Comments on: installing ~x86-fbsd

By: Julian Stecklina

Julian Stecklina — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:47:15 +0000

FreeBSD’s disk layout is not based on DOS-style partitioning, but on disklabels which are vastly more flexible. The common practice on x86 is to create a DOS-style partition on your disk (called `slice’ in FreeBSD speak, the first slice on disk 0 is ad0s1) and partition that further using a disklabel (that’s where the letters come from: ad0s1a is the first partition in that slice).

FreeBSD has no problem accessing other DOS-style partitions. These look like adXsY (note the missing letter). Linux has no problem to access BSD disklabels as well, if you enable that in your kernel. The real problem with sharing your /home is selecting a filesystem. Linux has only limited UFS2 capabilities and EXT3 is not supported on FreeBSD (EXT2 is)…

Btw, kernel configuration in FreeBSD is done through a config file in /sys//conf/. You are probably running the GENERIC kernel which has almost all drivers enabled and reasonable defaults for everything else. The FreeBSD manual is the way to go if you want to compile your own kernel.

By: Spax Klettergriffe

Spax Klettergriffe — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:55:45 +0000

Thanks for the Link to the install guide.

Thats cool.

Hans from Germany

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:08:37 +0000

I tried for *hours* to get Debian GNU/kFreeBSD up and running, but to no avail. The dhclient refuses to pick up an IP and resolve anything, and even when I enter the networking manually during the install, it still refuses to resolve an address. So, after many failed attempts, I decided to go with a vanilla FreeBSD install. I would have much rather preferred used the Debian GNU toolchain and package management, rather than learn a new package manager, but I’m so curious about FreeBSD, that I guess I need to take the leap anyway. I’ll post my experiences in about a week or so, when I have a full fledged running FreeBSD system.