Question about FreeBSD installation procedure

[Polytropon]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:36:00 +0800 (WST), Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:
> See
> http://busby.net/bret/Screenshot--dev-sda-GParted.png

I think I do understand. You have:
	1. a primary DOS partition which contains
		a NTFS file system
	2. an extended DOS partition containing "subpartitions" with
		an ext3 partition
		a linux swap partition
		a FAT32 logical volume
		three further ext3 partitions
So you should have two "slots" of primary DOS partitions.
It is, of course, assumed that the "unallocated" part is
NOT subpart of sda2, but of the whole disk sda.



> However, with the response above, and, with all of the responses thus 
> far, to the query, it appears that I cannot install FreeBSD on the 
> computer, without a full system rebuild, involving removal of all of the 
> installed operating systems and software from the computer, then 
> repartitioning, or, slicing up, the hard drive, and then creating new 
> logical, extended partitions, and then reinstalling each of the 
> operating systems, and all of the software for each of the operating 
> systems, trying to ensure that I then have at least all of the software 
> that is currently installed on each operating system on the computer, 
> and, the data that is currently present on the computer.

I think you're wrong. The installation should work. In order
to test, fire up the FreeBSD installer from the CD and enter
the slice editor. See if you can create a new slice - no slice
will actually be created.

However, keep a working (!) and tested (!) backup of your data
at hand. Just in case. You won't need it, but HAVE it. :-)



> Due to the time and effort involved, and the apparent complexity, it all 
> seems too difficult, to install BSD.

I always thought it was complicated to install operating systems
that require extended DOS partitions and logical volumes for their
OS partitioning... :-)



> If FreeBSD would be able to be installed in a logical partition, within 
> an extended partition, as can be done with Linux, it would probably be 
> able to be done by me - in the meantime, it is simply too difficult.

At the moment, it can't. And due to the limitations that have
artifically been brought into the PC world by DOS, I think it's
sufficient for FreeBSD to require a primary DOS partition, i. e.
its own slice, to be installed into.

Honestly, I've never seen the need for extended DOS partitions.
Let's say you intendedly want to run a multi-OS system, then
you can install four systems, each one in its own slice, and
within the slice, the partitiions, if needed and supported.





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...