Partitioning with gpart or old style slices?

[Robert Simmons]

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:39 AM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 08:03, Robert Simmons <rsimmons0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sunday, June 05, 2011 12:40:22 AM Matthias Apitz wrote:
>> > Since some time I'm as well using gpart(8) to setup new systems with the
>> > following sequence:
>> >
>> > # gpart create -s mbr ad4                 # Init the disk with an MBR
>> > # gpart add -t freebsd ad4                # Create a BSD container
>> > # gpart create -s bsd ad4s1               # Init with a BSD scheme
>> > # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs  -s 1G ad4s1   # 1GB for /
>> > # gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 2G ad4s1   # 2GB for swap
>> > # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs  -s 2G ad4s1   # 2GB for /var
>> > # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs  -s 1G ad4s1   # 1GB for /tmp
>> > # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs ad4s1          # all rest for /usr
>> > # gpart set -a active -i 1 ad4
>> >
>> > But the result is not ready for boot after install the kernel and
>> > system; I allways have to go again with the sysinstall(8) tool to set
>> > the 'A' flag; don't know what I'm missing (and the man page is not very
>> > instructive on this); thanks
>>
>> You need to install the bootcode:
>>
>> This will install the interactive one:
>> gpart bootcode -b /mnt2/boot/boot0 ad4
>>
>> this will install the non-interactive one:
>> gpart bootcode -b /mnt2/boot/mbr ad4
>>
>
> This is interesting and here is my question:
>
> Taking the above example from Matthias, assume that I have done everything
> including installing the bootcode, then I realize I am not happy with the
> scheme and I need to change.
> How do I wipe the whole thing in one go so that I can start afresh?
>
> gpart destroy ad4 ??

Yes, but first you must delete all of the slices/partitions.  Think of
it this way: you must go backwards down the path you just came with a
delete for each add, then a destroy for each create.

> Why is there no sysinstall-style GUI for gpart?

Hopefully, because sysinstall is soon going to be taken out back and
shot, and its replacement will be gpart-aware and therefore GPT-aware.