From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 19 17:26:07 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6104A16A41F for ; Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:26:07 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from smtp3.server.rpi.edu (smtp3.server.rpi.edu [128.113.2.3]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05DFC43D48 for ; Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:26:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.netel.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by smtp3.server.rpi.edu (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j6JHQ2B0027196; Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:26:04 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <42DC1173.6020307@axe.homelinux.net> References: <42DC1173.6020307@axe.homelinux.net> Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:26:01 -0400 To: Ross Kendall Axe , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Garance A Drosihn Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-CanItPRO-Stream: default X-RPI-SA-Score: undef - spam-scanning disabled X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . canit . ca) on 128.113.2.3 Cc: Subject: Re: /boot on a separate partition X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:26:07 -0000 At 9:30 PM +0100 7/18/05, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: > >... I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition >at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall >is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to >diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I doubt you can on FreeBSD. The problem is that the OS would have to mount both / and /boot before it could do anything, and FreeBSD doesn't do that. It assumes the partition that you are loading from is '/', and uses that to find (for instance) /etc/fstab so it can find out what the other partitions are. I know that linux supports this, as well as some other clever trickery with partitions at system-startup, but FreeBSD doesn't. >I don't particularly want to go for the standard 'small / partition >and separate partitions for /usr, /var, /home...' since I only have >a 1GB drive to play with and judging the partition sizes down the >nearest KB would be... tricky. Create a small-ish / partition, a swap partition, and huge /usr partition. FreeBSD creates a symlink from /home to /usr/home, so your home directories are in /usr anyway. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu