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Date:      Mon, 22 May 2000 20:49:25 +0100
From:      Mark Ovens <mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org>
To:        Kent Stewart <kstewart@3-cities.com>
Cc:        leegold <leegold@erols.com>, FreeBSD-Questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ques:  partition, slice, disk label, mounting point
Message-ID:  <20000522204925.B2835@parish>
In-Reply-To: <39298D57.955E8300@3-cities.com>; from kstewart@3-cities.com on Mon, May 22, 2000 at 12:41:11PM -0700
References:  <001601bfc3a1$f687a920$5edf7ad1@leegold1> <39298D57.955E8300@3-cities.com>

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On Mon, May 22, 2000 at 12:41:11PM -0700, Kent Stewart wrote:
> 
> 
> leegold wrote:
> > 
> > I've read tons of stuff on the web. still trying to understand the basics of
> > the FreeBSD installation. maybe if anyone could explain the following term,
> > concepts it would make a dent:
> > 
> > disk labeling  (vs. slices, partitions, mounting points ).
> > slices, (vs partitions, what's the difference).
> > mounting points.
> > how dirs (eg. \ ) are mounted to the partitions ( or is it slices ), why,
> > how, when?
> 
> The \ concept has to go. It is now the way it was originally
> developed. Microsoft just didn't understand that the / key was easier
> to get to than the \ key was.
> 

Maybe Billy G is English? On a UK keyboard `\` is between `Z` and
Left-Shift and `/` is the same as a US keyboard (I think), next to
Right-Shift ;)

> It will be hard to talk to someone outside of the FreeBSD community
> about FreeBSD terminology. I have a great deal of trouble with the
> term slice. No matter what you do that conflicts with current
> terminology. It is the 100+K FreeBSD users against the 100+M users
> that don't understand. If you add a FreeBSD slice to an HD, your bios
> talks about it being a partition. I think we used a terminology that
> goes against the wind so to speak.
> 
> When you think about the term slice, it also fits because you have
> really sliced the drive up and are creating a super extended
> partition. Since I am used to the FreeBSD usage, trying to install
> Linux on a system has been difficult. I need one system that will boot
> Linux and setting up one on my systems is really difficult. I don't
> have any problem adding FreeBSD and it is because of the slice
> concept. I added FreeBSD to an old system with NT 4 on it and both
> needed to be under 8GB to boot. The FreeBSD 4.0 slice located after
> the extended partition containing the NT boot worked just fine. It
> also made copying the existing disk structure from a 5GB to a 20GB a
> snap :).
> 
> Some rules are: an HD can have 4 primary partitions on it. One of
> those partitions can be an extended partition. A slice is a primary
> partition and you can have more than 1. A slice can be larger than
> 8.4GB and your system will boot if and only if your / parition is
> separated from the other partitions. The / partition has to be totatly
> located in front of cylinder 1024, which is ~8.4GB using LBA. I go
> with a 100MB / partition and that has around 30% freespace. I separate
> out /var, /tmp, and /usr. I have a 500MB /var, a 1.5GB /tmp, and
> everything else is assigned to /usr. These sizes are extremely
> generous. When you have 12GB free, what is 500MB more or less :). Each
> FreeBSD partition is a mount point. Since they mount onto your /
> partition, they need unique names. The names for /, /var, /tmp, and
> /usr are not variables. They have to mount with those names precisely.
> Changing /usr to /kent would be like renaming your windows/system32 to
> /windows/lee and expecting windows to work. It won't.
> 
> I add my users in /home which is linked to /usr/home. I can cd to
> ~seti and end up in /home/seti. The advantage in using the /home
> concept.
> 
> There is a lot to learn.
> 
> Have fun,
> 
> Kent
> 
> > 
> > Thanks (newbie)
> > 
> > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
> 
> -- 
> Kent Stewart
> Richland, WA
> 
> mailto:kstewart@3-cities.com
> http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html
> FreeBSD News http://daily.daemonnews.org/
> 
> SETI(Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @ HOME
> http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
> 
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message

-- 
        ...and on the eighth day God created UNIX
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