Thread: Installing Freenas

Without knowing this exact flavour of linux, cant you just run an upgrade from within the CLI like apt-get distro upgrade or similar? or just apt-get update then apt-get upgrade or similar?

er, ok...
you must be mistaking me for someone thats knows something about linux,
I know just enough to know I can build one without knowing anything about linux.
because I did it with an earlier version and fewer HDD's earlier in the year,,
this is all just a "see if I can" thing.

The Freenas "how to" is here--
https://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_...ring-the-media

I'll try to help
(FWIW) I tried to set up FreeNAS a while back, but the hardware I was going to use would have cost a fortune to run in terms of power usage, so in the end I bought a 4bay NAS(QNAP) which basically runs at 1w for 99% of the time, and not overly heavy on the power bill when in full swing either!

Apart from that was a brief run with FreeNAS on a tablet just to see what it is/can do. ie. I have no experience with it other than I know of it.

But your problem isn't FreeNAS here, I think it's Win32diskImager!!

The way I'm understanding your issue is that the first image is after you've run WindiskImager, and the second image is after you have formatted the USB stick back to default?

If this is correct then Win32diskImager is the issue, or the way you've set it to load the iso file onto the USB stick.

Personally, I'd recommend using the ISO to USB software called Universal USB Installer(UUI).

What the problem appears to be is that Win32diskImager is formatting the USB stick using GPT. GPT is a better way to format drives for use on Windows, but Linux doesn't like them.
Basically, Win32dI has created a paltry 3Mb Fat32 partition on your USB stick, which is wayyyy under what is needed.
I haven't used Win32dI, so can't offer any advice on how to set it up, but a dedicated software that understands Linux requirements is probably a better way to go.

UUI download link here

it's only 1Mb, and doesn't install itself .. it's s self contained exe.

If you want to try it, it's easy to do, but maybe not so intuitive.
When you open UUI:
Step 1 will give you a massive list of differing OSes to ready/format the drive for .. and you want to use the the OS option for Unlisted Linux distribution way down the bottom of the list.
Step 2 is just locate the FreeNAS iso file,
Step 3 is to choose your USB device, and remember to tick the format option too.
So if your USB stick is still formatted with the GPT system, UUI will correct that and format it Fat32.

Only thing I haven't tried yet is to actually run the computer from the USB drive with FreeNAS on it to see if it actually boots.
(my suspicion is that it will tho).

Maybe you can confirm it.

hope that helps.

ps. I gotta say my QNAP NAS is awesome too. Best thing I ever did, even tho it cost me a fair whack. It runs off the TV(ie. directly connected to it .. and Kodi is brilliant for media), so all media is played from there, as opposed to over the wire and hence hogging bandwidth so it serves files nicely when a movie is played on the TV.
Has a remote for controlling media at the TV end, and 4 port eth capability.
If I ever become bandwidth limited I can set up link aggregation too.
But as it is, it runs at an easy 60Mb/s(over Cat6) for most large transfers which is enough for me at the moment.

Close!!
loads on the usb correctly!!
formatted correctly!
just wont load freenas on the box--
there was an error (which i didnt see till I closed all the tabs) but your program said it loaded correctly at the end of loading--

getting close now!

8 @ 750g hdd's?


i dont want to know....

settle,, the whole thing including hdd's has cost me exactly $22,, and twenty of that was for the sata power cable splitters
its running an intel core 2 duo with 8gb of ram, a HX620w corsair psu, on a gigabyte x38 ds5 motherboard..
it should run along nicely,,,

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Close!!
loads on the usb correctly!!
formatted correctly!
just wont load freenas on the box--
.....

Yeah, "sorry about that chief" .. I ran out of time towards the end of my reply(had stuff do do).
So forgot to mention the config file error.
I don't think that's the issue tho.

So ...

Had another go at it using ISO to USB, basically the same thing as UUI, but makes a windows bootable USB stick.

I had two tries at it using both programs
and try to compare the differences in what files are made.

I can't get the FreeNAS OS to boot either.

ISOtoUSB allows you to make the USB drive bootable or not.
Either method seems to create the same set of files on the USB drive.

So even if you don't use the bootable USB drive method, the freenas image file extracts boot loaders onto the USB drive(GRU.

GRUB is a commonly used Linux bootloader.
If you have a look on the root of the USB device, you'll see a 'boot' directory, (which contains the GRUB directory), you also get boot.catalog and an efi.img files
I'm pretty sure all these files are the main files used for the boot up process.
I'm pretty sure that the idea is that GRUB bootloader is used to start the boot process, where it takes you to the install option to install FreeNAS onto your other USB drive.

It's looking like there's an issue with the GRUB loader for some reason.

Another thing to note:
The hardware you listed almost certainly describes older BIOS hardware.
I'm trying to get it to load onto a newer UEFI system .. so it's not looking like a BIOS/UEFI issue either.

There is a new BETA version of Freenas 10, but I was after something without bugs,,
I might try that,,