5.1-RELEASE: disklabel/bsdlabel for multi-boot system

[Meow Cat]

Matthew,
   Thanks for the prompt reply. I have now solved the
issues that were preventing me from installing
(though I still had to do it manually due to some
limitations in sysinstall) and, once installed, I'm
impressed with the package management and automatic
configuration in FreeBSD.
   So, to answer my own questions, in case others have
the same questions:

1) The 'unit' size in bsdlabel/disklabel is the size of
the individual slice. You can only create BSD-partitions
within that slice, and you can't extend beyond that.
However, you shouldn't need to, as:

2) FreeBSD supports DOS-style extended partitions. I guess
I missed that reading the manual the first time around, 
and
I wasn't expecting it because OpenBSD doesn't support 
these.

3) Although FreeBSD supports DOS-style extended 
partitions,
you can't create (or at least can't access) BSD partitions
within them - for example, you there is no such thing as
/dev/ad0s5e. bsdlabel supports writing a label table, but
it isn't read when devfs is detecting devices.

4) Although FreeBSD supports DOS-style extended 
partitions,
sysinstall's fdisk and label management does not, and so 
the
only way to have a small primary slice containing / and 
/var,
and moving the bulk (/usr) into ad0s5 is to install a 
minimal
environment, then chroot to it, mount the extra 
filesystem,
and run sysinstall in upgrade mode.

5) /etc/fstab accepts TAB as the only white-space. Any 
spaces
result in an "Inappropriate file type or format" error.

I guess most of these problems revolve around your point 
that
extended partitions aren't very popular. Unfortunately, 
I've
already got tons of data in those partitions and was 
unable/
unwilling to shift them around just for the convenience of
the BSD install process.

What I was trying to do before (which worked with OpenBSD,
but then OpenBSD doesn't support DOS-style extended
partitions at all) was to use slice 2 as the BSD slice,
but have it claim ownership of the entire disk, so that 
all
slices and DOS-extended slices were able to be accessed as
though they were a part of slice 2. This doesn't work with
FreeBSD, as bsdlabel expects the slice's label table to
stay within the space allocated to it.

Anyway, thanks again for the help!
 
 
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