Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:02:17 +1000 From: andrew clarke <mail@ozzmosis.com> To: Andrew Wright <andrewhw@ieee.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OpenBSD -> FreeBSD migration Message-ID: <20080420210217.GB59438@ozzmosis.com> In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSO.1.10.0804201527430.30316@U48.N136.QueensU.CA> References: <alpine.BSO.1.10.0804201527430.30316@U48.N136.QueensU.CA>
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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.
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