From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Dec 31 06:14:19 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B1011065670 for ; Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:14:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from xaero@xaerolimit.net) Received: from mail-ew0-f54.google.com (mail-ew0-f54.google.com [209.85.215.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02BE18FC08 for ; Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:14:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy24 with SMTP id 24so5502050ewy.13 for ; Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:14:17 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.213.34.203 with SMTP id m11mr11162791ebd.12.1293776057186; Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:14:17 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.213.28.148 with HTTP; Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:13:57 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20101231105353.S36121@sola.nimnet.asn.au> References: <20101229120038.3DFB0106591A@hub.freebsd.org> <20101230133126.O36121@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20101231105353.S36121@sola.nimnet.asn.au> From: Chris Brennan Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 01:13:57 -0500 Message-ID: To: Ian Smith Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: Bruce Cran , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: a new hard-drive in a 2y/o laptop 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: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:14:19 -0000 On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Ian Smith wrote: > Goodo. I'll try chopping a bit too .. > Cleaning out my cruft, leaving only yours :D > Assuming that's 'oseek=0', which is the default anyway. > yes, a typo in my e-mail only, I got the cmd right in the installer. > Fair enough. 'what BIOS thinks' here is fine on modern disks/boxes, but > the issue here is what a new(ish) user might conceive of as 'modern'! > I'm left to assume that I have a modern system w/ a modern hard-drive (duh lol) > Yes, you should go with this. 'modern BIOS versions' here refers to > anything later than (roughly) the mid-90s! An 'old machine' in this > context - remembering sysinstall was originally written then - was one > not using LBA (logical block addressing), when 8GB was a fairly big HD > at least for IDE, when the 'big guys' were mostly using SCSI disks. > > That message is actually a lot less scary than it was until a couple of > years ago, when it used to cause much more angst and regular posts, see: > > > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/disks.c.diff?r1=1.160;r2=1.161;f=h > I think it's fair to say, this is still causing some angst. :( I will check out your link when my brain is far less foggy then it is right now. I'm a bit woozy you could say, nyquil works fast on an empty stomach! > You don't say what alternative geometry you entered here, if any .. but > really this whole thing needs to go away. Maybe it needs some heuristic > to see if it could _even possibly_ be an ancient HD needing alternative > geometry? In any case, anything after 2000 is definitely 'modern'. > Indeed, I didn't, because I wasn't given a choice by sysinstall, it made the choice for me. > Copying this to Bruce Cran, who's been hacking on sysinstall lately. > Left Bruce in the CC, hopefully he'll offer some useful advice. :D *crosses fingers* > Ok, I've been hunting for a commit message I noticed relatively recently > and can't find just now, but I think it was to the effect that Bruce had > fixed some breakage when choosing 'A' for auto-partitioning, which you > indicated having chosen above. > It would appear that the layout changes with each new major revision of FBSD, I have different defaults on the old Sony VAIO on the floor next to me that is running 7.3/i386. > Indeed you have, and sorry I missed recalling this issue till now. > > Bruce may have something to add, but if I'm not mistaken you may just > need to NOT use 'A' with your 8.1 install media, but to enter values > manually. Alternatively, this may be a good time to grab an 8.2-BETA1 > disc1 or memstick image where this is likely fixed, but in any case, if > I had a FreeBSD slice with even half of ~700GB I'd be very much more > generous with / and /tmp, and /var if you'll be using eg big databases. > > HTH, Ian > No worries on missing it, I'm not sure that helped, I farted around with it again earlier today with little more in the way of success. What I tried was to just set up '/' and swamp and it still prompted me about not being able to find /dev/ad4s1b. I will grab an 8.2B1 image tomorrow when I get up and try that, see if it fairs better. Right now, I must sleep, this side of the world is now just after 1am! C-