Add to documentation: How to install Ubuntu 20.04 with UEFI without graphics

[schmitmd]

Just a quick suggestion after having a bit of confusion myself this evening. It might be worth mentioning that the way to install Ubuntu 20.04 (and likely older Ubuntu releases as well) without having a graphical VNC session is by hitting "e" at the boot prompt to edit the boot params and adding vga=normal console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 to the boot options.

I use tmux as the console config and did sudo vm install -i myvmname ubuntu-20.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso with the following in the config file:

loader="uefi"
cpu=2
#debug="true"
memory=4G
network0_type="virtio-net"
network0_switch="public"
disk0_type="virtio-blk"
disk0_name="disk0.img"
uuid="cfb322a6-af0d-421e-a1e6-3a93f4ccb832"
network0_mac="1a:2d:4c:7b:7b:ab"

The following boot params (the default) give a blank screen instead of loading up the installer:

setparams 'Install Ubuntu Server'

     setgfxpayload=keep
     linux /casper/vmlinuz quiet ---
     initrd /casper/initrd

These boot params load the installer on the serial console and I was able to do everything I needed to (I also removed the quiet option, but I'm not sure if that makes any difference):

setparams 'Install Ubuntu Server'

     setgfxpayload=keep
     linux /casper/vmlinuz vga=normal console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 ---
     initrd /casper/initrd

I saw the https://github.com/churchers/vm-bhyve/wiki/Serial-Console-Output-with-the-UEFI-loader wiki page, but it appears to pertain to viewing the console after installation, so I didn't quite connect it to what I needed for install.

And of course, thank you very much for making such a wonderful interface to Bhyve!

[arg]

I faced this issue today and adding

vga=normal console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8

solved it. I also would like to note that you need to press Ctrl+X to start booting with updated boot params (took me some time to find the right keybinding)

[0mp]

Just a note: as @schmitmd said, you may use e to enter the editor in GRUB, you may use Ctrl-x to leave the editor and boot with your changes applied.

[JoeKun]

Thank you so much @schmitmd! This helped me a lot today as I was trying to install Ubuntu Server with bhyve on my FreeBSD machine.

[mozii-org]

TKS

[gagx2]

This must be added to the user manual because @schmitmd's instructions are exactly how I just installed Ubuntu Server 22.04 in bhyve on OPNSense 23.7.10. Any other guide wasn't fully describing what to do or was for older Ubuntu version which were fine with grub.