From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 4 16:21:18 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1FD5F16A4BF for ; Thu, 4 Sep 2003 16:21:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gmsi1.com (mail01.gmsi1.com [64.210.75.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E4C443F85 for ; Thu, 4 Sep 2003 16:21:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from meow_cat@searchbug.com) Received: from [68.32.127.134] (account ) by gmsi1.com (CommuniGate Pro WebUser 4.0.5) with HTTP id 16394642; Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:19:33 -0500 From: "Meow Cat" To: Matthew Seaman , Meow Cat X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro Web Mailer v.4.0.5 Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:19:33 -0500 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20030904140342.GF88888@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 5.1-RELEASE: disklabel/bsdlabel for multi-boot system X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 23:21:18 -0000 Matthew, Thanks for the prompt reply. I have now solved the issues that were preventing me from installing (though I still had to do it manually due to some limitations in sysinstall) and, once installed, I'm impressed with the package management and automatic configuration in FreeBSD. So, to answer my own questions, in case others have the same questions: 1) The 'unit' size in bsdlabel/disklabel is the size of the individual slice. You can only create BSD-partitions within that slice, and you can't extend beyond that. However, you shouldn't need to, as: 2) FreeBSD supports DOS-style extended partitions. I guess I missed that reading the manual the first time around, and I wasn't expecting it because OpenBSD doesn't support these. 3) Although FreeBSD supports DOS-style extended partitions, you can't create (or at least can't access) BSD partitions within them - for example, you there is no such thing as /dev/ad0s5e. bsdlabel supports writing a label table, but it isn't read when devfs is detecting devices. 4) Although FreeBSD supports DOS-style extended partitions, sysinstall's fdisk and label management does not, and so the only way to have a small primary slice containing / and /var, and moving the bulk (/usr) into ad0s5 is to install a minimal environment, then chroot to it, mount the extra filesystem, and run sysinstall in upgrade mode. 5) /etc/fstab accepts TAB as the only white-space. Any spaces result in an "Inappropriate file type or format" error. I guess most of these problems revolve around your point that extended partitions aren't very popular. Unfortunately, I've already got tons of data in those partitions and was unable/ unwilling to shift them around just for the convenience of the BSD install process. What I was trying to do before (which worked with OpenBSD, but then OpenBSD doesn't support DOS-style extended partitions at all) was to use slice 2 as the BSD slice, but have it claim ownership of the entire disk, so that all slices and DOS-extended slices were able to be accessed as though they were a part of slice 2. This doesn't work with FreeBSD, as bsdlabel expects the slice's label table to stay within the space allocated to it. Anyway, thanks again for the help! ______________________________________________________ Find People and Businesses at http://www.SearchBug.com Innovative Messaging Solutions by GMSI, http://www.gmsi1.com