Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:37:14 +1100 From: "Dewayne Geraghty" <dewayne.geraghty@heuristicsystems.com.au> To: "'Bruce Cran'" <bruce@cran.org.uk> Cc: 'FreeBSD Stable Mailing List' <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: New BSD Installer Message-ID: <61AB04813A1041FD8B8E925AADD46D10@white> In-Reply-To: <20120213195554.O46120@sola.nimnet.asn.au> References: <4F355A5B.9080007@rewt.org.uk> <4F35743B.4020302@os2.kiev.ua><4F37DBA3.7030304@cran.org.uk> <20120213195554.O46120@sola.nimnet.asn.au>
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To answer an earlier question by Bruce... > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Ian Smith > Sent: Wednesday, 15 February 2012 4:15 AM > To: Bruce Cran > Cc: FreeBSD Stable Mailing List; Joe Holden; Alex Samorukov > Subject: Re: New BSD Installer > > On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:32:51 +0000, Bruce Cran wrote: > > On 2/10/2012 7:47 PM, Alex Samorukov wrote: > > > I am highly against reverting. Old installer is not GPT > aware and in fact > > is unmaintained for a very long time. > > > > That's not really correct: quite a lot of work was done on > it last year. > > Indeed. Was it you working on the updated sade(8) adding GPT and ZFS? > > <rant> > > I don't see it in terms of reverting. Much other useful > functionality of sysinstall has yet to be reimplemented. > Sure, I know, send code .. > but it's not only the functionality lost, but the ability for > new users to accomplish a good deal of initial server setup > before they're skilled enough to do it all from the command > line, which is where I was in '98. > > I also think much of the sometimes gratuitous deprecation of > sysinstall is unwarranted. I've used sysinstall > post-installation regularly since > '98 on 2.2.6 through 3.3, 4.4-10, 5.-5, 6.1, 7.0-4 and 8.0-2. > Since one small disaster on 3.3 about 12 years ago > (installing to the wrong slice) I've had no major issues with > it, mostly partitioning all sorts of disks but also browsing > and adding useful packages at installation. > > Strangely, the big push to GPT partitions was oft said to be > because MBR slices provided too few partitions. I never > found 4 * 6 much of a limit myself, and now the default > install makes a Linux-like single partition, rendering dump & > restore more or less unusable or at least impractical, while > booting multiple systems on GPT also seems to require Linux tools. > > I don't know whether this move away from BSD traditional > filesystem partitioning (/, /var, /usr etc) to Linux-style > came down from Core On High or is just the prerogative of > installer-writers? Jordan was both the latter and a big part > of the former for many years, but I guess that's something > that can be reverted if people feel to do so. > > I expect most developers run mostly the latest gear, and > nowadays tend to use vbox images a good deal, but there will > be many laptops and other systems using MBR slices and > bsdlabel partitions for years to come, and I'd hate to see > FreeBSD's longterm support for _slightly_ older hardware > disappear, just because of having added better support for latest kit. > > I for one will be screwed if sade, fdisk and bsdlabel > disappear, as the release notes for 9 seem to indicate may be > imminently on the cards. > > </rant> > > cheers, Ian > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" I've included the gpart commands that should allay your concerns about fdisk and bsdlabel. Like you I use MBR for exactly the reasons that Freddie has articulated, and share Jeremy's concerns. GPT doesn't yet suit my operations model for bootable media; so The following will prepare the partitions/slices for a conventional device, for example a small usb drive D=da1 SIZE=1G gpart create -s MBR $D gpart add -b63 -s $SIZE -t freebsd $D # to insert s1 gpart create -s bsd ${D}s1 # create s1 as BSD gpart add -s 300M -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s1 # create partition s1a gpart add -s 16M -t freebsd-swap ${D}s1 # create swap gpart add -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s1 # rest to s1d gpart add -s $SIZE -t freebsd $D # to insert s2 gpart create -s bsd ${D}s2 # create s2 gpart add -s 256M -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s2 # should be s2a gpart add -s 16M -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s2 # should be s2d gpart add -s 32M -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s2 # should be s2e gpart add -s 48M -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s2 # should be s2f gpart add -s 64M -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s2 # should be s2e gpart add -t freebsd-ufs ${D}s2 # should be s2h gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ${D} gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot ${D}s1 gpart set -a active -i 1 ${D} # This is redundent, but emphasises the point :) I like the convenience of this approach as it eliminates the fiddly fdisk and bsdlabel work. Enjoy. Regards, Dewayne.
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