# Partitioning Questions (was: Advice Needed)



## penguinhead (May 17, 2009)

I am going to install everything (first time installing FreeBSD).

I am going to destroy a partition measuring 10001 MB. I can sacrifice another one measuring 8XXX MB.

Recommend a good configuration of a, b, d and e drives, keeping in mind that my home folder (/home/ivan) has no more than 512 MB of data in Linux. /usr is probably a higher level directory of home in UNIX.

Are slices same as partitions?


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## penguinhead (May 17, 2009)

Sorry for posting another post but I cannot edit posts. This is meant to add my sys specs: 451 MHz, 320 MB or RAM, 40 GB HD. Also tell me when I can edit posts.


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## graudeejs (May 17, 2009)

Yups. slices are same as partitions, with the difference, that they can be labeled (a b c d.....)

300M - root
1G -home
512M - var
1G swap - (you may increase/decrease depending how much your sys will use swap. I suggest monitoring it's usage
the rest for /usr

link /tmp to /var/tmp
or decrease var to 300 and link /tmp to /usr/tmp and /var/tmp to /usr/tmp

and you better be using packages, because of small disk space

Well, that's how i would set up your box for first time...


EDIT:
if you aren't going to run portsnap you can decrease /var to 128M
Also i would run customized light width desktop (Well i run it even on my P4 3GHz. 1.5G ram, 400G HDD)


you can edit posts in few days and few posts


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## Nokobon (May 17, 2009)

penguinhead said:
			
		

> Sorry for posting another post but I cannot edit posts. This is meant to add my sys specs: 451 MHz, 320 MB or RAM, 40 GB HD. Also tell me when I can edit posts.



I think to edit posts you need more than 10 posts on the forum. So now you should be able to do it.

Well I am also new to FreeBSD but if I were you I would just use the default slice configuration by pressing A in the Disklabel Editor.


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## graudeejs (May 17, 2009)

Whatever you do, i bet you will reinstall, and reinstall, and reinstall....
before you find best configuration for yourself


Default setup, doesn't allocate space for /home (I don't like this)
Also 512 for /boot is obviously waste. 300-350 top (especially with this small disk space) and there are other problems in default setup for very limited disk space


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## MG (May 17, 2009)

If you don't really need separate filesystems, why not make one big slice with a swapspace and one filesystem mounted on /?
I do mostly, and never found any problems with it.


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## Nokobon (May 17, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Default setup, doesn't allocate space for /home (I don't like this)
> Also 512 for /boot is obviously waste. 300-350 top (especially with this small disk space) and there are other problems in default setup for very limited disk space


I don't really see a reason why /home should be an additional slice, except for using a machine with a lot of users.

But of course you are more experienced than me and know more about problems and configurations.
So maybe your suggested setup is a good choise for the first time on a 40GB HD


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## graudeejs (May 17, 2009)

1) It is not recommended to mount root with Soft Updates (Some kind of bad mojo)
2) if root gets out of space FreeBSD run slower (This i have read in book)

For first setup this can be fine actually.... You can figure out how you want to portion system later....


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## graudeejs (May 17, 2009)

Nokobon said:
			
		

> I don't really see a reason why /home should be an additional slice, except for using a machine with a lot of users.
> 
> But of course you are more experienced than me and know more about problems and configurations.
> So maybe your suggested setup is a good choise for the first time on a 40GB HD



It's easier to make backups, could be one of reasons.
Then it's easier to control disk usage.
You can mount some file systems read only +  you can mount different file systems with different flags (userquota, grouquota, noatime, async, noatime, rw, ro....).


I don't feel much more experienced....
I just share my point of view

In the end it comes down to personal taste


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## DutchDaemon (May 17, 2009)

Nokobon said:
			
		

> I think to edit posts you need more than 10 posts on the forum. So now you should be able to do it.



10 posts *and* 10 days of membership.


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## phoenix (May 17, 2009)

Note:  slices and partitions are different, and what they represent depends on whether you are talking about Unix-based or DOS-based OSes.

A Unix slice is equivalent to a DOS-based extended partition, and it uses up 1 slot in partition table (IOW, you can only have 4 per disk).

A Unix slice can be broken up in partitions.  How many depends on which OS you use to create/access the partitions (I believe most can use up to 16 now).

Don't confuse the terminology, or you will really confuse people.  

For BSDs, you only need a single slice that covers as much of the disk as you want to use.  Then you create your partitions inside that slice (2 is the minimum, one for / and one for swap).


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## Nokobon (May 17, 2009)

phoenix said:
			
		

> Don't confuse the terminology, or you will really confuse people.
> 
> For BSDs, you only need a single slice that covers as much of the disk as you want to use.  Then you create your partitions inside that slice (2 is the minimum, one for / and one for swap).



Thank you for that correction.
So, when I said slice in my posts above, I probably meant partitions...

Slices, partitions, mount-points, etc are always really confusing me because I was a windows-user for so many years and didn't have to think about stuff like that xD


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## penguinhead (May 18, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> and you better be using packages, because of small disk



Packages are packages. I mean, you install software from packages (RPMs and DEBs and TGZs on Linux, not sure about BSD). Then what is the alternative to them? Ports? Do they take up more disk space?
........
Of course, I also use a single slice with a SWAP on Linux (cant be mounted on root). But I am interested in understanding the slices and knives. Slice is just a higher level than a partition right?

I didn't know /home was still there on BSD. Obviously, a separate partition for it is a waste. Then does all the software go in /usr?

Moreover, do you need to purchase the UNIX license plate? Can't you just print it and stick on your box? What is the UNIX logo by the way?


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## DutchDaemon (May 18, 2009)

/home is usually linked to /usr/home.


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## Beastie (May 18, 2009)

penguinhead said:
			
		

> Packages are packages. I mean, you install software from packages (RPMs and DEBs and TGZs on Linux, not sure about BSD). Then what is the alternative to them? Ports? Do they take up more disk space?


Yes, ports are an alternative to packages.
They usually need a few more dependencies for compiling (build dependencies). And yes, many of them also require much more free disk space for the compiling process (e.g. .obj files). Some of the biggest ports need GBs to be built.




			
				penguinhead said:
			
		

> Slice is just a higher level than a partition right?


Slice = BIOS partition, the thing you see in fdisk and is stored in the partition table in the first sector of a bootable disk (the MBR).
A BSD partition is just part/subdivision of a slice.




			
				penguinhead said:
			
		

> I didn't know /home was still there on BSD. Obviously, a separate partition for it is a waste.


Uh, really? Why?




			
				penguinhead said:
			
		

> Then does all the software go in /usr?


By definition, tools in /bin and /sbin are "software" too.


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## hedwards (May 19, 2009)

MG said:
			
		

> If you don't really need separate filesystems, why not make one big slice with a swapspace and one filesystem mounted on /?
> I do mostly, and never found any problems with it.


That's terribly dangerous, well probably not as bad on FreeBSD as on Linux. That's precisely how I wound up reinstalling Ubuntu something like 14 times in two weeks.

Every time I shut it down something corrupted the filesystem and as such I would have to reinstall the whole OS. Mysteriously enough the problem disappeared as soon as I took the time to separate the filesystems in a way similar to what FreeBSD defaults to.


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## iic2 (May 19, 2009)

*Some things you should *NEVER* tamper with!*

What ever you do; *Leave FreeBSD file system along*.  If dedicated disk, if you ever have to re-install take out the time to fdisk DOS style and re-format entire disk or funny things may happen.  I saw it today. I did forget to do that once or twice.  Anyway, Partition Magic not needed but it is the best.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/dirstructure.html

/dev/ad0s1a             /
/dev/ad0s1b             swap
/dev/ad0s1d             /var
/dev/ad0s1e             /tmp
/dev/ad0s1f             /usr

Your World ... Your Home or whatever

/dev/ad0s1g             /a or G or second home
/dev/ad0s1h             /b or H
/dev/ad0s1i             /c or I

PS: I forgot ...  /c is like a keyword so stay away from that single letter.  You will notice even the File System do that.


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