# 3 way boot (Linux Windows FreeBSD)



## BeOurGuest (Sep 2, 2016)

I'm new to FreeBSD and beyond just using it in a virtual machine, I've yet to actually install it onto working hardware (my next step).  I'm a bit curious (or confused) by some of the documentation I've been reading concerning multiple partitions.  My setup is as follows.

sda0 8.0gb  - swap
sda1 331.11gb EXT4 - Debian
sda2 331.11gb NTFS - backups (and windows setup files)
sda3 1228.80gb NTFS - Windows 10 Pro (64bit)
The general idea I have is to shrink sda3 (my windows drive) to create a new partition and install FreeBSD.  However, I find it "odd" that some of the documentation suggest this may not be possible and don't know if that is accurate or not (since the documentation seems to be covering old FreeBSD 9 and the upcoming current is 11).

Will this really be a problem?


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## wblock@ (Sep 3, 2016)

Windows does stupid things with NTFS.  They like to plop a non-relocatable swap file right in the middle of a partition.  Still, the Windows disk manager can probably shrink that enough to give room to run FreeBSD.


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## Snurg (Sep 3, 2016)

wblock@ said:


> Windows does stupid things with NTFS.  They like to plop a non-relocatable swap file right in the middle of a partition.  Still, the Windows disk manager can probably shrink that enough to give room to run FreeBSD.


Or even funnier, filesystems riddled with pagefile.sys fragments  
If shrinking to the desired size fails because of such, just turn off paging, delete hiberfile.sys remnants if present, ignore the warnings, defragment, turn on paging again and then shrink.


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## BeOurGuest (Sep 3, 2016)

wblock@ said:


> Windows does stupid things with NTFS.  They like to plop a non-relocatable swap file right in the middle of a partition.  Still, the Windows disk manager can probably shrink that enough to give room to run FreeBSD.





Snurg said:


> Or even funnier, filesystems riddled with pagefile.sys fragments
> If shrinking to the desired size fails because of such, just turn off paging, delete hiberfile.sys remnants if present, ignore the warnings, defragment, turn on paging again and then shrink.



^ To be more specific and clear;  what I find "odd" is the documentation noting that you cannot use an extended drive.  I have absolute confidence that I can indeed shrink my drive (I've done it before).  What I am not 100% clear on is how you define an extended drive as arguably that is exactly what partitioning a single hard drive does.


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## wblock@ (Sep 3, 2016)

Extended partitions work fine for FreeBSD.  They are, of course, an ugly leftover from MBR partitioning, which should always be avoided when GPT is available.  The boot0cfg(8) multiboot loader does not like them, and people have confused this for FreeBSD not being able to run from an extended partitions.

You did not say which type of partitioning was in use, and since you were already doing multi-boot, it was unlikely that you would be using boot0.


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## BeOurGuest (Sep 3, 2016)

wblock@ said:


> Extended partitions work fine for FreeBSD.  They are, of course, an ugly leftover from MBR partitioning, which should always be avoided when GPT is available.  The boot0cfg(8) multiboot loader does not like them, and people have confused this for FreeBSD not being able to run from an extended partition.
> 
> You did not say which type of partitioning was in use, and since you were already doing multi-boot, it was unlikely that you would be using boot0.


Thanks for the clarification.  

I'll be using good old, trusty, *GRUB* as my boot manager of choice.    So I would assume it is safe to say this should be a non issue then (unless I've missed something?)?!


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## wblock@ (Sep 4, 2016)

Yes.  Although it's been a long time since I've run FreeBSD from an extended partition.  GPT makes things so much simpler.


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## Yampress (Sep 4, 2016)

I had 3 systems in multibooton on 1 hdd.: windows7  freebsd8.1 and debian linux

MBR partitioning for 3 systems:
1  primary partition -windows 7  boot
2  primary partition  windows 7 c:
3  primary partition and FreeBSD ( Slice)  
4 - extended partition for linux ( linux on logical partition in extended  partition)
  /
swap
home

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/19440/


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