Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
This is what I've got:

# gpart show ada0
=  63   625142385 ada0 MBR (298G)
63   121274683 - free - (57G)
[snip]

IIUC I now have to do:

# gpart add -s 64k -t freebsd-boot -l boot0 ada0
# gpart add -s 8G -t freebsd-swap -l swap0  ada0
# gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -a 256k -l root0 ada0

Here I already don't understand how large the swap should be. Really 2 *
size of the RAM?

I also don't know if 256k is a sane alignment value, I just copied this
from a howto.

How to continue after this is done?

I want to use GRUB from my Linux installs, this is the Linux menu.lst:

timeout   8
default   0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

title FreeBSD 9.0
root   (hd0,a)
kernel /boot/loader

[snip]

Regards,
Ralf

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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Polytropon
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 12:26:14 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 This is what I've got:
 
 # gpart show ada0
 =  63   625142385 ada0 MBR (298G)
 63   121274683 - free - (57G)
 [snip]
 
 IIUC I now have to do:
 
 # gpart add -s 64k -t freebsd-boot -l boot0 ada0
 # gpart add -s 8G -t freebsd-swap -l swap0  ada0
 # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -a 256k -l root0 ada0
 
 Here I already don't understand how large the swap should be. Really 2 *
 size of the RAM?

Won't be wrong; my understanding of the rule was 2 * size of
_possible_ RAM in the machine. But disk space is cheap, so
8 G should be fine. But again, the requirement for the swap
partition depends on what you're doing with the machine and
what you're expecting (e. g. will you want to save kernel dumps
to the swap partition?).

You can find an example here:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

Also see man newfs for options.



 I also don't know if 256k is a sane alignment value, I just copied this
 from a howto.

Modern disks work faster when everything is aligned to 4k.
But they _work_ with any other alignment.



 How to continue after this is done?

You will have new partitions /dev/ada0pN. You need to format
them with newfs. If I see this correctly, you have created
one big / partition (for everything); this is _valid_ and
possible, but may be less optimum for a couple of reasons.

Doing functional partitioning requires at least an idea
of how much disk space will be needed per functional part,
and this can differ from use as server or desktop, or what
kind of software you run. The advantage is that you can
backup data partition-wise (using dump + restore) and have
a functional base system on / in case there's a severe
disk corruption. The disadvantage is that if finally one
partition is too full, you cannot easily resize them
(even though this is possible).

When done, add them to your /etc/fstab. You can use the
labels for that instead of the device names.



 I want to use GRUB from my Linux installs, this is the Linux menu.lst:
 
 timeout   8
 default   0
 color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
 
 title FreeBSD 9.0
 root   (hd0,a)
 kernel /boot/loader

My Linux multiboot experience is limited, but this looks okay.
You will delegate boot control to the loader, hd0a = sda1 = adap1,
the partition of freebsd-boot type.



-- 
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Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Lucas B. Cohen
On 2012.11.25 12:26, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 Here I already don't understand how large the swap should be. Really 2 *
 size of the RAM?
It depends on use patterns and the amount of RAM in your computer. 1.5*
to 2* installed memory is a traditional works for most value, but I
feel it's outdated for 64-bit machines with 8 GB or more.

 I also don't know if 256k is a sane alignment value, I just copied this
 from a howto.
If you're using a single, not too recent-and-huge hard drive, 512 bits
(that is, no alignment) is fine.
If you have an Advanced Format Drive or you don't know if you do, use 4k.
If you have an underlying RAID array, 256k is a better choice.
If it's an SSD, go with 4 MB to avoid taking any chances with
performance over time.


 How to continue after this is done?
Once you're satisfied with your partition organization, the easiest is
to restart bsdinstall, dd your new partition table somewhere safe (flash
drive, or network drive), use the (n?)curses UI to designate the target
partitions to install to, and go on with the installation to install the
sets.

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Re: [Bulk] Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 13:29 +0100, Polytropon wrote:
 On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 12:26:14 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
  This is what I've got:
  
  # gpart show ada0
  =  63   625142385 ada0 MBR (298G)
  63   121274683 - free - (57G)
  [snip]
  
  IIUC I now have to do:
  
  # gpart add -s 64k -t freebsd-boot -l boot0 ada0
  # gpart add -s 8G -t freebsd-swap -l swap0  ada0
  # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -a 256k -l root0 ada0
  
  Here I already don't understand how large the swap should be. Really 2 *
  size of the RAM?
 
 Won't be wrong; my understanding of the rule was 2 * size of
 _possible_ RAM in the machine. But disk space is cheap, so
 8 G should be fine. But again, the requirement for the swap
 partition depends on what you're doing with the machine and
 what you're expecting (e. g. will you want to save kernel dumps
 to the swap partition?).
 
 You can find an example here:
 
 http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html
 
 Also see man newfs for options.

I'll read this. I want to test what's possible and/or impossible
regarding to MIDI and audio productions using FreeBSD.

  I also don't know if 256k is a sane alignment value, I just copied this
  from a howto.
 
 Modern disks work faster when everything is aligned to 4k.
 But they _work_ with any other alignment.

I'll use 4k.

  How to continue after this is done?
 
 You will have new partitions /dev/ada0pN. You need to format
 them with newfs. If I see this correctly, you have created
 one big / partition (for everything); this is _valid_ and
 possible, but may be less optimum for a couple of reasons.

Until now I haven't done anything. It's still free.

 Doing functional partitioning requires at least an idea
 of how much disk space will be needed per functional part,
 and this can differ from use as server or desktop, or what
 kind of software you run.

On Linux I only use /. So I don't have to think about how much space
what directory might need and I never run into issues, when the file
system hierarchy does change. Off cause I've got special partitions for
audio productions mounted with noatime and a own partition for emails,
but anything else, including /home is inside /.


  The advantage is that you can
 backup data partition-wise (using dump + restore) and have
 a functional base system on / in case there's a severe
 disk corruption. The disadvantage is that if finally one
 partition is too full, you cannot easily resize them
 (even though this is possible).

On Linux I can backup partition-wise too, but it's also possible to
backup directory-wise ;).

Btw. I never sync backups, I always keep several backups of the system,
since setting up a hard real-time jitter free DAW is a special task for
modern computers. In the 80s hard real-time really was hard real-time
(C64, Atari ST), nowadays it is hard work to get something similar.

 When done, add them to your /etc/fstab. You can use the
 labels for that instead of the device names.

  I want to use GRUB from my Linux installs, this is the Linux menu.lst:
  
  timeout   8
  default   0
  color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
  
  title FreeBSD 9.0
  root   (hd0,a)
  kernel /boot/loader
 
 My Linux multiboot experience is limited, but this looks okay.
 You will delegate boot control to the loader, hd0a = sda1 = adap1,
 the partition of freebsd-boot type.

Thank you.

Regards,
Ralf


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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
I'm reading http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html at
the moment.

Seemingly there are many outdated howtos first hits for searching with
Google. I frst read 64k for boot and now 512k.

IIUC Install the GPT bootcode into the boot partition has to be done
and is independent of the GRUB in the MBR.

On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 13:32 +0100, Lucas B. Cohen wrote:
 On 2012.11.25 12:26, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
  Here I already don't understand how large the swap should be. Really 2 *
  size of the RAM?
 It depends on use patterns and the amount of RAM in your computer. 1.5*
 to 2* installed memory is a traditional works for most value, but I
 feel it's outdated for 64-bit machines with 8 GB or more.

It's a 64-bit machine with 4GB RAM.


  I also don't know if 256k is a sane alignment value, I just copied this
  from a howto.
 If you're using a single, not too recent-and-huge hard drive, 512 bits
 (that is, no alignment) is fine.
 If you have an Advanced Format Drive or you don't know if you do, use 4k.
 If you have an underlying RAID array, 256k is a better choice.
 If it's an SSD, go with 4 MB to avoid taking any chances with
 performance over time.

No RAID, a modern SATA drives, so 4k seems to be the way to go.

Thank you.

Regards,
Ralf

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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Lucas B. Cohen
On 2012.11.25 13:57, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 IIUC Install the GPT bootcode into the boot partition has to be done
 and is independent of the GRUB in the MBR.
Not in your case. You won't need bootcode other than GRUB's (in the MBR,
and the Linux partition where the bulk of it is installed).
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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
At the moment I still have:
This is what I've got:
# gpart show ada0
=  63   625142385 ada0 MBR (298G)
63   121274683 - free - (57G)
[snip]

Regarding to http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html
for my set up it should be ok to run:

# gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l boot -b 40 -s 512K ada0

# gpart add -t freebsd-swap -l swap -s 8G ada0

# gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l root -b 1M ada0
Should use all the free space, so no option -s?!

# newfs -U /dev/gpt/root

# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0
Will install the FreeBSD bootloader independent of the GRUB in the MBR?

My GRUB menu.lst still is:

timeout   8
default   0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

title FreeBSD 9.0
root   (hd0,a)
kernel /boot/loader

[snip]

So kernel /boot/loader has to be replaced by /boot/foo?

/etc/fstab:

# DeviceMountpoint  FS  Options DumpPass# -- 
is this # needed at the end?
Or is it ok like this:
# DeviceMountpoint  FS  Options DumpPass

And this are the entries I need:

/dev/gpt/swap   noneswapsw  0   0
/dev/gpt/root   /   ufs rw  1   1

*???*
Ralf










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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 14:13 +0100, Lucas B. Cohen wrote:
 On 2012.11.25 13:57, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
  IIUC Install the GPT bootcode into the boot partition has to be done
  and is independent of the GRUB in the MBR.
 Not in your case. You won't need bootcode other than GRUB's (in the MBR,
 and the Linux partition where the bulk of it is installed).

Thank you.

I don't need it, but I could add it for what ever worst case emergency
scenario and GRUB in the MBR anyway will work?

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Re: [Bulk] Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Polytropon
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:43:46 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 13:29 +0100, Polytropon wrote:
 I'll read this. I want to test what's possible and/or impossible
 regarding to MIDI and audio productions using FreeBSD.

Will be interesting. I know there is some good support for this
case in specialized Linux distributions.



  Doing functional partitioning requires at least an idea
  of how much disk space will be needed per functional part,
  and this can differ from use as server or desktop, or what
  kind of software you run.
 
 On Linux I only use /.

Yes, this is common, even though Linux can support functional
partitioning as well, still ext2/3/4/... partitions != UFS partitions.
And with GPT partitioning, it's even easier to separate parts
of the system across partitions and devices (which _can_ provide
you performance boosts).



 So I don't have to think about how much space
 what directory might need and I never run into issues, when the file
 system hierarchy does change. Off cause I've got special partitions for
 audio productions mounted with noatime and a own partition for emails,
 but anything else, including /home is inside /.

This _could_ develop into disadvantages, like some half-dead
process filling the whole partition until problems arise. But
for common desktop use, it should not be problematic.



   The advantage is that you can
  backup data partition-wise (using dump + restore) and have
  a functional base system on / in case there's a severe
  disk corruption. The disadvantage is that if finally one
  partition is too full, you cannot easily resize them
  (even though this is possible).
 
 On Linux I can backup partition-wise too, but it's also possible to
 backup directory-wise ;).

Tools like rsync or cpdup make selective backing up and restoring
easy, that's true. :-)

The idea is that if there is some damage, all you need to boot
your machine in a minimum and _defined_ state is on /. No need
for /usr or /var at this point, so you could - if required - do
analytics and recovery from this point on. As all 3rd party software
is in /usr/local, there won't be a problem as nothing of that
stuff is needed to perform the boot into this early stage (the
single user mode). If you don't have to experience such a situation,
the better.



 Btw. I never sync backups, I always keep several backups of the system,
 since setting up a hard real-time jitter free DAW is a special task for
 modern computers. In the 80s hard real-time really was hard real-time
 (C64, Atari ST), nowadays it is hard work to get something similar.

There are specialized operating systems emphasizing real-time use.
Still those more simple computers required a close to the hardware
programming that modern OSes will hardly allow, so if you don't have
this kind of access from the OS level, how would you get it from the
application level, with tons of dependencies unter your hands? :-)

BTW, I still have some Atari ST hardware here. Impressive what has
been possible with this (quite limited) machines, but with _efficient_
programs...





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Polytropon
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 14:30:17 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 At the moment I still have:
 This is what I've got:
 # gpart show ada0
 =  63   625142385 ada0 MBR (298G)
 63   121274683 - free - (57G)
 [snip]
 
 Regarding to http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html
 for my set up it should be ok to run:
 
 # gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l boot -b 40 -s 512K ada0
 
 # gpart add -t freebsd-swap -l swap -s 8G ada0
 
 # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l root -b 1M ada0
 Should use all the free space, so no option -s?!

See man gpart for details (yes, there are _excellent_ man pages
installed locally, or accessible via web):

If -s option is omitted then new size is automatically
calculated to maximum available from given geom geom.

Here:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gpartapropos=0sektion=0manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASEarch=defaultformat=html



 # newfs -U /dev/gpt/root

Maybe you would also consider using -J (journaling). Still the
traditional approach when using functional partitioning is to
format the / partition without soft updates (-U), but in your
case, using them on a everything in one / partition is okay.



 # gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0
 Will install the FreeBSD bootloader independent of the GRUB in the MBR?

Hmmm... I'd assume that ada0 (the beginning of the disk) contains
GRUB already (or a redirect to where it's actually located), so
I think ada0p1 would be the location to write to... still I'm not
sure if you need to have any boot code at all because GRUB will
perform the redirection to the FreeBSD loader which will then
load the FreeBSD kernel.

See man 8 boot for details.

I'm not a multi-booter so I can't be more specific, sorry.



 My GRUB menu.lst still is:
 
 timeout   8
 default   0
 color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
 
 title FreeBSD 9.0
 root   (hd0,a)
 kernel /boot/loader
 
 [snip]
 
 So kernel /boot/loader has to be replaced by /boot/foo?

No, I think /boot/loader is correct here; it's a program that
sets up the kernel environment, loads it, maybe loads modules,
and passes control to the kernel. It's located on the ada0p1
partition.



 /etc/fstab:
 
 # DeviceMountpoint  FS  Options DumpPass# -- 
 is this # needed at the end?
 Or is it ok like this:
 # DeviceMountpoint  FS  Options DumpPass

No, it means pass number; according to man 5 fstab:

The sixth field, (fs_passno), is used by the fsck(8) and
quotacheck(8) programs to determine the order in which
file system and quota checks are done at reboot time.
The fs_passno field can be any value between 0 and `INT_MAX-1'.

But it's a comment line anyway. :-)



 And this are the entries I need:
 
 /dev/gpt/swap   noneswapsw  0   0
 /dev/gpt/root   /   ufs rw  1   1

Looks correct. (You can later on add lines to access data partitions
or even your Linux partitions if you want, optical drives or NFS
shares if you need.)




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Wheres the FreeBSD PBR ? (was Re: Manually partitioning using gpart / wh)

2012-11-25 Thread Lucas B. Cohen
On 2012.11.25 14:35, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 I don't need it, but I could add it for what ever worst case emergency
 scenario and GRUB in the MBR anyway will work?
I don't see how it could ever come in handy, and I'm not sure it
wouldn't do any hamr either. The /boot/gptboot code to be written weighs
15kB, that could be big enough to mess up the filesystem on the
partition. That /boot/gptboot code is designed to work on a
special-purpose small GPT partition that doesn't hold a filesystem. So I
would refrain from doing it.

It would be useful for emergency purposes to write MBR-partition
scheme-compatible bootcode to that partition instead, but I've yet to
find out how to do it. gpart(8) seems to have the ability to do it, but
it's manual page doesn't mention what file to pass to its -p option to
do that. Maybe it's one of those /boot/boot1 or /boot/boot2 files I'm
seeing on my system. Maybe someone can enlighten me on that.
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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Bruce Cran

On 25/11/2012 12:29, Polytropon wrote:

Won't be wrong; my understanding of the rule was 2 * size of
_possible_ RAM in the machine. But disk space is cheap, so
8 G should be fine. But again, the requirement for the swap
partition depends on what you're doing with the machine and
what you're expecting (e. g. will you want to save kernel dumps
to the swap partition?).


You probably want to stop following that rule some time before you get 
to 8 TB RAM 
(http://semiaccurate.com/2010/09/29/inphi-imbs-can-stuff-8tb-ram-system/) :)


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: Wheres the FreeBSD PBR ? (was Re: Manually partitioning using gpart / wh)

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 15:10 +0100, Lucas B. Cohen wrote:
 On 2012.11.25 14:35, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
  I don't need it, but I could add it for what ever worst case emergency
  scenario and GRUB in the MBR anyway will work?
 I don't see how it could ever come in handy, and I'm not sure it
 wouldn't do any hamr either. The /boot/gptboot code to be written weighs
 15kB, that could be big enough to mess up the filesystem on the
 partition. That /boot/gptboot code is designed to work on a
 special-purpose small GPT partition that doesn't hold a filesystem. So I
 would refrain from doing it.
 
 It would be useful for emergency purposes to write MBR-partition
 scheme-compatible bootcode to that partition instead, but I've yet to
 find out how to do it. gpart(8) seems to have the ability to do it, but
 it's manual page doesn't mention what file to pass to its -p option to
 do that. Maybe it's one of those /boot/boot1 or /boot/boot2 files I'm
 seeing on my system. Maybe someone can enlighten me on that.

Ok. I don't install it.

Regards,
Ralf

-- 
At the moment I'm watching The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so
I'll continue the install later today.

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OT: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 14:37 +0100, Polytropon wrote:
 BTW, I still have some Atari ST hardware here. Impressive what has
 been possible with this (quite limited) machines, but with _efficient_
 programs...

I still have the C64 in some cartons and the Atari ST is still beside my
PC, but I don't remember when I turned it on the last time. Btw. no QL
emulator here, but a 80286 emulator and to my Atari 520 ST there are old
PC RAM soldered, so it has got the full 4096KB. An issue is to replace
the old monitor, since it's hard to get a monitor that can go low enough
with the frequencies.


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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
Polytropon, I'll use journaling.

I've to apologize for my broken English.
Regarding to the comment line my question is, if it's enough to us a #
at the beginning, or if it's needed to begin and to end with a #. I
suspect just a # at the beginning is needed.

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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Polytropon
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 15:42:38 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 Polytropon, I'll use journaling.

That should give you additional security in integrity,
especially on a everything in one / partition.



 I've to apologize for my broken English.

No understanding problem here.



 Regarding to the comment line my question is, if it's enough to us a #
 at the beginning, or if it's needed to begin and to end with a #. I
 suspect just a # at the beginning is needed.

Yes, every line starting with a # is considered a comment (like
in shell scripts). In case of the default comment line, the
second # is just pass number written as Pass#. Comment line
and empty lines can appear in /etc/fstab as desired. You can use
them to structure your fstab file as soon as it gets too
many entries (which may be possible when you're utilizing NFS
a lot).



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Warren Block

On Sun, 25 Nov 2012, Ralf Mardorf wrote:


This is what I've got:

# gpart show ada0
=  63   625142385 ada0 MBR (298G)
   63   121274683 - free - (57G)
[snip]

IIUC I now have to do:

# gpart add -s 64k -t freebsd-boot -l boot0 ada0
# gpart add -s 8G -t freebsd-swap -l swap0  ada0
# gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -a 256k -l root0 ada0


No.  MBR does not need or use a freebsd-boot partition.  Also, GPT 
labels don't work for MBR because, well, it's not GPT.



Here I already don't understand how large the swap should be. Really 2 *
size of the RAM?


No, that's less true than it used to be.  Depends on how much RAM you 
have, but the more RAM, the less you really need swap.  If disk space is 
not at a premium, I usually use 4G.



I also don't know if 256k is a sane alignment value, I just copied this
from a howto.


For a hard drive, 4K alignment and starting the main partition at 1M is 
good.



How to continue after this is done?


Realize this multi-boot stuff is painful and inconvenient and install 
everything in a VM?

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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 13:49 -0700, Warren Block wrote:
 Realize this multi-boot stuff is painful and inconvenient and install 
 everything in a VM?

Unfortunately this is impossible.

I'll install FreeBSD, because there's a driver for my sound card, a RME
HDSPe AIO, that perhaps enables to use all ADAT IOs. On Linux I only can
use 2 ADAT IOs.

Another step could be to replace Linux by FreeBSD on my machine, but I
suspect FreeBSD isn't ready for audio production yet. Assumed it should
be ready, a virtual machine can't be used. Any layer does cause issues
for audio production machines.

I was thinking of doing a test install in VBox, but I guess it's a minor
risk that I'll lose everything by making an mistake.

Regards,
Ralf

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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Lucas B. Cohen
Hi Warren,

On 2012.11.25 21:49, Warren Block wrote:
 For a hard drive, 4K alignment and starting the main partition at 1M is
 good.
Why would one leave 1024 full kbits before the first partition on a HDD ?
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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Ralf Mardorf
On Mon, 2012-11-26 at 02:22 +0100, Lucas B. Cohen wrote:
 Hi Warren,
 
 On 2012.11.25 21:49, Warren Block wrote:
  For a hard drive, 4K alignment and starting the main partition at 1M is
  good.
 Why would one leave 1024 full kbits before the first partition on a HDD ?

Create a partition for /. It should start at the 1M boundary for proper
sector alignment on 4K sector drives or SSDs. This is compatible with
GPT drive layout for many other systems. Give it a GPT label of
gprootfs. - http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

It doesn't explain it for me, but at least it might be an explanation
for somebody with more knowledge?

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Re: Manually partitioning using gpart

2012-11-25 Thread Warren Block

On Mon, 26 Nov 2012, Lucas B. Cohen wrote:


On 2012.11.25 21:49, Warren Block wrote:

For a hard drive, 4K alignment and starting the main partition at 1M is
good.

Why would one leave 1024 full kbits before the first partition on a HDD ?


The second only is only relevant to GPT.

We went over this last week, but briefly there are two reasons: 
compatibility with what few GPT standards are out there (Windows and 
others), and proper alignment on hard drives and SSDs.


It's not the first partition, but the first filesystem partition.  The 
boot partition can go in the space before it.

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