[Solved] Is there a graphical partition manager for FreeBSD?

BLuFeNiX · #1 December 17th, 2012, 22:22

I am attempting to use FreeBSD as my primary OS (I've just switched from Ubuntu). I love gparted, but it seems that there is no gparted port for FreeBSD. I have searched the forums and everything I've found is either command-based or TUI. Is TUI the best I'm going to get?

Thanks!

**fonz** · #2 December 17th, 2012, 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLuFeNiX

I love gparted, but it seems that there is no gparted port for FreeBSD.

According to its own documentation, gparted has limited support for UFS and no support for UFS2 or ZFS. It's therefore not very useful for FreeBSD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLuFeNiX

I have searched the forums and everything I've found is either command-based or TUI. Is TUI the best I'm going to get?

I think so, yes.

Seeing as you're coming from Ubuntu, you might want to check out PC-BSD instead. It's based on FreeBSD, but designed to be more pointy-clicky-Ubuntu-ish (perhaps they should have named it BSDuntu instead

).

Fonz

vermaden · #3 December 17th, 2012, 22:42

You can use sade from the FreeBSD's base system:

... but You will probably end batter with the gpart utility (both for MBR and GPT scheme):

Code:

# gpart status
  Name  Status  Components
ada0p1      OK  ada0
ada0p2      OK  ada0
ada0p3      OK  ada0

# gpart show  
=>       34  312581741  ada0  GPT  (149G)
         34        256     1  freebsd-boot  (128k)
        290   33554432     2  freebsd-zfs  (16G)
   33554722  279027053     3  freebsd-zfs  (133G)

BLuFeNiX · #4 December 17th, 2012, 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by fonz

According to its own documentation, gparted has limited support for UFS and no support for UFS2 or ZFS. It's therefore not very useful for FreeBSD.

I think so, yes.

Seeing as you're coming from Ubuntu, you might want to check out PC-BSD instead. It's based on FreeBSD, but designed to be more pointy-clicky-Ubuntu-ish (perhaps they should have named it BSDuntu instead

).

Fonz

I've heard of PC-BSD, but I have no problem using the command line for most things. I prefer it for installing software, editing config files, etc. The one thing I always go graphical for is partitioning, but I guess I'll have to get a little closer to the metal

Thank you for your quick response. Do you have a suggestion for the most feature-full TUI partition manager? I would love if it had an option to set up a RAID1 for me. I also have a Ubuntu and Windows 7 installation on my machine, and would like to be able to manage any/all partitions from one place.

Thanks!

BLuFeNiX · #5 December 17th, 2012, 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by vermaden

You can use sade from the FreeBSD's base system:

... but You will probably end batter with the gpart utility (both for MBR and GPT scheme):

Code:

# gpart status
  Name  Status  Components
ada0p1      OK  ada0
ada0p2      OK  ada0
ada0p3      OK  ada0

# gpart show  
=>       34  312581741  ada0  GPT  (149G)
         34        256     1  freebsd-boot  (128k)
        290   33554432     2  freebsd-zfs  (16G)
   33554722  279027053     3  freebsd-zfs  (133G)

Wow, thanks. You even posted screenshots. I have used gpart a little in the past, I'll revisit it and I'll check out sade. Thanks!

TiberiusDuval · #6 December 17th, 2012, 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by fonz

Seeing as you're coming from Ubuntu, you might want to check out PC-BSD instead. It's based on FreeBSD, but designed to be more pointy-clicky-Ubuntu-ish (perhaps they should have named it BSDuntu instead

).

Fonz

I use PC-BSD mainly because I do not want to go through big hassle to get working DE, but I want to use FreeBSD software and like consistency of system. But as far as I know PCBSD is just collection of certain utilities and and premade scripts over FreeBSD system. (Something like difference between plain Debian and for example Mint Debian) So if there is not FreeBSD version of something there certainly is not PC-BSD version of it. And as far as I know PC-BSD does not have graphical partition manager except in installer.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Goette · #7 December 22nd, 2012, 23:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by TiberiusDuval

I use PC-BSD mainly because I do not want to go through big hassle to get working DE, but I want to use FreeBSD software and like consistency of system. But as far as I know PCBSD is just collection of certain utilities and and premade scripts over FreeBSD system. (Something like difference between plain Debian and for example Mint Debian) So if there is not FreeBSD version of something there certainly is not PC-BSD version of it. And as far as I know PC-BSD does not have graphical partition manager except in installer.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

PCBSD is FreeBSD but provides some gui for install and a pbi manager to install "packages" like chrome and such, so you don't have to compile from source.

Of course, the freebsd ports and everything is 100% compatible, is like installing freebsd and spend a hundred hours configuring it.

nemeas · #8 December 23rd, 2012, 07:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goette

PCBSD is FreeBSD but provides some gui for install and a pbi manager to install "packages" like chrome and such, so you don't have to compile from source.

Of course, the freebsd ports and everything is 100% compatible, is like installing freebsd and spend a hundred hours configuring it.

And it gives you an easy root-on-zfs install

vermaden · #9 December 23rd, 2012, 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by nemeas

And it gives you an easy root-on-zfs install

... and support for ZFS Boot Environments with beadm

drhowarddrfine · #10 December 23rd, 2012, 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLuFeNiX

Is TUI the best I'm going to get?

I guess TUI means "text user interface"? I've never heard that before. Don't you mean CLI (command line interface)?

CLI is always the best you can get.

**fonz** · #11 December 23rd, 2012, 18:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine

I guess TUI means "text user interface"? I've never heard that before.

One can bicker about whether or not it's an appropriate term in the first place, but in practice the fact of the matter is that TUI indeed stands for "text user interface" and is commonly used to refer to (n)curses-based interfaces.

Fonz

kpedersen · #12 December 23rd, 2012, 19:43

Cool, I have been looking how to access the "sade" tool for a while now (since sysinstall was removed) and even then I was trying to work out how to use the tool directly rather than going through the sysinstall menus.

It is quite misleading because it is titled FDISK partition editor, so I always thought it was part of the FreeBSD fdisk program, and I just hadnt found the correct "interactive mode" parameter yet

**wblock@** · #13 December 23rd, 2012, 22:49

Please use gpart(8). sade(8) has many of the same problems as fdisk(8).

drhowarddrfine · #14 December 24th, 2012, 04:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by fonz

One can bicker about whether or not it's an appropriate term in the first place, but in practice the fact of the matter is that TUI indeed stands for "text user interface"

Not bickering at all. I just never heard that before.

kpa · #15 December 24th, 2012, 05:13

Creating a GUI partition manager should be much easier now than it used to be. There's gpart(8) that has a robust text interface, a quick and dirty GUI could just call gpart(8) trough a shell. Also there's libgeom(3), with suitable bindings to for example python it shouldn't be too hard to create a graphical interface to GEOM managed disks and partition tables.

**fonz** · #16 December 25th, 2012, 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpa

with suitable bindings to for example python it shouldn't be too hard to create a graphical interface to GEOM managed disks and partition tables.

Why drag Python into it when there's dialog(1)?

Fonz

**fonz** · #17 December 25th, 2012, 14:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine

Not bickering at all. I just never heard that before.

That's why I said: "one"

Although I have yet to hear any good argument, there is a small minority of people who do object (rather vociferously, sometimes) to either the term TUI itself, or what it is commonly taken to mean, or both.

Fonz

kpa · #18 December 26th, 2012, 11:15

I was thinking of an X11 based GUI using for example x11-toolkits/py-tkinter

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The Following User Says Thank You to fonz For This Useful Post:
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