Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:51:09 -0800 From: Kevin Oberman <kob6558@gmail.com> To: Devin Teske <devin.teske@fisglobal.com> Cc: Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk>, FreeBSD Stable Mailing List <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>, Joe Holden <lists@rewt.org.uk>, Alex Samorukov <ml@os2.kiev.ua>, Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au> Subject: Re: New BSD Installer Message-ID: <CAN6yY1uVhXMntWaK=P4dPrKY3aLR2fsKMWfS7Ncvpwy-XKM31Q@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <092c01cceb40$2dc8f240$895ad6c0$@fisglobal.com> References: <4F355A5B.9080007@rewt.org.uk> <4F35743B.4020302@os2.kiev.ua> <4F37DBA3.7030304@cran.org.uk> <20120213195554.O46120@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <092c01cceb40$2dc8f240$895ad6c0$@fisglobal.com>
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On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 9:43 AM, Devin Teske <devin.teske@fisglobal.com> wr= ote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd- >> stable@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Ian Smith >> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:15 AM >> To: Bruce Cran >> Cc: FreeBSD Stable Mailing List; Joe Holden; Alex Samorukov >> Subject: Re: New BSD Installer >> >> Strangely, the big push to GPT partitions was oft said to be because MBR >> slices provided too few partitions. > > That's part of it (no pun intended). > > The other big deal is that you can't exceed 2TB on a single primary parti= tion. > > >> I never found 4 * 6 much of a limit >> myself, and now the default install makes a Linux-like single partition, >> rendering dump & restore more or less unusable or at least impractical, > > I'm with you on this one. I really don't like the single-"/" setup. > > >> while booting multiple systems on GPT also seems to require Linux tools. >> >> I don't know whether this move away from BSD traditional filesystem >> partitioning (/, /var, /usr etc) to Linux-style came down from Core On >> High or is just the prerogative of installer-writers? =A0Jordan was both >> the latter and a big part of the former for many years, but I guess >> that's something that can be reverted if people feel to do so. >> > > Maybe a vote should be taken. There's about 12 votes in this office here = alone > for putting the partition scheme back the way it was (Colin Percival had = a great > formula for determining partition sizes). I suggest that both be implemented, which looks to the untrained eye as a straight-forward thing to implement, and then the install ask if a single partition or a traditional multi-partition system should be installed. I prefer multi and use that on all of my systems. I also really prefer GPT for a variety of reasons, but we need better tools to support things. I miss booteasy. Yes, you can get it to boot from a different partition, but it is a pain. I deal with it by putting FreeBSD on one disk and Windows on another when I want a dual-boot system. I put the MBR formatted (Windows) is first in the boot order, so I can just hit F5 to boot the FreeBSD disk. This works for me, but I suspect that lots of people would prefer having multiple OSes on a single disk...especially when it's a single spindle laptop. (I suspect laptops are more commonly dual-boot than most any other platform.) As for fdisk and bsdlabel, I'm happy to see both go. They have a horrid user interface and require a calculator to get right. Yes, I use them, but only because there is no other way to do some things. (sade(8) comes closer all of the time, though.) --=20 R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer E-mail: kob6558@gmail.com
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