# Multiple OS - directory structure problem



## petike (Jan 1, 2009)

Hi,
I have "Windows XP" installed on my computer and I would like to install also the "FreeBSD" OS (I have never had it before :\) so that I will have 2 operating systems on it. But I have a little problem.
As I know, on UNIX systems the directory structure has only "one" root, so nothing like "C:" or "D:". On the other hand, on Windows there can be multiple drives.
So let's say that I have a 100 GB hard disk and it is partitioned into 3 partitions (on the first there is Windows, on the second is UNIX and the third is reserved for data). And now when I am in FreeBSD and I create or save some file, let's say to the path "/home/files/", where really on the disk it will be stored?
Thanks.


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## Speedy (Jan 1, 2009)

I'm trying to understand your question ... 
First, Windows terminology is no good, partitions should not be called drives. 
Second, as you pointed out Windows has this limitation of having separated drives. No such problem in *nix, partitions, drives, network volumes can be mounted anywhere in directory tree. You can mount the data partition to /home/files and that's it.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jan 1, 2009)

petike said:
			
		

> Hi,
> I have "Windows XP" installed on my computer and I would like to install also the "FreeBSD" OS (I have never had it before :\) so that I will have 2 operating systems on it. But I have a little problem.
> As I know, on UNIX systems the directory structure has only "one" root, so nothing like "C:" or "D:". On the other hand, on Windows there can be multiple drives.
> So let's say that I have a 100 GB hard disk and it is partitioned into 3 partitions (on the first there is Windows, on the second is UNIX and the third is reserved for data). And now when I am in FreeBSD and I create or save some file, let's say to the path "/home/files/", where really on the disk it will be stored?
> Thanks.


..SORRY... only quoting above so I can read it as I answer.
............
what type of drive is the third, and can you change it?
for instance, I have partitions of fat32 and freebsd.  I can
mount fat32 "into" freebsd and save files to/from it.
Best to follow exactly someone else's setup, also with data
backup in case of something goes wrong.
OTOH if your question is about unix Paths in general, there
are articles about that.


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## hedwards (Jan 1, 2009)

Basically those other partitions would have to be specifically mounted as either /home or /home/files otherwise those files would just by on the FreeBSD partition.


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## petike (Jan 1, 2009)

*Another 2 questions...*

Thanks for all your answers.



			
				jb_fvwm2 said:
			
		

> "what type of drive is the third, and can you change it?"


First of all, I have never had UNIX system before (I had it only at school) so I don't ever understand what the term "mounting" means. Currently I have Windows system installed and I have set it up now so that I have hard disk divided to 2 partitions ("C:" and "D:") where on the "C:" partition there is Windows installed (with "Program Files", "Documents and Settings" and other stuff) and the "D:" partition is reserved for all my other data (Music, Video, Games, ...). So I thought when I will have 2 operating systems that I will create 3 partitions - on the 1st there will be Windows installed, on the 2nd there will be UNIX installed and *on the 3rd there will be the other data (common for Windows and UNIX)*.


*The 1st question:*
Does the UNIX system (concretely FreeBSD) run on "NTFS" file system (because you have spoken about FAT32 which seems to me a little bit "old-fashioned")?

*The 2nd question:*
When I save something (or create some file) on the 3rd (data) partition "in Windows", will it be available to me when I am "in UNIX" system?

Thanks.


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## tingo (Jan 1, 2009)

petike said:
			
		

> Thanks for all your answers.
> *The 1st question:*
> Does the UNIX system (concretely FreeBSD) run on "NTFS" file system (because you have spoken about FAT32 which seems to me a little bit "old-fashioned")?


No, FreeBSD (like every other non-windows os) have its own file system (it is called ufs).



> *The 2nd question:*
> When I save something (or create some file) on the 3rd (data) partition "in Windows", will it be available to me when I am "in UNIX" system?


To do this, you will have to create the third partition with a file system that both os'es (FreeBSD and Windows) can read and write to. FreeBSD supports fat32 through the msdosfs(5) file system and NTFS with the sysutils/fusefs-ntfs port. There is a mount_ntfs(8) command, but it has limited write ability. Ther might be ways to use FreeBSD ufs filesystem from windows, but I don't know about it.


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## petike (Jan 1, 2009)

*Separated partitions - better solution?*



			
				tingo said:
			
		

> To do this, you will have to create the third partition with a file system that both os'es (FreeBSD and Windows) can read and write to. FreeBSD supports fat32 through the msdosfs(5) file system and NTFS with the sysutils/fusefs-ntfs port. There is a mount_ntfs(8) command, but it has limited write ability.



Oh god,
it seems that to create the common data place for both operating systems has a little bit limitations (for example, cannot use NTFS fs on WinXP and it is a pity for larger hard disks, isn't it, ...).

_*So there is another question:*_
Is it ever "good idea" to have the common partition for both these operating systems ("Windows XP" and "FreeBSD")? Wouldn't it be better to use separated partitions for data which I create on FreeBSD and for that which I create on Windows?

Thanks.


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## Brandybuck (Jan 1, 2009)

petike said:
			
		

> First of all, I have never had UNIX system before (I had it only at school) so I don't ever understand what the term "mounting" means. Currently I have Windows system installed and I have set it up now so that I have hard disk divided to 2 partitions ("C:" and "D:") where on the "C:" partition there is Windows installed (with "Program Files", "Documents and Settings" and other stuff) and the "D:" partition is reserved for all my other data (Music, Video, Games, ...). So I thought when I will have 2 operating systems that I will create 3 partitions - on the 1st there will be Windows installed, on the 2nd there will be UNIX installed and *on the 3rd there will be the other data (common for Windows and UNIX)*.



That's a sensible layout. I have a similar scheme with my system. You may have problems with the common data partition (see below). "Mounting" means adding a drive to the directory tree. In Unix there is a single directory tree, starting at root "/". On my system I mount my home partition as "/home".



> *The 1st question:*
> Does the UNIX system (concretely FreeBSD) run on "NTFS" file system (because you have spoken about FAT32 which seems to me a little bit "old-fashioned")?



The native filesystem for FreeBSD is "UFS". Your home directory should also be UFS. For a common shared data partition, NTFS can work but there are limitations. FreeBSD support read-only NTFS natively, but for read/write you need to install the fusefs-ntfs port. It tends to be buggy, however.

What I have done is use FAT32 for my common partition, because all operating systems recognize it. Yes, it's old fashioned. Yes, it's very inefficient and limited. But it works.

But don't worry about it much right now. Install FreeBSD in its own partition and start learning it. Learn to drive the car before you worry about the ski-rack.


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## Brandybuck (Jan 1, 2009)

petike said:
			
		

> Oh god,
> it seems that to create the common data place for both operating systems has a little bit limitations (for example, cannot use NTFS fs on WinXP and it is a pity for larger hard disks, isn't it, ...).



Don't worry about it for now. In actual practice, I've actually found I don't actually use my common data partition for much besides photos and music. I actually have the partition mounted read-only. A USB thumbdrive manages most of the exceptions.

So what you could do, depending on your use case, is to make the common area NTFS, and mount it read-only. On the few occasions you do need to write to it, you can unmount it then remount it with the fusefs-ntfs software.



> _*So there is another question:*_
> Is it ever "good idea" to have the common partition for both these operating systems ("Windows XP" and "FreeBSD")? Wouldn't it be better to use separated partitions for data which I create on FreeBSD and for that which I create on Windows?



Your FreeBSD home directory should *not* be shared data. Hopefully that was not your idea. The common data should only be for stuff common to both OS's. You might consider four partitions, and give each OS its own data partition.

p.s. Most operating systems want to boot from primary partitions, so make sure your partitions are primary and not logical/extended.


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## tingo (Jan 3, 2009)

Brandybuck said:
			
		

> p.s. Most operating systems want to boot from primary partitions, so make sure your partitions are primary and not logical/extended.



It seems that very soon we can use GPT partitioned disks, which will remove the "only four primary partitions" restriction. See this thread.


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## kamikaze (Jan 7, 2009)

I use NTFS for shared data with fusefs. It's not an out of the box solution, but a working one. Especially with the fusefs_safe and fusefs_safe_evil hacks.


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