From: bjl@sif.pttrnl.nl (Ben Lippolt) Subject: Re: Device names (was Re: ttys2 not responding) Date: 22 Jul 1992 06:46:21 GMT
Rob.Levin@f217.n3802.z1.fidonet.org (Rob Levin) writes:
> TT> /dev/hd0a is the first partition on the first drive
> TT> /dev/hd1a is the first partition on the second drive etc.
>You seem to be arguing that, because something is done a certain way in
>DOS, it is anathema. I'll be interested in hearing other, more
>substantive, arguments. ;-)
>Could you be more specific on the BSD convention for hard disk naming?
>And for partitions, if such a thing exists in the vanilla BSD
>environment?
My experience with BSD is mainly SunOS. in SunOS the conventions are as
follows:
Disk drives are numbered, starting with 0. SCSI disks are 'sd', SMD is
'xy', IPI is 'id', etc. So, your first SCSI drive is 'sd0'. However, there
is no '/dev/sd0' device. Each disk can have up to 8 partitions, numbered
'a' to 'h'.
The Sun conventions for a standalone system with one disk are that:
sd0a = /
sd0b = swap
sd0c = entine disk
sd0d = not used
sd0e = not used
sd0f = not used
sd0g = /usr
sd0h = /home
This is the way Sun distributes there disks. Of course, you can choose any
other way to setup your disk. We have several disk where we use /dev/sd0a
as the entire disk (ie. we use the whole disk as one partition).
Personally, I think it doesn't matter much ehether you call the disks
'sda1'..'sda8' or 'sd0a'..'sd0h'. Maybe we should stick to the *standard*
(ie. what most /good/ unices use), but don't ask me what that standard is
because I don't know much about SysV.
Ben Lippolt