From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 17 13:45:19 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 A7C191065670 for ; Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:45:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 651288FC25 for ; Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:45:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-53-77.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.53.77]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 635961E8FB; Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:45:17 +0100 (CET) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id nAHDjFOh001579; Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:45:16 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:45:15 +0100 From: Polytropon To: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <20091117144515.4bc739ee.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20091116180126.GA48289@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> References: <20091116120014.A477010656F8@hub.freebsd.org> <20091117022555.Y65262@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20091116180126.GA48289@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> 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: Polytropon , Ian Smith , David Allen , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Partition naming, fstab, and geli 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: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:45:19 -0000 On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:01:26 -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: > I tend to use 'a' if > the drive will be entirely one slice and one partition used for some > special work or scratch space, but stick with 'd..h' if there will be > more than one partition and just leave 'a' alone - for no other > reason than habit. And I tend to omit the slice at all. :-) # newfs -U /dev/ad1 # mount /dev/ad1 /somewhere This is so easy because I very often use sysinstall for initializing the disk when installing, but any further disk adding is done via CLI as shown above, because it's much simpler - and I didn't see any reason to create a slice - even if I wanted to have more than one partition, which I often don't want. > As for 'd' vs 'e', sometime a long time and many generations ago there > was a convention of reserving 'd' for something. I don't remember what > it was. It was pre FreeBSD 3 and pre 1997 and maybe even pre any FreeBSD > and applied in some earlier Unix-en before the court cases, but not after. > That old convention accounts for documentation starting with using 'e' for > extra partitions and skipping 'd'. But, whatever that old convention > was, it has not been used for so long that it is meaningless nowdays > and 'd' can be used for whatever extra partition you want. You say it: I KNEW that there was something someone had on his mind when reserving 'd' for something special... but WHAT it exactly was, I don't know. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...