From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jun 8 18:36:06 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA1C816A4CE for ; Tue, 8 Jun 2004 18:36:06 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail814.megamailservers.com (mail814.carrierinternetsolutions.com [69.49.106.24]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0BE4843D2D for ; Tue, 8 Jun 2004 18:36:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from strick@covad.net) X-POP-User: strick.covad.net Received: from mist.nodomain (h-67-101-100-43.snfccasy.dynamic.covad.net [67.101.100.43])i58IZuAI024060; Tue, 8 Jun 2004 14:36:01 -0400 Received: from mist.nodomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mist.nodomain (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i58IZntC000602; Tue, 8 Jun 2004 11:35:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dan@mist.nodomain) Received: (from dan@localhost) by mist.nodomain (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id i58IZna9000601; Tue, 8 Jun 2004 11:35:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dan) Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 11:35:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Dan Strick Message-Id: <200406081835.i58IZna9000601@mist.nodomain> To: daudabraimah@yahoo.com cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: free X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 18:36:06 -0000 On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:44:44 -0700 (PDT), dauda braimah wrote: >> > How do I install freebsd and another Os in a pc with > 2gigabyte hdd disk eg Window XP and freebsd. > > How do I format a system that has freebsd 4.5 in it >> I strongly recommend against trying to shoehorn XP and FreeBSD onto a 2 GB disk. Windows XP requires about 1 GB plus 1.5 times as much disk space as you have main memory for a swapfile. If you have enough main memory (so that you never have to swap) you can save space by deleting the swap file after Windows XP is installed. You can also choose not to install all the possible parts of FreeBSD. I don't know how much space you can reasonably save. I install everything and after building a bunch of ports I find that I am using almost 1.8 GB in the /usr partition (including /usr/local but not /usr/ports). Given that modern disk drives cost only about $1 per GB, the extra effort required to fit both OS onto a 2 GB disk is just not worth it. In any case, if you insist on trying this anyway, I would install XP first. If possible, I would pre-create an empty 1+ GB type 11 MBR partition (DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT) and zero it, leaving the rest of the disk unused. Otherwise I would use the XP installation program to set up the disk and try to convince it to allocate only 1 GB or so for XP. Try to make sure it creates a Fat32 file system and not a FAT16 or NTFS file system (because FAT16 is too inefficient and FreeBSD cannot reliably write into NTFS file systems). Then I would install FreeBSD in the rest of the disk, installing only the minimum amount of software that I needed and not expecting to install much if any additional software afterwards. Don't even think about loading an elaborate GUI. You can install X11 and if TWM is not enough you can try something like FVWM. During the FreeBSD disk setup phase, I would install the usual FreeBSD MBR bootstrap program on top of whatever XP installed. This won't be an issue with a 2 GB disk, but I would try to insure that the FreeBSD root partition lies within the first 8 GB of the the disk in order to avoid various bootstrap configuration problems. Dan Strick