Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 03:56:22 -0800 (PST) From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> To: Hiten Pandya <hitmaster2k@yahoo.com> Cc: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_Romildo_Malaquias?= <romildo@iceb.ufop.br>, newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Questions regarding FreeBSD installation Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10111240335550.16902-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> In-Reply-To: <20011122140529.39067.qmail@web21101.mail.yahoo.com>
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On Thu, 22 Nov 2001, Hiten Pandya wrote: > > Note: Section 2.5.2 (Disk Organization) of the > > handbook are not very > > well written, since the use of the terms "partition" > > and "slice" is > > pretty confusing in the text. This is due to the > > overloaded use > > of "partition" . Partition is used in two ways (it has two different meanings) so you're right--it's overloaded. Partition means, first, a DOS-type partition (one of the four the pc architecture permits on a physical hard drive, of which one can be an extended partition). FreeBSD also calls this partition a slice, e.g., ad0s1, ad0s2. FreeBSD can then divide this slice (during the installation process, in accordance with your instructions) into what are also called partitions; the partitions of the slice hold file systems like /, /var, and /usr, typically. Thus ad0s1a, ad0s1b, etc. (my understanding was that you could have eight of them) are the partitions of the slice. a is typically (by default) the root partition (/), b in swap (no mount point), e is /var, and f is /usr. ad0s1c is the entire slice. It's possible to use two (or more) DOS-style partitions, even putting them on different drives. Some people like to put /usr/local and /home on another partition; when you delete a partition to reinstall, it's the DOS-style partition that is the unit that gets deleted. So you could reinstall /, swap, /usr, and /var, but leave /usr/local (perhaps including /usr/local/home) alone, so it will be there after you reinstall. I think the latest version of the handbook (with 4.4) has tried to clarify the use of the term "partition" and its use to mean different things in different contexts. I'd say "HTH" but it probably doesn't....summing up: A DOS partition is a FreeBSD slice. A FreeBSD slice can be divided up into partitions that hold file systems or swap. The meaning of partition is different in these two situations. Annelise > > What it means in the simplest of terms is, a partition > is the actual space you disect out of your hard-drive > for FreeBSD or any other Operating System. > > A slice, is a way you can organise the inner layout of > the partition you have dedicated to FreeBSD, for > example: > > /dev/ad0s1 - FreeBSD. > ===================================== > /dev/ad0s1e - /usr > /dev/ad0s1f - /var > > and so on... > > you can have up to 16 of these slices inside a FreeBSD > partition. > > Still unclear... mail me... > > ===== > regards, > Hiten Pandya > <hitmaster2k@yahoo.com> > <http://geocities.com/hitmaster2k>; > ---------------------------------------------------- -- Annelise Anderson Author of: FreeBSD: An Open-Source Operating System for Your PC Available from: mall.daemonnews.org and amazon.com Book Website: http://www.bittreepress.com/FreeBSD/introbook/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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