Experiences with FreeBSD 9.0-BETA2

[John Baldwin]

On Sunday, September 25, 2011 8:52:37 pm Brett Glass wrote:
> First thing I noticed, when running the new FreeBSD installer from 
> a memory stick image, is that disk partitioning was odd. It 
> abandoned standard UNIX parlance, calling what are traditionally 
> called "slices" partitions. It also diverged from past practice by 
> creating one big UFS filesystem rather than the usual separate 
> partitions for /, /tmp, /var, /usr. It then made a separate slice 
> (to use the traditional terminology) for swap, rather than 
> including it in the slice that contained the big file system. This 
> seemed odd; if the file system was being lumped together in one 
> place, why break out the swap to an entirely separate slice?

I can't speak to the "one-big-fs" bit (there was another thread long ago about 
that).  However, as to the partitioning bit, bsdinstall is defaulting to using 
the newer GPT scheme instead of an MBR with a nested BSD label.  It is simpler 
(only LBAs, no C/H/S dance), more extensible (partition table can be sized at 
creation time), supports larger disks (64-bit LBAs, which neither MBR nor the 
BSD label support), and is the x86 disk layout scheme of the future (EFI 
mandates GPT).

It is actually more like a traditional BSD system that would have only had a 
BSD label (and no MBR) on the disk.

-- 
John Baldwin