From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Dec 7 18:40:58 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 046AA16A419 for ; Fri, 7 Dec 2007 18:40:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jerrymc@gizmo.acns.msu.edu) Received: from gizmo.acns.msu.edu (gizmo.acns.msu.edu [35.8.1.43]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BC5313C447 for ; Fri, 7 Dec 2007 18:40:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jerrymc@gizmo.acns.msu.edu) Received: from gizmo.acns.msu.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gizmo.acns.msu.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id lB7Ia3f5053327; Fri, 7 Dec 2007 13:36:03 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jerrymc@gizmo.acns.msu.edu) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by gizmo.acns.msu.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id lB7Ia3Jg053326; Fri, 7 Dec 2007 13:36:03 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jerrymc) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 13:36:03 -0500 From: Jerry McAllister To: David Morton Message-ID: <20071207183603.GB53025@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> References: <3FCDB80A8B104BC1BCEF3A0696B55144@LenC2008922a26> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3FCDB80A8B104BC1BCEF3A0696B55144@LenC2008922a26> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD on a PC with Windows 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: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:40:58 -0000 On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 11:10:28PM +1100, David Morton wrote: > I have been out of work so long (since being diagnosed as autistic and > scared) that even as an IT professional, I now get very anxious about > messing with my PC. > > However, I got a magazine that included FreeBSD/i386 6.2 on the DVD and I > have always wanted to play with BSD. My past experience included UNIX > System V, some Solaris 7 or 8, and other variants, so you know a bit of > history. > > Anyway, I have a laptop preinstalled with Vista Home Premium and I would > like to also run BSD on it. In reading your installation documentation, I > do not see anything that suggests I can install FreeBSD onto my PC without > wiping Windows. The process is fairly easy. It it called 'dual booting' and is covered in the FreeBSD Handbook. I have done this on numerous machines over the last ten years or so. The basic steps are as follows -- but you should study up on each yourself. -- Make room to install FreeBSD. FreeBSD does not require a dedicated disk, but it does require at least one dedicated primary slice - which is called a primary partition in MS World. Making room can consist of any of: - Use a separate disk - Shrink the existing slice[s] (primary partitions) and create a new slice in the freed up space. - delete an existing slice (primary partition) and turn it in to a FreeBSD slice. Probably the middle one is what you will need to do on a laptop. First of all, you need to know that both MS and FreeBSD allow only four (4) slices - which MS calls primary partitions. MS allows some various kinds of extended 'partition' and FreeBSD permits you to subdivide the slice in to pieces which it calls partitions - nice confusion. To shrink the existing slice[s] you need some specialized piece of software. Some come with FreeBSD that will do the job for older MS filesystem types such as FAT, but they will not shrink NTFS and most new systems are coming with NTFS. So, there are some commercial utilities and a couple of new freeware versions that some people have spoken highly of. I have sucessfully used Partition Magic 7.0 many times to shrink and convert primary partitions. But it does not work on USB disks. So recently I got Partition Magic 8.0 which claims to work on USB, but I could not get it to work. It failed to run from booting from CD. I got a rescue disk version running, but it wouldn't even see my new USB 2 harddisk let alone work on it. So, I sent it back for a refund. - NOTE Amazon-Nothing But Software was good about doing the refund promptly. Anyway, see if you can get a 7.0 version of PM and use it. Another I haven't tried is Partition Commander. I have heard some people say it works well. There are also a couple of fairly new freeware utilities I have heard people say good things about. One is called 'Gparted' and it is an ISO you download, burn on to a CD and boot from. I can't remember the other one at the moment, but it is supposed to look a lot like working with Partition Magic 7.0. Run the utility, whatever it is. Shrink the existing slice/primary partition. They will probably use MS terminology and so will probably call it a primary partition. Try to free up 10 GB or more if you can. Have the utility create a primary partition in the newly freed up space. It must be a primary partition type - not an extended partition. Partition Magic and maybe some of the other utilities will whine and complain if you try to make a second primary partition and tell you it could make the system unbootable, but it works just fine since you will shortly be turning that primary partition type in to a FreeBSD type slice which MS will not recognize and will ignore. Just make it create a primary partition with a FAT32 type file system in the freed up space. (That will change when you do the FreeBSD install) Finish up the process and get out of the utility and remove the utility's boot CD or floppy. NOTE: If you are using Partition Magic, it works much better to make the 'rescue floppies' and boot and run from them rather than an installed version of it. In fact, you are prevented from running it on the same disk that you are booted to. So, with only one hard disk, you have to run from floppies. NOTE ALSO: If you have a spare slice available (remember, only 4 are allowed) and if your MS slice (Primary Partition) is an NTFS type, then you may want to make another small slice just below the FreeBSD slice of a couple GB and make it FAT32. Then you would have some easy space to use to transfer files back and forth between MS and FreeBSD. That is because, so far, FreeBSD does not write NTFS. It can read it fine, but is not quite ready to write - although I heard that progress is being made. So, then you might have slice 1 = Diag/recover, slice 2 = MS (Vista, XP), slice 3 = FAT32 transfer space, slice 4 = FreeBSD. -- Once you have the disk properly redivided with room to install FreeBSD then put in the FreeBSD install disk and start it up and do the install. The only significant thing to check on is to make sure you are installing to the right place. Slices are numbered 1,2,3,4. Your new free slice will be at least number 2 and maybe as high as number 4, depending on how many others are used for the MS OS. If there is a diag slice and an MS OS slice, it will be 3 and if they also add an MS data slice, then it will be 4. Lets say, for example that it is 3 and that your disk is SATA. The disk name would be ad0 and the disk slice full name would be ad0s3 (If the disk is SCSI or SAS or USB, it would be da0 and the slice would be da0s3, but SATA is the most likely). You can look through the dmesg output from the boot to find out what type of disk it is. It will show up in the beginning of the lines that tell about the disks. Just look for ad0 or da0 -- if there was a second disk, it would be ad1 or da1 - disks are numbered starting with 0. In the installer it will give you a list of slices to install to. Just make sure you select the one that you intend to use for FreeBSD. Don't select the one[s] MS is on. -- Next, you have to decide how you want to divide the new FreeBSD slice. Actually, you should do this before you start the installer, after you know about how much space you freed up from shrinking the other stuff. Let's say you freed up just a mite over 16GB (16384 MB). The following might be good. / 192 MB swap 1024 MB (eg 1 GB) /tmp 256 MB /usr 2048 MB /var 2048 MB /home all the rest - around 10820 MB minus some system use. That would give you some room to install a few things and experiment, but not to run any major size server type application or to build something as big as openoffice (install that from prebuilt packages anyway. It is too big to bother building from source) If you are going to build and install some bigger stuff - Apache and Firefox for example, you will want to make /usr much bigger and move /usr/ports to /home and make a link. Alternatively, you might want to just have / and swap so everything goes in to / (root). In such a small system that is also private, that can be a useful way to do it, but in larger systems, there are advantages of breaking things up separating things. Handling backups and recoveries and walling off potential runaway processes filling disk are the biggest reasons for breaking things up. Ease of building a system is a reason for putting it all (except for swap) in one partition/filesystem. Swap should be in its own space. -- Then get on past the disk build and go on to installing stuff. Decide what you want to install - you should also think about this before hand - and choose those items and let it run. It will ask you where to install from. If you have a good internet connection, do the install from the net - ftp site. If not, install from the CD/DVD. Make sure to install the ports tree. -- Do a system upgrade to get any security fixes and have the ports tree updated. That is using csup. You have to create a csup config file. The process is pretty well documented. The update takes place over the net. To do it, you will have to have included source in your install. -- You will also want to install Xorg. Probably you will also want Firefox and Thunderbird, openoffice (from a prebuilt package) and maybe some games. Some people think KDE and Gnome are essential, but I don't really like them. For Xorg to be usable, you will need some XWindows manager, but a simpler one may be better. I happen to use AfterStep. There are a couple of others that are less bloated too. I can't think of the names at the moment. -- Get on the machine, log in and experiment around. Make sure you make a regular account for yourself and put that in the wheel group so you can su to root when needed to manage the system. -- have fun. ////jerry > > I also have restricted web access so cannot access you web site, so I would > like to know if FreeBSD will install in a way that will not kill Windows on > my PC? > > I have to ask this, because I once had an old PC and put Solaris on it, and > that required a dedicated drive. The PC is now dead, so I have to make it > all work on one machine. > > Thanks, David > > David Morton > E: totoaus@gmail.com > M: 0400 560 330 > H: 03 6295 0278 > > 80 Rocky Bay Road > Deep Bay, TAS 7112 > AUSTRALIA > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"