Tonight I have a couple of things going on. I downloaded a couple of distributions today: PC-BSD 8.2, a 3.3 GB DVD ISO image, which I copied to my external USB drive, then the debian-testing-kfreebsd-i386-netinst.iso, which is an interesting twist: it is a daily build of Debian Testing, except it does not have the usual Debian GNU/Linux kernel; it uses a FreeBSD kernel, which is why it is labeled kfreebsd – a FreeBSD kernel and some core libraries to go with it that allow the FreeBSD kernel to work with the rest of a Debian based infrastructure. I do not believe that I have ever installed this before, so I want to give it a look too.
The hour is late though, so for tonight, the two systems have been downloaded, but I am finishing up the PC-BSD 8.2 installation in Virtualbox OSE, thereby allowing me to test PC-BSD from a virtual instance on my Debian Sid system.
I will probably do the same with kfreebsd so that I find out whether it uses a BSD file system or the usual Linux file system. BSD file systems, as far as I know, still require the use of a primary disk partition, because their file organization uses “slices”, rather than the usual notion of disk partitions. The collection of slices, from the vantage point of a Linux or Windows system, and from the perspective of fdisk and other partition handling tools, resides within a single primary partition. I will be examining how this implementation works soon, perhaps tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I am about ready to examine the result of the PC-BSD 8.2 installation.
1 comment:
Hi Brian, I'm a new recruit to the Linux world. I've been using Mac for the past 4 years, but recently swapped laptops with my wife as she was having no end of trouble with Windows. I suggested that she allow me to try a Linux install and I liked it so much that I swapped my Macbook for her Asus! I've been "distro hopping" for the past couple of months and I've currently settled on LMDE. I haven't a clue about GRUB, sda, root, etc.. and the terminal scares the hell out of me, but I'm keen to learn. It's certainly rekindled my interest in what's going under the bonnet (hood!) , and it's definitely breathed new life into the Asus (I'd be grateful if you could suggest a suitable starting point for learning the nuts and bolts?).
I'm enjoying your blog (I found you via the Jim Lynch site), even though much of it goes over my head. But please keep it up the good work -- your enthusiasm is infectious!
Best regards
Bill Pye
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