Subject: Partitioning...
To: None <port-i386@netbsd.org>
From: Andy Ball <ball@cyberspace.org>
List: port-i386
Date: 12/02/2001 23:03:27
Hello!

I'm up to my old tricks again, but this time on slightly
less crufty hardware.  I'm trying to install NetBSD/i386
1.5.2 onto a PC from an existing DOS partition. I've set
a logical geometry of 3303 cylinders, 16 heads and 63
sectors per track (it's an ATA drive of about 1.7Gb).

I found NetBSD's fdisk confusing until I realised that
the cylinder listed as the 'end' of a partition was the
first cylinder after that partition.  Is it just me who
finds that odd?

Anyhow, it's about time I learned to properly plan my
disklabel (especially since I can't find the old 'auto
defaults for all' option ;-) I have a vague recollection
that the root partition has to be within 1024 cylinders.
Does the swap partition also have to be?  Can I use the
remainder of the disk for the /usr partition?  How does
this look...
                                    *The DOS partition
Start    End   Size    Mb  Use       would start at
~~~~  ~~~~~  ~~~~~  ~~~~  ~~~~~~    sector 63 to leave
    0*   403    404   208  MS-DOS    room for the boot
  404    893    490   253  /         track.
  894   1023    130    67  swap
 1024   3302   2279  1176  /usr                     ...?

Oh, and I have a vague idea that...

  a: should be /,
  b: should be swap,
  c: is the NetBSD part of the disk,
  d: is the whole disk.

Should I use e: for /usr and f: for the MS-DOS partition?

Any advice would be most welcome.

Regards,
  - Andy Ball.