8.0-RC3 Available

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 05:25:54PM +0800, Chao Shin wrote:
> ??? Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:42:44 +0800???Chao Shin <quakelee at geekcn.org> ??????:
> 
> >Hi All,
> >
> >Is sysinstall can work now?
> >After I set Label in sysinstall it has message come out said
> >"Unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev!
> >The creation of filesystems will be aborted."
> >and installation aborted.
> >
> >I have installed freebsd with sysinstall ten years, that is first time I
> >meet that
> >
> 
> I found the reason of that. I've fdisk that disk with dd mode before, the
> sysinstall can't overwrite the partition record, so can't label on it.
> If I want to install 8.0-rc3 on that disk, I have to erase the partition
> record with "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad4 bs=1M count=1" before
> installation.

I've covered this (indirectly) on my blog, documenting that 8.0-RC1's
sysinstall "was not doing the right thing" with regards to setting up
disks to be fully compatible with the new GEOM improvements.  The result
was a disk that would work, but GEOM would complain about the disk label
not matching geometry.

http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/testing-out-freebsd-8-0-rc1/

8.0-RC2 addressed this by fixing sysinstall to do the Right Thing for
new installs.  Existing installs, however, will be susceptible to the
problem.  Note the difference in the disk label between an 8.0-RC1 and
8.0-RC2 system here:

http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/testing-out-freebsd-8-0-rc2/

Finally, I'll note that your dd command is horribly excessive.  All you
need to do is nuke the MBR + PBR and you're good to go.  The following
should be sufficient:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/adX count=5

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |