*BSD News Article 17282


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From: mirth@genesis.MCS.COM (Gavin S. Patton)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: [386bsd] SMALL Partition?
Date: 17 Jun 1993 22:19:23 -0500
Organization: MCSNet Subscriber, Chicago, IL
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I know a bunch of you are going to groan, so...

GROAN ALERT!!! GROAN ALERT!!! GROAN ALERT!!! GROAN ALERT!!!
All die-hard U**X deckers please hold your stomachs!
Incoming Stupid Question!!! ALERT!!! ALERT!!! ALERT!!!

There.  Ready?

Okay, here it comes...

I have a SMALL (40MB) Conner hard drive in my poor, humble 386SX.  I know
it will boot both 386bsd (Tiny BSD Disk) and the NetBSD kernel.

I have a MASSIVE amount of investment in DOS stuff, which I keep in a 
DOS 6.0 DoubleSpace partition on most of the drive.  I tried repartitioning
it with 5MB free so I could put a SMALL, MINIMAL 386bsd partition on it,
so I could learn it and play with SLIP to my Internet host.  Someday, I'll
get a 300MB drive, so I can have 100MB for OS/2 and 200 for U**x, but until
I'm !@#$!@#$ rich, this is the best I can do.

Am I S.O.L.?  Or, given a bit of finagling, can I do some sort of highly
tsk-able manual installation of 386bsd or NetBSD to this miniscule partition?
I ***know***, it's a DUMB question, but, hey, I'm a newbie.

To answer the question "why'd you even TRY a 5MB partition -- the install
notes say CLEARLY that you need at least 40MB":

They don't say that.  They recommend at least 40MB if you're installing the
"binaries".  I guess I'm a special case -- someone who wants to just put the
Tiny BSD kernel on a small partition instead of f**king with a !#$!@#% diskette
all the time.  Someday I'll put the whole thing -- source and all -- up on my
machine and write g++ code and ruin my stomach with bad coffee...

...hey, that sounds like what I do now, just that it's FuxPro and not g++...
just coincidence, never mind...

...but for right now, that's all I can do.

Now that you've laughed yourselves into a fine froth, pat me on the head and
tell me what I can do to solve my problem.  I have Halon all ready and waiting
for the ensuing flames.

------------------------- Gavin

"Computers need humans to make more computers.  Yes, we're their sex organs."
                                  -Solomon Short