Thinkpad W520 refuses to boot freeNAS 9.10 after installation success

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

Hello all.

Not shure if this is Installation or Hardware forum ...

Trying to install freeNAS on my Thinkpad W520 i7-2820. Boot from CD to start installer works fine, and I have no trouble with installing freeNAS on a UDB Flash attached to the PC. After installation, then I restart and tries to boot from USB Flash, but nothing happens.

I have of cource set the BIOS to boot from USB Flash, but the boot seems to just loop without any try to execute the freeNAS from USB Flash.

Have also tried to install directly to one of the SSD disk on the Thinkpad, but the same happens, the boot process just returns to the boot device menu.

Have tried to turn off as much as possible devices in the BIOS, but no luck.

Where do I start to resolve this ? freeNAS DO really boot from the installation PC, so it should be possible to run freeNAS on that machine ?

/bwa

 

[Koala]

Sorry, I can't help with your question but I'm wondering, why do you want to install FreeNAS on a laptop?

 

[pirateghost]

You should not be attempting to run FreeNAS on a laptop

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

Understand the wondering. Here's the history :

I have two 'old' Thinkpad's, the W520 and an older i5 based Thinkpad W410

I was running a WAMP server, Windows 10 Home, on the W520 (Core i7 2820 with 16 GB RAM and 500 MB SSD .. quite fast PC). The application was a wordpress site (http://www.o-norge.no) . The site was not very fast, then I just wantet to try freeNAS to explore Unix/freeBSD, as the HTTP GUI was very nice and easy, the wordpress was installed in a jail on the older Thinkpad W410. Holy smoke... now the site is VERY much faster... Just try the url : http://www.o-norge.no, it's snappy and fast. The old one was not.

So it was funny to play with unix and freeNAS.

After moving the site from the windows laptop to the freeNAS laptop (W410), I wantet to install freeNAS on the W520 Thinkpad as it has much more RAM, faster and better processor and faster and better SDD disk.

So It's an application server and does not need tons of TB disk, just want to benefit form the ligthweight jail in freeNAS.

Understandable now ?

/bwa

 

[pirateghost]

FreeNAS isn't a general server distro. I don't understand why you would be using it for hosting a web site

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

Maybe not, but to run nginx, apache and mysql in a couple of jails, it fits my needs. I also like the filesystem and the WEB GUI.

So without not very much knowledge I have managed to host a web site that rocks compared to windows 10, why is that so wrong ?

 

[pirateghost]

Because freenas is a NAS appliance. It isn't a server hosting software and it's not a general server OS.

Why wouldn't you just install FreeBSD? What benefit do you gain from FreeNAS?

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

The benefit is the nice Web based GUI and the filesystem/snapshots/volume things .... The jail possibilities is also very nice. I have already answered all these questions in previous posts ...

 

[pirateghost]

A web based GUI for what?

What exactly are you using the web based GUI for?

You don't have enough disks to make use of a NAS appliance

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

The most important is that I can access my server over http from my work site, so the web gui is firewall friendly. Firewalls would not accept ssh inside my company. Most work is done with the shell, and the reporting feature is nice. And the jail is very nice. Why do I need to answer all these question ?

 

[pirateghost]

If you think FreeNAS is a good fit for this use, then more power to you.

I asked all these questions because you aren't using FreeNAS the way it is intended and on hardware that's not ideal.

It sounds like you really just need FreeBSD and a webmin or ajenti installed.

It sounds like you don't really understand what FreeNAS is for, based on your use case....

 

[Jailer]

So without not very much knowledge I have managed to host a web site that rocks

 

[danb35]

Really, there are two distinct issues here. The first is that FreeNAS really isn't a good choice of OS to set up a web server on, though you can certainly do it in a jail if you really want to. The second is that a laptop with USB hard drives isn't a good choice of hardware to run any server, and especially not FreeNAS. I suspect a hardware compatibility issue, but since this hardware falls so far outside of what's recommended for the purpose that FreeNAS is actually designed for, I doubt there will be much interest in narrowing it down further.

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

The W520 is equipped with 2 Samsung 512 GB 850 Pro SSD Drives, so I think that's ok... I have tried both using USB as a boot drive and the SSD as a boot drive.

You all might be right that freeNAS is not the best option, but still it works. And it works well. Shure, some day I will run an another flavour of Unix, but 14 days ago I had never used unix, and now it runs like hell on a medium thinkpad. I will always be avaliable for good alternatives, and better HW is planned for the hosting machine, but all that is future.

So to the really issue. As the installation program runs fine on the hardware, what is the difference between booting FreeNAS and the installation program ?

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

The W410 works like hell, the W520 does not, if you were confused...

 

[Mirfster]

I suggest that you look at a LAMP/FAMP appliance for this, toss in WebMin for GUI type stuff. ;)

 

[Jailer]

The W410 works like hell, the W520 does not, if you were confused...

Nope, no confusion at all.

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

Well, I installed freeBSD then, but the same happens with thas as well.

So I'll try that forum and hope they can stick to the topic .. ?:p

 

[danb35]

Likely, as I suspected, a hardware compatibility issue. Since your intended use case isn't as far out of the ordinary for FreeBSD, you may find more help there.

 

[Bjørn-Willy Arntzen]

Hmm, I have installed freeBSD and Ubuntu Server, and they all act the same. The installation is working perfectly fine, and they all writes a new installation to the local harddrive, but when booting it return to the boot device list within less than a second.

I have tried several different local harddrives.

The question migth be what's the difference between GRUB installer and the installed OS. They are both unix/linux, and have no problem at all to startup and run ?