From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Feb 13 15:35:10 2020 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0955D1CA7C8 for ; Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:35:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mout.kundenserver.de (mout.kundenserver.de [212.227.126.135]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "mout.kundenserver.de", Issuer "TeleSec ServerPass Class 2 CA" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 48JLDX57y1z46vf for ; Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:35:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de ([178.12.39.141]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (mreue011 [212.227.15.167]) with ESMTPA (Nemesis) id 1MFbFW-1jH5QJ3USM-00H88Y; Thu, 13 Feb 2020 16:35:02 +0100 Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 16:35:00 +0100 From: Polytropon To: tech-lists Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: some questions about disk partitioning and filesystems and booting Message-Id: <20200213163500.845bb868.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20200213150229.GC14144@bastion.zyxst.net> References: <20200213150229.GC14144@bastion.zyxst.net> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K1:X1tUgwBjpUI37L3B0XV+CvrxR9Nh0Sm2QFwcDiusG8TB3kr6Dv1 g9FUijAPjnfDTNvhaLxNGmX2N4IGvAxQTGLFM0GFfqEwjbJUSyQVONHh1MkawABKQijhz42 667Dld6n+M2At55KOEvqk7KdX7fCy0U2s9TP+/oHhX9P48mc5vQvSTsxYe42qyyZavs2pOc JKaFkhlqEXapGb0S8ljDQ== X-Spam-Flag: NO X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V03:K0:fvs2ZxFdUdg=:Hi7w7iuK2TfyRvL9dRUTV5 KSiUhYFYNyvXoFCtU9rilrGfbM7PFL7tIFbY0MHEq1NqZe/9T7/Rxfherl0iYSdsfg/JSO+zW Fn01/WDITiOSAPBtPI4clSBrIqlpo5q8r0xYCbfCfAB+44wHGWNnC07qQ14nblOwg/cdG1hf0 uhtduQCnzlAUIUkjPIYrak0z9t7YK93VEt+TX0fA3mZcecWgVtrNpDlePDqqAKXiiYYUhLuiU x0060ReMBThcCfSceAkEYMd2WItTNQJqBJ9csQlANuHiVdMUzFsEBVvzKAUN72VqOU4iyKdJD FmHZa1ubEvx5niFmmUKmF7LndpYcQ+jmjLP7stgu1avSnMNl/cLFq2n2Bjt2tYrfSGE4nDWB4 QNq9MPXtMRkjeimYgoykqQqF7c+qgcHzl1f5vh2BFxqjDDKp5aRPgzzngk0jrBiCwjF4jG2bi IVToF1QCEYV4RHHEsgAd643trLUQNtARkiKxrTd1TcAGuNvXss5LeG0PWXhMWgnyf/qKSXFMU JlrgOD5PYGeQT5xHSPcTQYQN69cgvgsPzvI7u/+ifpSy4/yowcOB/9ui+wzgBDUnGLvA26kAk tIV5VTtUNVKqyh2Qv2U2J/2xv3IPl6EJatXeT+JfQYUhmXN+w+chpkMyUvl4lOebNx9yENskW Yky37deNxD1h5JLTMAcK4QYJkaYNwlpTrKvonRE3ZxOYQJ9IiDnDFzxE4EVxtmT0mkX6VjNz6 VtSOb0LEgHGiWHAXYHbfm9SulGStjSomvynvcfHuyK2ep9M8r4coDUNIUqJD74jhe8MXH2xnC yqqUnNQrCnESNdkYeXuQ1jDibCfcR+LivMLCXwuhPj91sXC1K8EJx2JUiQ/O9IsVyhJ9N4s X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 48JLDX57y1z46vf X-Spamd-Bar: ++++ Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=none (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of freebsd@edvax.de has no SPF policy when checking 212.227.126.135) smtp.mailfrom=freebsd@edvax.de X-Spamd-Result: default: False [4.47 / 15.00]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; HAS_REPLYTO(0.00)[freebsd@edvax.de]; TO_DN_SOME(0.00)[]; MV_CASE(0.50)[]; HAS_ORG_HEADER(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; RECEIVED_SPAMHAUS_PBL(0.00)[141.39.12.178.khpj7ygk5idzvmvt5x4ziurxhy.zen.dq.spamhaus.net : 127.0.0.11]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; ASN(0.00)[asn:8560, ipnet:212.227.0.0/16, country:DE]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; REPLYTO_EQ_FROM(0.00)[]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; RCVD_TLS_LAST(0.00)[]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[edvax.de]; AUTH_NA(1.00)[]; NEURAL_SPAM_MEDIUM(0.75)[0.749,0]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_SOME(0.00)[]; NEURAL_SPAM_LONG(0.99)[0.992,0]; MID_CONTAINS_FROM(1.00)[]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[135.126.227.212.list.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.0]; R_SPF_NA(0.00)[]; RWL_MAILSPIKE_POSSIBLE(0.00)[135.126.227.212.rep.mailspike.net : 127.0.0.17]; RCVD_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; IP_SCORE(0.33)[ip: (0.59), ipnet: 212.227.0.0/16(-1.13), asn: 8560(2.21), country: DE(-0.02)] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:35:10 -0000 On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:02:29 +0000, tech-lists wrote: > [1] > When a new (12.x) amd64 system is installed, the partition defaults to MBR. I > normally use this as it's the default. I don't run mixed-OS systems; they are > all freebsd. But I understand that GPT is newer or "better"? > > If GPT is "better" then why is it not the default? I always thought it was! Have a look at the documentation: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html As you can see from the suffixes -p1, -p2, -p3 and so on, this is GPT, not MBR. Also check: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html > My use case is always ufs for the OS and zfs for data. Would it be "better" to > use GPT when installing a system? A valid answer is: If you don't have good reasons to use MBR, _don't_ use it. No multi-OS setup - you don't need MBR. MBR adds an additional layer (the "DOS primary partition", a. k. a. slice) to store the FreeBSD partitions, which are limited in terms of letters, whereas GPT can use numbers. If the only purpose of the UFS part of the system is to boot FreeBSD, why not go with dedicated install, i. e., don't use GPT/MBR partitioning at all? You can create labels (partitions) on the "bare drive", or you can put everything into one big 'a' boot partition. Put the ZFS disks under ZFS's control. > [2] > The bsdinstaller defaults to 4GB swap. Isn't this insufficient on a 32GB > system? Doesn't swap need to be 2x RAM on a fast disk? That was the rule decades ago, but I've heared it with the specific mentioning of "2 x _maximum_ RAM of machine", so when you could put 8 GB into the thing, but you only had 4 GB installled, 16 GB was the swap size according to that rule. I'm not sure it still applies. Maybe swap size today is much more driven by the kind of workload and the swapping scenario you're _maybe_ or _probably_ going to encounter. > The next install I do I'm thinking of making 2x 32GB swap partitions. These > being on the same SSD as the base OS. Would you consider this to be > suboptimal, and if so, why? Two on the same disk (even as a SSD) sounds strange. The system now has to manage two swap spaces. Maybe it's better to create one 64 GB swap partition, if SSD size allows it? The idea behind two swap partitions, if I remember correctly, dates back to a time where disk access was slower, and by using two disks with independent R/W and seek times was a speed improvement. On the same disk, you probably don't have that advantage because no "in parallel" is possible. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...