From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 26 23:08:54 2009 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 C43361065670 for ; Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:08:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 842EB8FC17 for ; Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:08:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-71-245.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.71.245]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C7F23D6A5; Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:08:53 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n8QN8pUl001503; Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:08:52 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:08:51 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Bret Busby Message-Id: <20090927010851.b598be38.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Question about FreeBSD installation procedure X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:08:54 -0000 On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:01:18 +0800 (WST), Bret Busby wrote: > From what I understand, FreeBSD (and possibly all BSD) uses hard > disc slices rather than partitions, and therefore cannot > easily be installed in a free partition, but needs for > hard disc slices to be used. I see a terminology problem first. FreeBSD's slices are "DOS primary partitions", and FreeBSD needs one of them to be installed into. FreeBSD's partitions are... they are like... erm... they are partitions. :-) You can imagine them as a subdivision to hold a file system. Slices are divided into at least one partition, or more than one, e. g. for the file system root, the swap partition, the home partition. Please note that (hard) disk != (optical) disc. > Is it yet possible to install FreeBSD into a hard disc > partition, rather than needing to install into hard disc > slices? Both words are refering to the same thing. Everything you need is a free "DOS primary partition", which is called a slice. > I have attached a copy of the screenshot showing the partition table; I > wanted to install FreeBSD into sda8. I cannot see it. Furthermore, I'm not familiar with the naming convention of Linux. As far as I remember, sd refers to disks, and sda is the first disk. sda8 would be... the 8th partition on it? Is this even possible? >From FreeBSD's naming convention, ad refers to ATA disks. The first disk is ad0. You would possibly already have other operating systems on that disks, e. g. occupying slices ("DOS primary partitions") s1 and s2, so ad0s1 and ad0s2 cannot be used. If there's unpartitioned space, you start the installation of FreeBSD with creating a new slice, ad0s3. Into this slice the installation goes, and the partitions are ad0s3b for the swap and ad0s3a for /; if you do partitioning with filesystems on their own partitions, you can of course do that. Refer to the handbook's chapter about installing FreeBSD for a much more detailed explaination. > Can this be done. See above, and note that FreeBSD needs a "DOS primary partition" which is different from a "logical volume inside an extended partition". -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...