Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 10:32:15 -0400 (EDT) From: A boy and his worm gear <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Cc: terry@cs.weber.edu, hsu@cs.hut.fi, jmacd@freefall.cdrom.com, karl@mcs.com, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What people are doing with FBSD Message-ID: <199507201432.KAA03374@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> In-Reply-To: <199507200019.JAA09423@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Jul 20, 95 09:49:35 am
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Of all the gin joints in all the world, Michael Smith had to walk into mine and say: > Karl Denninger, MCSNet stands accused of saying: > > I happen to personally HATE the installer that FreeBSD uses, as adding disks > > to an existing system is a real bitch of a job the way they do things. The > > nice (and it IS nice) installer that you get when you boot disk #1 is not > > available once you have it up, and that's really too bad -- if FreeBSD had a > > nice, clean disk partitioning and labelling tool I'd be in hog heaven right > > now. > > Um, Jordan, I have this odd recollection of you announcing a version of > the installer floppy that let you do the individual thangs all by themselves, > rather than committing to mounting/extracting/etc; do I have bats inside, > or what? > > > Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - The Finest Internet Connectivity > > -- > ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ I don't know how many of you have noticed it yet, but there is a way to partition and label new disks _after_ the initial installation using /stand/sysinstall, _without_ having to commit to a full install. It's called wizard mode. I added a Maxtor 71260 1.2GB IDE disk to my system recently and had no trouble at all. Here's what you do: 1) Physically install the disk (mine is installed as wd2, which is unit 0 on my second IDE controller). 2) Boot the system and run /stand/sysinstall (be sure to do it on ttyv0 'cause it seems to be rather fond of running from the first virtual console and it behaves strangely if you do it from anywhere else (hopefully this will be fixed in Sysinstall: The Next Generation)). 3) Find your way to the 'Partition' menu, select the new drive, and partition it to taste. 4) When you have everything set up the way you like it, press 'w' to get into wizard mode. 5) At the prompt, type 'write' and then press ENTER. This will write the new partition table immediately. 6) Type 'quit' to get out of wizard mode and then press 'Q' to leave the partition editor. 7) Go the the 'Label' section of the program, and set up your FreeBSD filesystems as you see fit (make a note of the mount points you select because they won't be saved). 8) Once again, press 'w' to get into wizard mode and type 'write' to write your disklabel to the disk. 9) Quit all the way out of the systinstall program: you're pretty much done. The last step is to newfs the newly created filesystems and then add them to /etc/fstab. These are two things that you can't get sysinstall to do for you without committing to a full install first, but these steps are fairly easy to do by hand, and you really should know how to do this sort of thing anyway (install programs are nice, but learning how to fend for yourself is nicer). Just newfs the filesystems, make mount points and edit fstab accordingly. You can then mount the filesystems and begin using the disk right away. One thing I didn't do was try to coax the thing into writing a boot manager to the disk for me, but I didn't so much care about that since I wasn't planning on booting from the new drive (you can't boot from disks on the second IDE controller anyway). Even so, this too is something that can easily be done by hand (writing the bootblocks is easily done with disklabel -B wd? and booteasy can be installed seperately provided you have an MS-DOS boot floppy lying around). Even so, it would be nice to be able to do just the disk configuration part without being forced to go through a complete install or making an end run around the user interface. I expect this is one of the many things Jordan has on his TODO list. -Bill -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~T~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Møøse Illuminati: ignore it and be confused, or join it and be confusing! ~~~~~~ "Welcome to All Things BSDish! If it's not BSDish, it's crap!" ~~~~~~~
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