Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 17:01:41 +0200 From: "Michael Vondung" <michael@vcommunities.net> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Planning a FreeBSD desktop, basic questions. Message-ID: <001301c373be$9e8c9660$0200a8c0@tabby>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hello! My apologies for the length of this post. Summary: 4.x or 5.x for a = desktop machine, disk partitioning for a workstation, miscellaneous installation questions. Okay, the details! Now that I have my local FreeBSD server (mail/news, router, firewall) successfully running, I'm ready to tackle my = workstation. This is currently a system with a P4-2.6Ghz, 512MB RAM, an 80GB EIDE = disk, and "the usual" devices (CDR, CD/DVD player, network adapter and so on). = At this time it is running Windows XP, and I plan to keep it where it is. = To avoid having two operating systems on the same disk, I've purchased an identical HD (WD800BB) where FreeBSD will live on. Since I don't = download movies or obscene amounts of MP3s, this is all a bit spacey. The XP disk only uses 35 of 80GB and I doubt the FreeBSD one will even be this = "full". How times change. :) 4.8 or 5.1? My "personal server" happily runs 4.8R and will be updated to 4.9 when -stable becomes a bit more stable. It consists of older hardware and I = don't plan to upgrade it to 5.x any time soon, if ever. But what do you = recommend for the workstation? It doesn't have dual-processors and all of its = hardware seems to be supported by 4.x. This machine, though, will eventually get = 5.x. I'm wondering if it makes sense to put 4.8 on it now or if it would be a better choice to just go with 5.1R. My primary concern here is ease of upgrading. Will it be difficult to go from 4.9 to 5.2, somewhere down = the road? Mergemaster is a rather scary looking critter. Differently put, = will there be tools provided to allow this without too much fiddling? Partitions If anything brings out the perfectionist in me, it is figuring out how = to partition a disk. What I have in mind for the 80GB FreeBSD disk for the workstation is this: / =3D 512MB (too spacey, but that should be plenty for future releases) swap =3D 3GB (see notes below) /var =3D 1GB (probably too much, but the room's there) /tmp =3D 1GB (256MB would probably be enough, but why not?) /usr =3D the rest (essentially 74GB) The machine currently has 512MB of RAM, but since I won't have the = financial means or desire to get a new complete system in the next two to four = years, it's possible that I'll upgrade the memory first to 1GB and later to = 1.5GB if needed or wanted. 3GB would then be an acceptable amount of swap = space, but I certainly won't need this much right now, and I might never. Am I overdoing it, or doesn't it really matter since I don't seem to lack = storage room anyway? Then there's this huge /usr partition. 74GB. I thought about splitting = this between /home and /usr, but I have honestly no idea (and experience) how much space I'll end up using where. It probably wouldn't matter since I won't need more 30 or 40GB of that space. There's also the possibility = that I might end up using the second disk (another 80GB one that currently belongs to XP) for FreeBSD also. That would then be for /home, if for = some unexpected reason I should need more space. In other words, I would like = to keep this option open. This workstation won't hold "critical" data, so I do not plan on backing = up entire partitions. If all of this is inefficient and I'm missing the obvious, please let me know. Keep in mind that I -am- new to the FreeBSD = and Unix world. I'm open for suggestions here. Miscellaneous - FreeBSD will be on the second disk. Is Sysinstall, if FreeBSD is = installed on the slave, going to ask if I'd like to put the BootMgr on the first drive? - In case I decide to make the second disk (with FreeBSD) the master = drive some time in the not-so-near future, will it be fairly simple to = accomplish this? Only jumper rearrangement, MBR and fstab editing? - Anything else I need to pay particular attention to? Besides backing = up important files on the XP disk in case something goes wrong. Thanks! Cheers, Michael
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?001301c373be$9e8c9660$0200a8c0>