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Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:45:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au>
cc: "William A. Mahaffey III" <wam@hiwaay.net>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: dd question
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On Mon, 28 Sep 2015, Ian Smith wrote:

> No, the memstick images have always been setup as an unsliced disk;

Well, yes.  I'd call it a "bare" bsdlabel or "dangerously dedicated". 
It's a bsdlabel partitioning format as they would have used before MBR 
existed.

...

> gpart makes more sense of it, but I'm not sure whether gpart can be used
> in 'dirty tricks' mode to create these.  And I've no idea whether growfs
> could do anything sensible about growing them; you could try.  Warren?
>
> smithi on t23% gpart show da0
> =>       0  15646720  da0  BSD  (7.5G)
>         0   5448528    1  freebsd-ufs  (2.6G)
>   5448528  10198192       - free -  (4.9G)

growfs is not something I use without severe provocation.  At best, it 
leaves some things in their original locations.  And some other 
utilities are surprised by that.  Whether it will work with an installer 
image, who knows.  I would probably use a separate bsdlabel partition if 
I was that desperate.

The "how can I modify the FreeBSD install disk" question comes up often. 
It would be nice if we had something more accessible than 'make 
release'.  mfsBSD (http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/) seems like a better basis for 
customization.