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Date:      Mon, 8 Jun 1998 21:58:23 -0400 (EDT)
From:      CyberPeasant <djv@bedford.net>
To:        rfg@monkeys.com (Ronald F. Guilmette)
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Did I screw up?  Installing FreeBSD and cylinder boundaries.
Message-ID:  <199806090158.VAA29062@lucy.bedford.net>
In-Reply-To: <9253.897336669@monkeys.com> from "Ronald F. Guilmette" at "Jun 8, 98 01:11:09 pm"

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Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> 
> Yesterday, I tried to do a fresh install of FreeBSD 2.2.6 from the CD ROM
> set that I recently purchased from Walnut Creek.
> 
 ....
> My friend said that my install was basically broken from the get-go because
> I failed to have the one and only non-swap partition that I had requested
> to have made be aligned to the exact start of a cylinder boundary.  He said
> that this was a requirement in cases where I was planning to boot from the
> one and only hard drive on the system... i.e. the one I was installing
> FreeBSD onto and that the only way that you can get away with having the
> FreeBSD root partition _not_ be so aligned was if you would be normally
> booting from some other device.
> 
> Is my friend correct about all of this?  Must the root partition for FreeBSD
> be aligned to a cylinder boundary?  If so, why didn't _something_ yell at me
> during the automated install process and tell me that I was screwing up when
> I failed to properly align that partition to such a boundary?
> 
> (My friend says that the install processes ``Assumed that you knew what the
> hell you were doing.''  My response?  ``Well, obviously that was a poor
> assumption on its part.'')

Heh. An install process that "assumes you know what you're doing" consists
of a pile of tar files, tar, newfs, disklabel and fdisk.

> This all happened yesterday.  Today, I am still rather sleep-deprived, and
> now, on top of that I get to also feel both guilty and stupid.  Swell.  Did
> I really deserve all this?

No. It's possible that the install was screwed up, but not for that reason,
I think.  Try it again after a nap, and walk through the installation,
taking defaults along the way. The concept "cylinder boundary" is a little
vague with respect to most modern drives. If I'm wrong, I hope somebody
tells me quick.

Dave
-- 
        DISCLAIMER: If it can be disclaimed, it is.
	DISCLAIMER: In particular, I don't represent any organization.

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