*BSD News Article 71025


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Installing 2nd SCSI disk, More Info,  Still lost
Date: 15 Jun 1996 17:53:56 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
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james@jraynard.demon.co.uk (James Raynard) wrote:

> OK, there are three stages in making a disk usable by FreeBSD:-
> 
> 1. Fdisk. This is where you specify information about how the disk is
>    divided between operating systems. This is the same concept as
>    fdisk in DOS, except that BSD calls them slices, DOS calls them
>    "partitions".

(Good hints deleted, only a minor addition.)

Unlike DOS, fdisk ain't strictly needed in BSD.  The partitioning is
already done in what James has been describing as step 2.  The fdisk
`slices' are something like ``super-partitions'' from the BSD point of
view.  If you dedicate your entire disk to BSD (often referred to as
``dangerously dedicated''), there's only once slice on the disk
covering the entire disk right from sector 0.  This is the traditional
Unix way, the fdisk concept has only been introduced to be compatible
with the PC world.

So it's basically up to you whether you wanna have a sliced disk or
not.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)