From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Aug 24 17:22:53 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Received: from smtp01.primenet.com (smtp01.primenet.com [206.165.6.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 143E814D1B for ; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:22:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr09.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp01.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA04919; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:19:47 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr09.primenet.com(206.165.6.209) via SMTP by smtp01.primenet.com, id smtpd004874; Tue Aug 24 17:19:37 1999 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr09.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA09541; Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:19:36 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199908250019.RAA09541@usr09.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD Alpha FS compatible with Intel? To: mikel@vintners.net Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:19:36 +0000 (GMT) Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <9908242324.AA02499@slugbt.zso.dec.com> from "Mike Lempriere" at Aug 24, 99 04:24:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Is the FreeBSD UFS identical between platforms? More specifically, can I > use an external SCSI drive with only data, on either an Alpha or Intel > platform by merely moving the cable and powering up in the new config? The table of contents layout is different. The actual on disk structures are the same. So if you build a small module to skip the platform appropriate portion of the bootstrap, and decode the platform specific portion of the disklable, you can use them between platforms easily. This is generally most simply accomplished with a removable disk, since you can skip the boot sector stuff (assuming a "dangerously dedicated" disk), and deal only with the disklabel code. I run a JAZ disk back and forth between the two with fairly trivial hacks (WARNING: I'm usinging modified versions of Julian's SLICE code to do this, and it won't work in -current without lots of hacks, so you would probably be better off hacking your own disklabel recognition). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message