Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 23:56:35 -0700 From: "Freddie Cash" <fcash@bigfoot.com> To: James Zuelow <jfzuelow@alaska.net>, <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: long device names Message-ID: <3BBBA5B3.31014.6578BBF@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0110031600220.655-100000@Hobbes.sodorline.home>
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> I have a heterogenous home network - Windows/RedHat/Debian/OpenBSD and > now FreeBSD, 4.4 installed yesterday. (Note that I've only been > running *nix for about a year, so I am definately not an expert.) > > While I wait for Annelise's book to arrive, I've been poking around > the FreeBSD box and immediately got hit with the long device names. > The Linux device names are all short - for example sdb4 - and make > sense to me. OpenBSD rearrages things - for example sd1d - but it > still makes sense. > What in the world is an ad0s1a? I get the ad0 part (first IDE drive), > but why s1a instead of just a-z? ad = atapi/ata disk 0 = first disk s = slice 1 = first slice a = first partition Basically, harddrives are labelled <device><slice><partition>. The "extra" slice data is in there due to the way FreeBSD does it's partitioning (which, IMO, is one of the best systems I've come across yet). I have a great post on this that I sent to the local LUG. It's on my work comp so I'll send it along in the morn. > I'm not asking about how to read df -h or mount partitions, but rather > the why the partitions are named like this. Man device didn't help > much. It sure does make mounting a cd that much slower (two extra > characters to type > - gotta be a quarter second at least!) I don't see how typing "mount /cdrom" in FreeBSD takes more typing than "mount /mnt/cdrom" in Linux. :) I find that it actually saves 4 keystrokes. :) Cheers, Freddie fcash@bigfoot.com Linux is for people who hate Windows. FreeBSD is for people that like UNIX. -- unknown To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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