> Is a normal partition (eg. ffs) allowed to start from sector 0? I have
> many disks with partitions like these at the moment and they seem to
> work just fine. (I hope not by sheer luck.. ;) I know that I can't do
> that on i386 if I want to have a bootable partition, but it seems to
> work on eg. alpha just fine. What about sparc? Installboot man page
> tells that the first-stage bootprogram is written into the superblock,
> so I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work. How does the superblock
> and the disklabel mix?

Both ffs and swap code know about the disklabel and bootblocks and
skip over the first 8K of the partition, so you can use a partition
that starts at sector 0 for a filesystem or swapping without damaging
the label.  Other filesystems may not be so obliging.

> The install document tells me to put partition boundaries at cylinder
> boundaries for SunOS filesystem compatibility. This is only a filesystem
> thingie, ie. I can begin the swap partition wherever I want, right or
> wrong?

Don't forget PROM compatibility.  You can begin partitions anywhere
you want, but don't expect to be able to boot from them.

=========================================================================
Eduardo Horvath				eeh@netbsd.org
	"I need to find a pithy new quote." -- me