Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 13:34:26 +0200 (MET DST) From: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey) To: bcrosby@interlog.com (Blake Crosby) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD Questions) Subject: Re: Installing Free BSD Message-ID: <199609131134.NAA19513@allegro.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <199609122037.QAA17046@gold.interlog.com> from "Blake Crosby" at Sep 12, 96 04:37:22 pm
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Blake Crosby writes: > > At 10:35 AM 09/12/96 +0200, you wrote: >>> Drive Comments >>> >>> A: 3.5" Floppy 1.44 MB >>> B: 5.25" Floppy 1.22 MB >>> C: MS-DOS Drive 511 MB *Compressed with Stacker* >>> D: CD-ROM Drive 2x speed >>> E: Subst Drive 407 MB >>> I: Host for drive c: 406 MB >> >> You don't say what kind of disks they are, or where you intend to >> install FreeBSD. On the whole, it's easier to install FreeBSD on a >> partition on the first disk (the one MS-DOS calls C:). Also, if your >> CD-ROM is ATAPI (IDE), you should have it set up as slave of the >> primary IDE controller. Looking at the drive letters, this is >> probably what you have. Note that your drive letters may shift if >> you add additional partitions. > > The I: drive is just a partition of the C: drive, the I: is uncompressed, so > should I create a new partition there for FBSD or should I create a > partition on the C: which is compressed? This is an interesting point. The way you describe your disk configuration is the way DOS sees it, not the way it is, and not the way FreeBSD would see it. Let's compare (and correct me if I misunderstand): Hardware DOS FreeBSD 3.5" flop A: /dev/fd0 5.25" flop B: /dev/fd1 917 MB disk C: /dev/rwd0s0 first partition in partition table I: /dev/rwd0s1 second partition in partition table 407 MB disk E: /dev/rwd1s0 first partition in partition table CD-ROM D: /dev/wcd0 (if this is an IDE/ATAPI drive) I'm assuming that your first drive (C: + I:) has a total of 511+406, or 917 MB, and that the 511 MB are the real size of the partition, not what Stacker sees. FreeBSD can't coexist with MS-DOS *in the same partition*, so whereever you install it, you'll erase what was there before. This means that either your C: or your I: drive will go away (and MS-DOS will rearrange the drive letters, just to annoy you). There's an additional consideration for most machines: you can't boot from a partition that ends beyond 504 MB into the disk, so you wouldn't be able to set your I: partition as bootable anyway. This is a PC BIOS restriction, not a FreeBSD restriction. You can try it out: if it works with DOS, it'll work with FreeBSD. What I would suggest is that you repartition your hard disk 0. If you want to keep 511 MB for DOS and 407 for FreeBSD, it would make more sense to create three partitions: 96 odd MB for a primary DOS partition and 407 MB for FreeBSD. These should be the first two partitions, and so they would both be in the first 504 MB, and you could boot from either. The remaining 414 MB would then be an extended DOS partition. It doesn't make any difference which way round you put the first 2 partitions, but DOS disk performance would be better if the two DOS partitions were contiguous (i.e. partition 1 is FreeBSD, partition 2 is DOS primary (C:), and partition 3 is DOS extended (I:). Greg
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