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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!usc!cs.utexas.edu!convex!convex!csmith From: csmith@convex.com (Chris Smith) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: Impressions: FreeBSD vs Linux Date: 3 Apr 1994 18:24:58 GMT Organization: CONVEX News Network, Engineering (cnn.eng), Richardson, Tx USA Lines: 27 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2nn1lq$1pm@lovecraft.convex.com> References: <CMzw69.92K@tower.nullnet.fi> <2neomp$k5t@clarknet.clark.net> <2nf0fo$76u@sbus.entropic.com> <2nm6tb$m6u@klaava.Helsinki.FI> <2nmeb4$ro@menudo.uh.edu> <JKH.94Apr3184442@whisker.hubbard.ie> NNTP-Posting-Host: magnum.convex.com From: jkh@whisker.hubbard.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: 03 Apr 1994 17:44:42 GMT That aside, and speaking more generally, many of the instructions WON'T GET ANY BETTER IF PEOPLE DON'T HELP US TO IMPROVE THEM! Good point. The install-notes do not say that *BSD must be installed on a PRIMARY partition. It just says "make the partition, know its position and size, set it to A5, ...". I use logical partitions for everything. If you follow the NetBSD install instructions correctly, but with a logical partition, it all goes fine and you eventually come to a point where it says "Overwrite disk with DOS partition?" Why yes, do -- it is a disk, and one with a DOS partition at that. The install is successful but the other partitions are history. FreeBSD-1.1-BETA has the same limitation but a better install script, it may be harder to make this mistake. I didn't go back and try it again. If you want specific suggestions, in the paragraph about running DOS fdisk to create a new partition, add the word "primary" and the sentence "xBSD cannot be installed in a logical partition." Change the error message in disklabel to "Trash existing primary partition table?" or something with more decorum (but less mild than the current one!) If technical terms are out, I don't like it but how about something like "This disk is to be used only by BSD, right?"