FreeBSD needs one of the four entries in the partition table on your PC's
hard drive. This primary partition is called a ``slice'' in FreeBSD
terminology. It then uses the disklabel
program to make up to eight
partitions in this primary partition. These logical partitions are called
``partitions'' in FreeBSD terminology. This concept is similar to the way
Linux (and DOS) handles logical partitions in an extended partition. You
cannot install FreeBSD in an extended partition made by Linux (or DOS). Note
that the Linux fdisk
program doesn't display the BSD partitions in a
FreeBSD slice from the main menu, but it can display BSD disklabel information
if you give the command `b'. The output is something like this
(/dev/hda4
is the FreeBSD slice):
bash# fdisk /dev/hda Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/hda: 64 heads, 63 sectors, 621 cylinders Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 bytes Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 1 27 54400+ 83 Linux native /dev/hda2 28 28 55 56448 83 Linux native /dev/hda3 56 56 403 701568 83 Linux native /dev/hda4 404 404 621 439488 a5 BSD/386 Command (m for help): b Reading disklabel of /dev/hda4 at sector 1624897. BSD disklabel command (m for help): p 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 64512 1624896 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 404 - 419) b: 104832 1689408 swap # (Cyl. 420 - 445) c: 878976 1624896 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 404 - 621) e: 64512 1794240 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 446 - 461) f: 645120 1858752 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 462 - 621) BSD disklabel command (m for help): q bash#
The letters `a'...`f' in the first column are the same labels as shown below in the example for a FreeBSD slice. There are three special partitions in BSD parlace. The letter `a' designates the root partition, `b' designates the swap partition, while `c' designates the whole slice. See the FreeBSD documentation for more information on the ``standard'' way of assigning these letters to different partition types.