Installation problem

[Roland Smith]

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 01:01:08AM -0400, Derek Schwartz wrote:
> Hey, I'm trying to install the latest release of FreeBSD on my Dell
> Desktop, the computer originally had windows XP, but then the hard
> drive was wiped clean.
> I tried reconfiguring the geometry of the hard drive by using my Linux
> Ubuntu Disk Utility, I changed it to {0-a5} which I heard was for
> FreeBSD, but still no luck.

Well, 165 or 0xA5 is indeed the system partition ID for FreeBSD. But that has
nothing to do with the disk geometry (which is cilinders/heads/sectors and
which you should _not_ mess with).

Read and follow Chapter 2 of the freeBSD handbook; 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html

Pay attention to §2.6, Allocating Disk Space.

Since you are installing a desktop, I would recommend to create a separate
partition (in the FreeBSD Disklabel Editor, _not_ FDISK!) for your /home. That
makes it easier to separately back up the OS and your own data.


Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
[plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated]
pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914  B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 196 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20100819/e577bea4/attachment.pgp