PS: Partitioning - please not that again

[Polytropon]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 01:54:59 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> Screenshots from Linux's GParted:
> http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot-12172012-012707am.php
> http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot-12172012-014310am.php

Judging from the screenshots, /dev/sda1 = /dev/ad0s1, a
"DOS primary partition", should be fine for installing
FreeBSD into.



> Perhaps somebody can exactly write the steps I have to do, to install
> FreeBSD on /dev/sda1.

In case the 1st slice is already of sysid 165 (FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD),
the installer (NB: I'm talking about ye olde sysinstall -- no idea
what new bsdinstall will do!) should be able to identify previous
partitions that have been created in this slice. You can re-use
them, you just have to define the mount points. Maybe it's also
a good idea (but not strictly needed) to have the installer
format them (newfs = yes).

You can check with "fdisk ad0" from a FreeBSD live system (or
the shell from the installation media).



> I guess a swap and / is enough, but swap, /, /usr, /var, as it was for
> PC-BSD is ok too. I've got 4 GB RAM, the swap I had before, was 8 GB
> large.

No problem with this functional separation. This would also default
to have /home symlinked to /usr/home, making it part of the /usr
partition, if that's okay for you. Also /tmp will be on the /
partition (except you use tmpfs or a similar means to put /tmp
into RAM).

If the installer cannot create the partitions (for whatever reason
that may be), you can relapse to using the CLI tool disklabel
(bsdlabel) to create the partitions.

If you don't want to work in this "old-fashioned manner", using
gpart is also possible. It supports both old MBR style (what seems
to be in use on your current installation) and new GPT style
(to get rid of the "DOS primary partitions", "DOS extended partitions",
and "logical volumes inside a DOS extended partition").




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