Re: Experiences with FreeBSD 9.0-BETA2

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 09:11:12PM -0400, Arnaud Lacombe wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Adrian Chadd <adrian_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> > .. I do FreeBSD installs on 1GB flash disks. You know, so I don't have
> > to nuke the windows install. Just so I can test out things. :)
> >
> > If people would like to see a more detailed partition editor, please
> > supply patches to bsdinstall to do so. :-)
> > I'd love to have multiple options - "use all for one partition", "do
> > sysinstall-style auto partitioning".
> > This is much more fun with GPT partitions where there's no 6 slice limit, right?
> >
> Yes, if you forgot about BSD disklabel. I do not really know where
> your 6 slice limit comes from, I used to have FreeBSD 5.x system with
> slices up to 'i' or 'j'.

BSD disklabel is limited to a maximum of 8 slices per MBR partition.  The
'c' slice is reserved for the entire disk which leaves you with 7 usable.
Not sure where the 6 number comes from unless you always block 'b' off for
swap, or perhaps Adrian was meaning the old rule in sysinstall that seemed
to only used the 'a' slice for the root partition.  Theoretically you could
probably end up with 28 slices (7 slices for each of 4 MBR partitions),
maybe more if you delve into the murky underworld of extended partitions.

"man disklabel" shows that the highest slice can be 'h', and I believe its
correct.

Gary