Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question
Solved

GPT for FreeBSD

Tags:
  • BIOS
  • Lubuntu
  • FreeBSD
Last response: in Linux/Free BSD
Share
November 27, 2013 8:37:49 AM

I'm looking at taking FreeBSD 9.2 for a spin on a drive that will also be home to Lubuntu and Plan 9. I was hoping that four primary partitions (one for everybody's swap) would be sufficient but, looking at FreeBSD's documentation, it looks like I'll need three partitions for FreeBSD alone.

So I'm wondering if I'll be able to partition the drive using GPT / GUID. My motherboard is a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R, which has a BIOS - no UEFI. I've read that some BIOS-based boards support GPT but I'm not sure if this one does? Thanks in advance for the help.

More about : gpt freebsd

November 27, 2013 10:05:14 AM

You can create extended partition, and put four more partitions here. I am not sure whether BSD can boot off extended partition, but probably you can squeeze all boot partitions into primary space.
m
0
l
November 27, 2013 12:34:55 PM

You can use MBR partitioning and use just one partition (which BSD calls a "slice"). Within that slice you create as many BSD partitions as you need; it still uses just the one MBR partition. I know it's confusing. Have a look at http://daemon-notes.com/articles/system/part-fs/mbr
m
0
l
Related resources
November 27, 2013 1:43:58 PM

Thanks for the responses! FreeBSD does say it needs to be installed to a primary partition but I didn't realise FreeBSD could do partitions within partitions in that way. The documentation mentioned that a FreeBSD slice is a partition, but didn't say what a FreeBSD partition is. That is indeed confusing. Which installation option would be best then? I'm concerned that if I select the automatic "let us figure it out" type option that it will help itself to the entire drive.
m
0
l
November 27, 2013 1:59:56 PM

The installation gives you the option of using the entire disk or creating partitions so that it can be used with other OSs. As long as you choose the latter option it will only use unused space on the disk. It will tell you what it is going to do before you commit the action. The FreeBSD Handbook explains it in section 2.7.

As long as you don't pick the "use the entire disk" option you should be fine. But, as always when messing with disk partitions, you should really ensure that you have backups of any important data on the disk. I can't remember the last time I needed them, but .... In any case, you need good backups just in case your disk decides to die on you. They all do sooner or later.
m
0
l
November 28, 2013 6:43:34 AM

Haha yeah I know all about that! I think sooner rather than later for this particular drive (it's just an old one I picked up cheap). I only bought it for a bit of OS exploration anyway - no important data on there.

It's actually the FreeBSD install guide that got me posting here because it was sounding like three partitions are needed. But what you're telling me is that I only need to give it a single (actual) partition to use, and within that it'll create those three pretend partitions itself? Including its own swap partition?
m
0
l

Best solution

November 28, 2013 8:11:17 AM

Yes to all your questions. It used to create more partitions, using separate ones for /home, /usr, and /var (IIRC), but now it's just, boot, root, and swap (by default). It's still just one "real" partition, which makes it less demanding than Linux.
Share
November 28, 2013 10:27:53 AM

Awesome! Thanks for your help with this - it's much appreciated.
m
0
l
November 28, 2013 10:42:52 AM

I hope you have a good experience with FreeBSD. I love it, particularly the ports concept (which has been borrowed by the Linux distribution Gentoo). I've just managed to get it running on my Raspberry Pi where it seems to work quite well.
m
0
l
November 28, 2013 2:56:54 PM

I considered trying it on my R-Pi actually but thought it was a bit more heavyweight than Debian? I've been thoroughly unimpressed with the performance of the R-Pi (I know, I know, it's cheap) even with overclocking so I avoid pushing it too hard.

I did give Gentoo a try back in my distro hopping days (spent forever in those kernel customisation menus!) but never managed to get my Internet working with it. Portage / Emerge seemed like a cool idea though. I guess the optimisation there could be very beneficial for the R-Pi if you're patient with the compile time? Just to clarify, FreeBSD on my PC will also provide pre-compiled binaries like Linux does?
m
0
l
November 28, 2013 11:25:19 PM

With FreeBSD you can use pre-compiled binaries or compile your own, so no problems there. It's not really any heavier on resources than Linux. My Pi installation is a text-only one. I agree that the Pi struggles a bit with GUIs. And if you want to compile things on it you need to be patient! I must look into setting up a cross-compiler environment on my PC.
m
0
l
November 29, 2013 5:12:34 AM

Good stuff. I think I'll employ the use of a bit of KISS there and stick with the binaries until I've become accustomed to the system, before I start with ports. I don't use the GUI on my R-Pi either - even Fluxbox wasn't light enough for a lightweight browser to deliver half-decent performance, so I just use my R-Pi for SNES emulation (that one took its sweet time to compile!) from the Bash prompt now. It's actually pretty decent for SNES emulation at 950MHz. Good luck your R-Pi binaries and thanks again for the help :-)
m
0
l
!