From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Dec 21 15:29:34 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from breg.mc.mpls.visi.com (breg.mc.mpls.visi.com [208.42.156.101]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F90137B417 for ; Fri, 21 Dec 2001 15:29:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from sheol.localdomain (hawkeyd-fw.dsl.visi.com [208.42.101.193]) by breg.mc.mpls.visi.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E325B2D0784; Fri, 21 Dec 2001 17:29:00 -0600 (CST) Received: (from hawkeyd@localhost) by sheol.localdomain (8.11.1/8.11.1) id fBLNSi009003; Fri, 21 Dec 2001 17:28:44 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from hawkeyd) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 17:28:39 -0600 From: D J Hawkey Jr To: Mike Meyer Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Two FreeBSD slices on one HDD? Message-ID: <20011221172839.A8809@sheol.localdomain> Reply-To: hawkeyd@visi.com References: <86914604@toto.iv> <15395.40219.395530.155752@guru.mired.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <15395.40219.395530.155752@guru.mired.org>; from mwm-dated-1009398939.66df23@mired.org on Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 02:35:39PM -0600 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Dec 21, at 02:35 PM, Mike Meyer wrote: > > D J Hawkey Jr types: > > > > From what I have read, go ahead with the install, and when in 'fdisk', > > remove ad0s1 (the WinME slice), and replace it with a FreeBSD slice, > > marking it bootable. The, in 'disklabel', proceed to set up partitions > > within the new ad0s1 slice as usual. > > > > BUT, will the rest of the install correctly put everything in the new > > ad0s1 slice, and not the existing ad0s2 slice? > > I can't answer that. I built my two-BSD hd from sources and installed > that way. Please elaborate. You had to 'newfs' the partitions, right? Then, what, copy the sources into the /usr mountpoint, and build the OS? With what development tools; it's a new slice?? Oh! Wait. You installed the second OS while running the existing OS, right? I don't think I wanna go that route if I don't have to. > > Then, will, bootEZ will see both FreeBSD partitions, and allow booting > > either? This I haven't found an answer to. > > It should see them both, but it will label them both as "FreeBSD". I > installed Grub so I could label them as "FreeBSD Current" and "FreeBSD > Stable". That's fine; vague is better. I plan on using this strategy to do major upgrades into the future, so the labels would change again, and again... But that raises another question: Do I keep the existing boot loader in place, or do I add it [again] with the new OS? It pro'lly doesn't matter either way, does it? > > > Furthermore, can either then mount the other slices' partitions? > > I cannot see why not, unless trying to write to ad0s1 from ad0s2 screws > > up due to ad0s1 having DIRPREFS and ad0s2 not? Anyone? > > No problems at all. You can even have them both use the same swap > partition to save a little space. Can it be done retroactively? I plan to upgrade the RAM when I install the new OS. The swap partition for the current OS will then be "too small"; is it as simple as changing the swap device in the current OS's /etc/fstab, ads02b, to the new OS's swap device, ad0s1b, and reboot? Then, can I reclaim ad0s2b (the current swap) by simply changing it's label to ad0s2SOMETHING with 'disklabel', and 'newfs' it? > > Is it really this straight-forward, the "Just do it" Nike approach? > > Except for sysinstall, the answer is yes. I suspect the answer is yes > for sysinstall as well. I would think so, too. But I want to be safe in knowledge as well as safe in backups! Can anyone answer these last bits? >