Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 23:27:20 +0000 (GMT) From: Kieran <kieran@esperi.demon.co.uk> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Dual/Triple boot Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.02A.9901112250230.1789-100000@cuchulainn.tirnanog>
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Hi,
I guess that I will get an RTFM on the following two questions, (and I
really don't mind that) but what I want to avoid is spending long
periods of time to discover that I am attempting the impossible. I have
had a look in the mailing list archive, mentioned below.
The three things I want to do are related to the way I set my hard disk
up. They are:
1. Can I get FreeBSD to use a Linux swap partition?
I have searched the archive for info, and the advice seems to be that
normal practise is to get both oses to share the FreeBSD swap space. The
same basic advice is included in the Linux+FreeBSD mini-howto.
My FreeBSD partition is cramped and I would like to use the linux swap.
2. Can I mount Linux file systems (eg my Linux home)?
I spoke to someone at the weekend who suggested that a 3.0stable release
is due shortly which allows this. The conversation happened after a trip
to the pub, so I don't really trust my memory :)
3. (Probably off-topic) Can I adjust an extended partition to reclaim
space?
I know. Go and ask a linux group :)
Those who think I should RTFM can stop here. Some details of the problem
I want to solve are given below.
This is my partition table as seen by Linux fdisk:
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 784 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 126 1012063+ a5 BSD/386
/dev/hda2 127 784 5285385 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 127 133 56196 83 Linux native
/dev/hda6 134 580 3590496 83 Linux native
/dev/hda7 581 606 208813+ 83 Linux native
/dev/hda8 607 670 514048+ 83 Linux native
/dev/hda9 671 734 514048+ 83 Linux native
/dev/hda10 735 751 136521 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda11 752 784 265041 83 Linux native
And when I use Linux fdisk to look at the BSD disklabel I get...
BSD disklabel command (m for help): p
8 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg]
a: 102400 63 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 1*- 7*)
b: 262144 102463 swap # (Cyl. 7*-23*)
c: 2024127 63 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 1*-126*)
e: 1536000 364607 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 23*-119*)
f: 123583 1900607 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 119*-126*)
When I partitioned the 6Gb disk originally, I put a 1 Gb partition at
the beginning in case I wanted to install an MS OS later on. The rest of
the disk is a large extended partition which has Linux installed. Is
there a way of reducing the size of this partition without losing the
contents completely?
I put FreeBSD on the first partition, and I am concerned about potential
lack of space. It would be very helpful if I could write to some of the
disk space outside of the dedicated FreeBSD slice.
I also have a 3Gb /usr (linux) which could be halved (I am using 25%).
I would love to reclaim some of this space, because eventually, I know
I'll need it. I can probably back up the contents of this partition
somewhere, so can I cut the extended partition hda2 without wiping all
of that?
Finally, if FreeBSD cannot write to the linux swap space, do I really
need a swap partition? I have a 128Mb K6 box, and under Linux this is
the typical output of "cat /proc/meminfo":
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 131055616 127537152 3518464 71938048 13139968 63774720
Swap: 133885952 45056 133840896
MemTotal: 127984 kB
MemFree: 3436 kB
MemShared: 70252 kB
Buffers: 12832 kB
Cached: 62280 kB
SwapTotal: 130748 kB
SwapFree: 130704 kB
As you can see, the swap space isn't exactly overworked... :)
However, in both the linux and FreeBSD setup routines, I got dire
warnings (or dark hints) about what happens when you don't have enough
swap. I feel that perhaps this may have been overstated for a box with
this much memory. Any opinions?
Thanks in advance for any help, and sorry about taking up space in your
mailboxen :)
Kieran
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