Post B0ROFHWhfch4GfF9Y8 by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
(DIR) More posts by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
(DIR) Post #B0QWmuVc5kcgWr8dmq by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T05:22:25Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
And oh boy all terms seem so foreign to me as a long time #Linux user. The same disk is called ada0 with a partition like ada0p2 in #FreeBSD, will be called something like sd0 with wlsd0h in #OpenBSD, ld0 and dk2 in #NetBSD . Then to experiment, all the #dkctl, #disklabel and #fdisk commands are like blue and red wires on a dynamite you have to get rid of 😱. Linux distros nowadays seem to be going to the #gdisk way which feels very much like #gpart in FreeBSD.#UseBSD #RUNBSD #BSD #FOSS #UNIX #Linux
(DIR) Post #B0RNwWqgTidsHqeBjE by d1@autistics.life
2025-11-20T08:57:17Z
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@kaixin the GUI based disk management tools are so good these days... gparted, #Gnome Disks, #KDE Partition Manager. Were they not good enough for you?#Linux #OpenSource
(DIR) Post #B0RNwYChRLqYUPxHgO by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T15:17:41Z
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Unfortunately here I am only discussing cmd tools, even, what base #BSD systems provides.
(DIR) Post #B0RO9GKPDGE6oVcZ60 by feld@friedcheese.us
2025-11-20T06:09:14.284792Z
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@kaixin gpart is the only one that's not scary to deal with
(DIR) Post #B0RO9HfMEqa2xmQoOO by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T15:20:16Z
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But do I have to have a calculator to make a new partition?😂 And also I am not really a tech-y guy, I do not understand what blocks, sectors and all that terms mean. Most of the time I simply want something like #gpart in #FreeBSD is:gpart add -t ufs -s 20g ada0and done, a 20G #UFS partition is there.
(DIR) Post #B0ROFGDWXRl2CtGK12 by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
2025-11-20T05:32:08Z
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@kaixin There's a lot of "historical reasons" going on here. Linux was cribbing its notes from MINIX which was cribbing from UNIX (including BSD), so they all come from the same place, but there are some niceties in BSD that don't exist in Linux. (Drivers announce themselves in dmesg using the driver name, which is the base of the name of the device in /dev, Linux has never done this).1/n
(DIR) Post #B0ROFHWhfch4GfF9Y8 by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
2025-11-20T05:35:23Z
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@kaixin OpenBSD is by far the most traditional with its disk naming (and its partitioning scheme, IIRC, my OpenBSD partition still has a disklabel inside it, where NetBSD does not, and Linux never had disklabels).I usually grep dmesg (or just scan with less) for disks, and then `disklabel sd0' will get you what the partition letters are. a is always the first OpenBSD native partition on the drive, b is reserved for swap, c is the whole disk and non-native start at i.2/n
(DIR) Post #B0ROFIUG6CKfFN6iNU by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
2025-11-20T05:40:59Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@kaixin This scheme has some amount of confusion when you first approach it, which is why NetBSD and FreeBSD work differently. I'm not really a FreeBSD user, so I'm won't comment, but I do use NetBSD. The base scheme that OpenBSD uses is still there, but with the caveat that d is the whole drive rather than c.As best as I can tell, the dk driver was meant to add a set of uniform device names for partitions of block devices that handle GPT partitions and removable drives better.3/n
(DIR) Post #B0ROFNg8nRo9Lfhm5o by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
2025-11-20T05:44:47Z
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@kaixin Have you stumbled on the r-device files yet? All your block devices have a character device with an r-prefix. Eg, /dev/sd1c and /dev/rsd1c. Linux will just let you use block devices as character devices, but BSD has been historically picky about this (I think most are less so these days, or I'm just used to it). dd is the tool that I regularly use that wants an r-device file rather than the block device file. (And yes, this is maybe a place where Linux is friendlier)4/4
(DIR) Post #B0ROT0SXvE19OCqLia by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T15:24:10Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Both disklabel and fdisk in #NetBSD and #OpenBSD will often mark partitions from other systems as foreign and as a result the scheme reported will make no sense. This add another layer of scary. And all things are reported in sectors, offsets, blocks, I can not even tell the human-readable sizes of the partiotions to even guess what they are. This, is another layer of scary on top again.
(DIR) Post #B0ROd2d0iHyB0mWUNs by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T15:25:19Z
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I know there are rsd disks and sd disks under /dev but luckily I never had to really deal with them till now.
(DIR) Post #B0ROrw25W9SYtqM37I by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T15:28:49Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
I will say the gpt command in #NetBSD is closely friendly to gpart in #FreeBSD and gdisk in #Linux. dkctl is fine. But I can never teach myself to use fdisk or disklabel without worrying every second that I will instantly mess up the whole disk with one typo/wrong command argument.😂
(DIR) Post #B0RUKAU9sLv7bSlZEe by chesheer@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T16:24:28Z
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@kaixin disklabel in OpenBSD supports human readable format via -h flag. And in interactive mode you can "p [unit]" to display partitions in any unit you want.
(DIR) Post #B0RUKBu4bUFC07tmGe by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T16:27:23Z
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Oh yes forgot about that. Thanks for mentioning.
(DIR) Post #B0Ri0vDfoBOq74lwwa by overeducatedredneck@bitbang.social
2025-11-20T17:56:23Z
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@kaixin under OpenBSD, I pretty much only use fdisk and disklabel to read OpenBSD's view of a disk. I partition with the installer and leave it.I really like NetBSD's gpt tool, but the manpage calls it out as buggy and a WIP...and I have been bitten by it.Reworking disk layout is dangerous, your anxiety is healthy. Make good backups.
(DIR) Post #B0Ri0w9SLLcX0Ho60e by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T19:03:16Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Thanks for the clarifying and advice. Luckily I am experimenting a lot with VM. On bare metal I do have a ThinkPad T420 dualing boot FreeBSD and OpenBSD, the partition, or should I say the slice for OpenBSD was prepared by gpart in FreeBSD and then filesystems by OpenBSD installer. I had to prepare the slice in FreeBSD because I did not figure out how to get OpenBSD installer pick up the free space left on the same disk after FreeBSD partitions. Never had to touch it again after system installation though.
(DIR) Post #B0RqwzO3Gt3hT1pINE by d1@autistics.life
2025-11-20T17:29:01Z
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@kaixin my approach is to start from the GUI tools, then work downwards to the CLI only as necessary. In case I might ever need to relate to a normie on the matter, who feels aversive to the CLI. Maybe there is a similarly a GUI tool in BSD? Like gparted? Or maybe an ncurses-based TUI tool?
(DIR) Post #B0Rqx0FE5Baq7whlFw by kaixin@snac.bsd.cafe
2025-11-20T20:43:06Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
No doubt there are GUI tools like that. FreeBSD and NetBSD installer actually offer similar tui tools.