Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 16:14:06 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Mathias Koerber <mathias@koerber.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: More partitions on a single slice? Message-ID: <20001112161406.J802@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <00fd01c04c64$b127f3c0$f4db7fcb@dean.koerber.org>; from mathias@koerber.org on Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 12:54:50PM %2B0800 References: <00fd01c04c64$b127f3c0$f4db7fcb@dean.koerber.org>
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On Sunday, 12 November 2000 at 12:54:50 +0800, Mathias Koerber wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am familiar with Linux, and just trying to install FreeBSD on my new
> notebook.
Is that the Vaio you were showing around on Friday evening? You could
have asked me then :-)
> The FreeBSD Manual on one hand explains that it is better having
> separate filesystems for /var, /tmp etc.
And the "Complete FreeBSD" on the other hand recommends as few as
possible.
> But on the other hand there seems to be severe restriction on
> partitions available in the one FreeBSD slice on my harddisk.
Well, there are 8. That's ample.
> (The manual also claims that disklabel prefers the 'e' partition for
> non-root filesystems.
The preference for 'e' is for historical reasons ('a' is for a root
file system, 'b' for swap, 'c' for the whole disk, 'd' used to be
special, as I believe it still is in NetBSD), so the first partition
you could use is 'e'. But it really doesn't make any difference which
partition you use.
> There seems to be a basic assumption here that everything non-root
> goes into a single partition, or that additional physical disks (or
> slices) are available).
I'd consider that a good assumption.
> I want to create:
> / (ro)
> /usr (ro)
If these are both ro, you should combine them.
> /var
> /home
> /tmp
This can be mfs, which doesn't use a partition.
> /usr/local
Is there a reason why this can't be a symlink to /home/local?
> swap
If you have a separate Microsoft partition for your Linux swap, you
should be able to use it for FreeBSD swap as well. Note that FreeBSD
trades swap space for performance, so you may need swap more than you
would for Linux--I'm currently recommending 512 MB, though this would
be probably more than you'd need on a laptop.
> /u0
What's this for?
> and potentially more.
I'd be interested in why. All this does is give you the opportunity
to fill up one file system while having plenty of space in the
others. Symlinks are a workaround when you get to this situation, but
not a solution. In your particular case, I can see a case for:
/ (ro, including /usr)
/tmp (mfs)
/home, including /usr/local, /var and /u0
swap
That's three partitions. If you want to address directories like /u0,
you can make them symlinks.
> However, disk partitions only seem to go up to ad0s1h.
Well, in fact they go up to ad0s4h.
> When I use the disklabel editor, it lets me devine additional
> partitions, but names the devive /dev/dsk/X?
I've never seen that.
> Later mount complains that that does not exist.
An example here would be useful.
> And no, I do not want to scarifice another slice (BIOS partition) as
> I need that for Linux.
Ah. You can't have your cake and eat it.
I suppose one way round this "problem" would be to use vinum, which
allows you to define an arbitrary number of volumes. But I still
suspect that you're basing your requirements on incorrect assumptions.
Greg
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