From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Apr 20 20:10:30 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 45E26106564A for ; Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:10:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrewhw@ieee.org) Received: from post.queensu.ca (post.QueensU.CA [130.15.126.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E79F98FC1C for ; Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:10:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrewhw@ieee.org) Received: from U48.N136.QueensU.CA (andrew@U48.N136.QueensU.CA [130.15.136.48]) by post.queensu.ca (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m3KJxFWx027465 for ; Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:59:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:59:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wright Sender: andrew@U48.N136.QueensU.CA To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: User-Agent: Alpine 1.10 (BSO 962 2008-03-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII Subject: OpenBSD -> FreeBSD migration X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:10:30 -0000 Hi All; I want to migrate a system from OpenBSD 4.2 (ie; the current version) to FreeBSD (7.0). I have poked around on the archives a little to determine how best to do this, and I want to make sure that my understanding (summarized below) is indeed correct. If I am asking these questions on the wrong list (potentially likely for the AMD specific questions) then please let me know: Filesystem stuff: - it appears that FreeBSD and OpenBSD use the same partition table format. Is this true? If so, I can potentially avoid rebuilding an entire disk if I am right that ... - FreeBSD can mount and read OpenBSD's version of the 4.2 BSD filesystem implementation If both of these are true, I can simply install FreeBSD over top of the OpenBSD /, /var and /usr partitions, and then be able to mount the old /home. Is this something people do? - even if the above isn't true, it appears that the format used by dump/restore is consistent. I have tried dumping/restoring some small filesystems to test this, but if this is an unsupported way to go, I would like to know now. Also, before someone (quite rightly) says "back up your data", I will note that the reason that I would like to be able to read from /home is to avoid a lengthy restore -- all this data is backed up, but if there is no reason to re-label the drive and reformat the various user data partitions (on various drives) and then spend a day running restore, then I would like avoid such a waste of time. If this is even slightly likely to cause problems though, please let me know and I will start swapping media. - if I have somehow misled myself that restore(8) is consistent, please let me know -- re-installing the old OS just to back up to some other format would be a giant waste of time. Processor stuff: - The machine of interest has an AMD64 processor. I have seen several references to running Linux emulation on an AMD processor, but I would like to confirm that this is true while running the 64-bit version of the OS. In other words: - with a 64-bit installation (amd64) of FreeBSD 7.0, emulation of 32-bit Linux binaries (notably Matlab, but possibly other software as well) is possible, and indeed a reasonably well-known way of proceeding. If I'm crazy, and/or misreading the docs, please let me know. Thanks, Andrew.