From: gt0178a@prism.gatech.EDU (Jim Burns) Subject: Re: What files to grab ? Date: 28 May 1992 01:12:27 GMT
in article <1992May27.153518.4147@athena.mit.edu>, tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) says:
> * It wants to take over the entire disk (it doesn't use the
> MS-DOS partition scheme). Also, in general, it seems to
> require more disk space.
Not entirely true. There has been much discussion about this in comp.unix.bsd,
and what some people are doing is this:
The first track on the disk is needed for a 'disklabel' that describes the
geometry of the disk, and the bootstrap loader. The disklabel is created
from the parameters defined in a disktab configuration file for several
harddisk types (like what termcap is to terminals). Nothing says those
parameters *have* to cover the whole disk. You just need to specify begin
and end tracks (preferably on cylinder boundaries) for the root, swap, and
/usr (?) BSD logical partitions. If you leave out track ranges, 386bsd
(theoretically) ignores them (within the limits of an alpha release).
Apparently, there is still room left for the partition table, tho' exactly
where I haven't seen yet. I *believe* the master boot + partition table is
still the 1st sector, and the disklabel is the 2nd. Whether that requires
(minor) source code changes, I'm also not sure.
--
BURNS,JIM (returned student)
Georgia Institute of Technology, 30178 Georgia Tech Station,
Atlanta Georgia, 30332 | Internet: gt0178a@prism.gatech.edu
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt0178a