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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!fu-berlin.de!cs.tu-berlin.de!unlisys!news.bb-data.de!news From: mib@bb-data.de (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Fun with slices and partitions Date: 26 Jul 1996 14:34:48 +0200 Organization: BB-DATA GmbH, Berlin, Germany Lines: 41 Sender: mib@losira.ppe.bb-data.de Message-ID: <uybk7b3br.fsf@losira.ppe.bb-data.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: 10.11.4.39 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-reply-to: scott@crux.dcs.qmw.ac.uk's message of 16 Jul 1996 11:46:00 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.1 In article <SCOTT.96Jul16124600@crux.dcs.qmw.ac.uk> scott@crux.dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Scott Mitchell) writes: : Yep, wrong way around. Four _slices_ per disk (what DOS fdisk calls : partitions), and a bunch of BSD _partitions_ in each slice (8, IIRC). *sigh* Yes, strangely enough, FreeBSD choose to pervert the well-established name hierarchy of top-level partitions and second-level slices and do it the other way around. : In general each OS will want a slice of its own, and is then free to : partition this up however it likes. There's a good explanation of all : this in some file on the FreeBSD CD (can't remember exactly where, and : the machine is on the other side of town, switched off). Well, that depends on what exactly you call an "operating system". Windows NT, OS/2, Linux and of course MS-DOS (which I would easily agree is not an operating system) all can use more than one fdisk partition (either primary or extended, which means a set of smaller fdisk partitions inside a big primary fdisk partition -- to get around the limit of 4 primary fdisk partitions per drive) and do not employ any OS-specific substructuring -- each fdisk partition becomes a block device of its own, for a file system (or swap space, or what-have-you). Basically, I like FreeBSD better, but the way it handles hard disks sucks hard, IMHO. The only "neat" thing about it is the way to "dangerously dedicate" a disk if you don't want any other operating systems. For coexistence, a Linux-like scheme of using the existing partitioning scheme would IMHO have been more elegant. And it doesn't limit you; you can easily have eight fdisk partitions or more (if you support extended ones). Also, integration with other filesystems is a lot easier that way; there is a canonical and easily understood way of addressing the hard disk areas used by other operating systems. Mounting DOS fdisk partitions from Linux is practically hassle-free, for example. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dipl.-Inform. Martin Ibert, BB-DATA GmbH, Brunnenstraße 111, D-13355 Berlin >> e-mail <mib@bb-data.de>, phone +49-30-245-56582, fax +49-30-245-56577 << --------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Disclaimer: My views do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. <<