From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Apr 20 21:02:20 2008 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 DC835106566C for ; Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:02:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mail@ozzmosis.com) Received: from smtp.mel.people.net.au (smtp.mel.people.net.au [218.214.17.98]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 0A1E98FC17 for ; Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:02:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mail@ozzmosis.com) Received: (qmail 1446 invoked from network); 20 Apr 2008 21:02:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO blizzard.dnsalias.org) (218.215.135.248) by smtp.mel.people.net.au with SMTP; 20 Apr 2008 21:02:18 -0000 Received: by blizzard.dnsalias.org (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 3210C1707D; Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:02:17 +1000 (EST) Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:02:17 +1000 From: andrew clarke To: Andrew Wright Message-ID: <20080420210217.GB59438@ozzmosis.com> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OpenBSD -> FreeBSD migration 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: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:02:20 -0000 On Sun 2008-04-20 15:59:14 UTC-0400, Andrew Wright (andrewhw@ieee.org) wrote: > - it appears that FreeBSD and OpenBSD use the same partition > table format. Is this true? If so, I can potentially avoid > rebuilding an entire disk if I am right that ... > - FreeBSD can mount and read OpenBSD's version of the 4.2 BSD > filesystem implementation My understanding is that the second ISO image of FreeBSD (eg. 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso) is a "Live CD". That should enable you to boot FreeBSD from CD and attempt to mount the file system (read-only or read-write) that your OpenBSD installation lives on. > If both of these are true, I can simply install FreeBSD over > top of the OpenBSD /, /var and /usr partitions, and then be > able to mount the old /home. Is this something people do? I think prior to the FreeBSD install you would want to erase all files in /, /var and /usr to remove any cruft that would be otherwise left over from the previous OpenBSD installation. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I would be wary of file system reliability between two OSes, especially on a production system. On the other hand maybe there is someone reading this who is successfully dual booting FreeBSD and OpenBSD and sharing /home that may want to comment further. Failing that, you could do some testing on a spare PC or in a VM. I can't comment on the dump/restore or Linux compatibility.