Can't boot GhostBSD-26.1-R15.0p2.iso on Parallels Desktop 19.4.1

ChrisJEChandler

I have been having a hard time trying to boot the latest ISO for GhsotBSD on Parallels Desktop 19.4.1 on an Intel iMac 2020, although an older GhostBSD installed on an earlier version of Parallels works fine. Unfortunately, the upgrade process from GhostBSD 23.10.1 does not work
Whatever I try, the system freezes shortly after displaying the GhostBSD splash prompt. I have attached a screenshot

screenshot-2026-05-30-at-131053.png

This is what I have done

Set Parallels boot flags to "vm.bios.efi=1"
Set Parallels BIOS to 64-bit EFI
Set RAM to 8GB
Set CPU to 4
Everything else is default
This gets me past the LUA Loader Can't find kernel problem and GhostBSD starts to boot from the ISO inside Parallels.
However, I can't get past the point in the screenshot, which says it has initialed the frame buffer.
This is what I have tried, following suggestions from other posts:
Booting by default (to multiuser) with all options untouched
Booting to single user
Changing the console to serial only
Turning off ACPI.
The results are all the same.
Has anyone else mamnaged to boot "GhostBSD-26.1-R15.0p2.iso" from inside Parallels Desktop? If so, how?
Regards,
Chris

vpx

Escape to the loader prompt and try this:

set console="eficom,efi"
boot

ChrisJEChandler

Thanks for the suggestion, but still no joy. It stops in the same place. See screenshot

screenshot-2026-05-30-at-175547.png

vpx

Could you please test plain FreeBSD 15.0 RELEASE to see if this is caused by a specific configuration in GhostBSD.

ChrisJEChandler

I'll give it a go and report back.
Incidentally, I have since tried the same distribution of GhostBSD on 2 other Intel MacBook Pro laptops: 2016 and 2019 erae. The 2019 laptop has the same version of Parallels 19 on it, and the 2016 laptop has a slightly earlier version of Parallels 19. The 2020 iMac and 2019 laptop have macOS 13.7.8 and the 2016 laptop has macOS 12.7.6.
Unfortunately, the results are the same on all 3 although I only tried the default Parallels settings on the laptops

ChrisJEChandler

OK. Some good news. I just tried installing FreeBSD 15.0 RELEASE from the dvd ISO, following the instructions at FreeBSD Chapter 24. Virtualization and I have reached the installer screen. See screenshot

screenshot-2026-05-31-at-132230.png

Along the way, I noticed that the instructions on the FreeBSD site are slightly different from the GhostBSD site. Specifically, while both tell you to set the BIOS to 64-bit EFI, then GhostBSD instructions also specify adding vm.bios.efi=1
I'll try the GhostBSD distribution again without these flags

ChrisJEChandler

Umfortunately, removing the bootlegs does not help GhostBSD. It still gets stuck at the same point

ChrisJEChandler

vpx,
FYI, as you seem to be interested in FreeBSD as well as GhostBSD, I also tried FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE on Parallels Desktop for Mac M5. The installer boots, but fails because the FreeBSD is unable to use the network interface. If I login to Live mode, it sees the network interface but cannot use it. See screenshot

screenshot-2026-06-01-at-121320.png

HamKat

I had a similar problem on an HP Z440 business desktop, and got around it by going into the machine's BIOS and setting 'PXE internal network boot' to enable. In other machines this setting will probably be labeled something different, depending on the make and model, something like Network Boot, PXE Boot, or Internal Network Adapter Boot.

It is a known bug and has been reported here:

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/15-0-install-media-not-booting-on-hpe-microserver-gen10-plus.100566
and here:
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=291461

Word has it that the fix will be in FreeBSD 15.1 which should be out pretty soon. Might try one of the RC versions of FreeBSD 15.1 in the meantime.

vpx

As it works in FreeBSD but not in GhostBSD, I guess it is a setting in GhostBSD's loader.conf. But the issue is still in FreeBSD's loader.efi, I assume it's just triggered by the differing settings.

ghostbsd/ghostbsd-buildblob/master/boot/loader.conf