On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 09:43:44PM +0100, frantisek holop wrote: > hi there, > > 4.0 is here so time for my second annual reinstall on my notebook. > i have come to the conclusion that it would be nice to have a > "production" system and a "development" system. i need a stable > system to work with (stable packages i don't have to manually > compile, etc, etc.) on the dev system i'd like to track current. > > but. because i have only one notebook, these system should be on > the same physical harddisk. > > the only recent thread i have seen is about dual booting with netbsd: > http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=110575764931297&w=2 > > i am not an mbr/disklabel guru, but it seems to me that it all comes > down to disklabel becasue i can have 4 primary partitions, but if i > interpret it correctly, i can't have seperate 'a' and 'b' (and so on) > for all of these primary partitions, now can i? > > would it make sense to make every primary partition into an isolated > seperate disklabel entity? i know this wouldn't be a trivial change > of course, but is it possible at all?
It isn't needed. I have multiple versions on my laptop. In the MBR, create a *single* partition for OpenBSD. In that partition, disklabel to create your slices as needed for your 'stable' system, plus one for the 'dev' system (mine is hd0h). (As Nick says in the FAQ, don't allocate all of the space, you never know when you might need it for another partition.) Boot from the install CD, cross your fingers and be *very* careful to specify hd0h as the root when setting up the 'dev' system. When you want to boot into the 'dev' system, enter "hd0h:/bsd" at the boot prompt. (I use a boot manager which can stuff keystrokes into the BIOS). If you are brave, you can mount partitions (eg /home) from your 'stable' system into your 'dev' system, but that is probably not a good idea. > > > or should i just go with virtualization? > is it in that state already that i can? I use qemu for quick-and-dirty tests. It works, but is a bit slow. Regards, Andrew Dalgleish
