From owner-freebsd-questions Tue May 23 0:10:38 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from rhenium.btinternet.com (rhenium.btinternet.com [194.73.73.93]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9643D37BC4B for ; Tue, 23 May 2000 00:10:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org) Received: from [62.7.102.59] (helo=parish.my.domain) by neodymium with esmtp (Exim 2.05 #1) id 12tyCh-0000Ow-00; Mon, 22 May 2000 20:49:32 +0100 Received: (from mark@localhost) by parish.my.domain (8.9.3/8.9.3) id UAA02990; Mon, 22 May 2000 20:49:25 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from mark) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 20:49:25 +0100 From: Mark Ovens To: Kent Stewart Cc: leegold , FreeBSD-Questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ques: partition, slice, disk label, mounting point Message-ID: <20000522204925.B2835@parish> References: <001601bfc3a1$f687a920$5edf7ad1@leegold1> <39298D57.955E8300@3-cities.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: <39298D57.955E8300@3-cities.com>; from kstewart@3-cities.com on Mon, May 22, 2000 at 12:41:11PM -0700 Organization: Total lack of Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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 ________________________________________________________________ FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/ mailto:mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message