On Sun, 2003-06-29 at 16:12, Jerry McAllister wrote: > Here there seems to be some confusion on the use of the word partition. > FreeBSD uses the term "slice" to mean the major division of the disk > that Microsloth uses the term "partition" for. You need only two of > these slices (MS partitions) - one for Windows and one for FreeBSD > although you can have as many as 4. Those slices are identified in > FreeBSD land as s1..s4 (ad0s1..ad0s4 for IDE disk one for example) and > as a letter drive in the MS netherworld (typically drive c, d, etc) > These major divisions called slices are created by fdisk. > > Then, you further divide the FreeBSD slice in to partitions using disklabel > which are named a..h. FreeBSD calls these sub divisions 'partitions'. > You create filesystems on these FreeBSD partitions and mount them. > There are conventions and expectations for some of these. Usually 'a' is > used for the root (/) file system, 'b' is used for swap, 'c' us unused > and set up to refer to the whole slice by a few things, 'd' seems to be > unused, but I don't know the reason. The remainder (e-h) have any use > although often 'e' is used for /tmp 'f' is often used for /usr or /var > or sometimes /home depending on how you choose to spread out and manage > your disk space. > > Often second and and subsequent extra disks are assigned to one whole > use and in that case it is common to use either 'a' or 'e' or 'f' to > be its name. Some times a chunk of each extra disk is used to add to > swap space and typically the name 'b' is used for each of those regardless > of which other letter names are used for the rest of the disk. > > So, for example, if you have a machine with 3 IDE disks, split the first > to be boot disks for MSwin and FreeBSD, dedicate the second to MSwin and > use the third to add to swap and work space, you might have disks addressed > as follows: (Size choices are up to you, but remember, you always want more) > > ad0s2a mounted as / (eg root) > ad0s2b swap > ad0s2c a comment describing the whole ad0s2 slice > ad0s2e mounted as /tmp > ad0s2f mounted as /usr > ad0s2g mounted as /var > ad0s2h mounted as /home > > ad2s1b swap > ad2s1f mounted as /work > > ad1s1 cal also be msdos mounted as something if you like. > > Note: You will need to install the boot loader on each disk that will have > bootable systems on it. In this example, that is only ad0. And you will > need to put a Master Boot Record on the first boot disk (from the BIOS point > of view) - ad0 in this example. If you choose to make all of the first > disk (ad0) be dedicated to MSwin and the second disk (ad1) dedicated to > FreeBSD, for example, you would need to write a boot loader on both ad0 > and ad1 and the FreeBSD MBR on the first disk (ad0) even though you don't > put any other FreeBSD stuff on that disk. That is because the BIOS starts > with that first disk to figure out how to boot and then the MBR takes over > from there. And, at least up to WinXP the Microsloth MBRs could not boot > a UNIX OS - but FreeBSD could do either. I have heard tell that now the > MBR that comes with XP can do both, but haven't tried it. > > Although the descriptions of fdisk and disklabel in the man pages can > at first be rather confusing, after a while they begin to make sense and > are relatively easy to use. > > But, you can also use the sysinstall, either from an install CD or > by invoking /stand/sysinstall and it will also do all your calculations > for you in a minimal GUI interface. Sysinstall will also make it write > the boot loader and MBR if you want. > > MS doesn't have anything exactly the same as those sub-partition divisions > of the slice (tho it does have something else vaguely similar called an > extended partition that is not compatible). > > So, this was a bigger comment than I had planned, but we seem to go over > and over this same confusion so often.
Thanks Jerry! This is one of the most informative posts I have seen in a long time. All newbies should read this post very closely! -- Adam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"