Solved Hardware and disks partitions advise

Hello all,

I have a desktop pc ready to try FreeBSD. Before jump into the pool, I would like to have some advises mainly about my hardware.
  • Motherboard: ASUS-P8P67 Bios Version 1503 (03/10/2011), with on-board network and sound card);
  • CPU Intel Core I7-2600 @ 3,4GHz (64);
  • One hard disk Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120 GB
  • One hard disk Western Digital WDC WD5000AZRX-00A8LB0 500GB
  • 8GB RAM (DDR3 1600MHz)
  • Graphics card AMD Radeon HD6950 with 2 GB memory
Should I expect some trouble?

What about disks partitioning? Can someone advise what should be the best partitions/sizes according my disks?

I am willing to try some linux emulation (maybe some gaming also). Any comment is welcome.

Thank you!

Daniel Leal
 
Hello all,

I have a desktop pc ready to try FreeBSD. Before jump into the pool, I would like to have some advises mainly about my hardware.
- Motherboard: ASUS-P8P67 Bios Version 1503 (03/10/2011), with on-board network and sound card);
- CPU Intel Core I7-2600 @ 3,4GHz (64);
- One hard disk Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120 GB
- One hard disk Western Digital WDC WD5000AZRX-00A8LB0 500GB
- 8GB RAM (DDR3 1600MHz)
- Graphics card AMD Radeon HD6950 with 2 GB memory

- Should I expect some trouble?
- What about disks partitioning? Can someone advise what should be the best partitions/sizes according my disks?
- I am willing to try some linux emulation (maybe some gaming also). Any comment is welcome.

Thank you!

Daniel Leal
You have a standard configuration (at least on my community in Vietnam that I know). I would be some trouble because as I know, the only worked VGA for FreeBSD (works fine, not partially) is NVIDIA. 500GB hard disk is not large but enough for home use, with 8GB ram, I think you should use the FreeBSD installer's guided Root On ZFS setting (if you're beginner, the expertise, don't blame me!). Setup Linux Compat is not hard at all. The handbook, this forum and mr google is your friends. Keep in mind to have a working internet connectable device while installing, to be able to search if something unexpected occurs. It's all I can say :)
 
Hei,

From the installer choose GPT partitioning and let the installer automatically create a layout on the SSD (whole disk).
Sandy Bridge motherboards will maybe boot in UEFI mode, maybe not. They tend to be buggy from my experience,
so I would probapby stick with a MBR (or PMBR as it's called on GPT).

To jump right into how FreeBSD works, check your motherboards documentation (or in Windows maybe) what networking and audio chipsets are used and then
look them up here, if they are supported. I'm pretty sure everything will be supported as it usually is from Sandy Bridge generation...
https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.1R/hardware.html

Your graphics card is also supported, though getting games to run with Linux emulation is another story...
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics
 
Ok, thank you!

But does that means that the other disk will not be touched, or that the installer will also create some partitions there?
 
Ok, thank you!

But does that means that the other disk will not be touched, or that the installer will also create some partitions there?
It depends on which disk you chosen to install during installation process. I would choose the HDD. For the SSD I will use for Windows or Linux :)
 
But does that means that the other disk will not be touched, or that the installer will also create some partitions there?
The installer only touches disks you've enabled in the installer. It does not create or modify existing disks or partitions unless you've told the installer to remove the existing stuff.
 
Well, I was thinking to use the SSD for /, /root, /var, /usr and swap. The /home in the other disk. I am not afraid to try ir manualy during the instalation. I was just wondering if I could do it this way during the installation?
For what I have read so far it seams that during the installation I can only choose one disk for FreeBSD, not more. Am I wrong?
 
I would simply do a normal install, with everything on the SSD and after you finished...
1. create a filesystem on the harddisk
2. mount the harddisk
3. copy content of /usr/home/brutanas to harddisk
4. add new entry to fstab
5. reboot
This has the advantage that you allways can remove the /usr/home/brutanas entry from fstab, reboot and remove/change/add a bigger harddisk without any hassle.

If you need more details, ask and I'll give you the steps to do so.
 
Ok, I got it !!
Just a little bit confused about location of home directory. Shouldn't it be /home instead of /usr/home ?
And is it not better to create myself the partitions with sizes chosen manually? If so, could you please advise according the ssd size (120GB)?

Thank you... I think I am almost ready...

Regards.
 
Ok, I got it !!
Just a little bit confused about location of home directory. Shouldn't it be /home instead of /usr/home ?
And is it not better to create myself the partitions with sizes chosen manually? If so, could you please advise according the ssd size (120GB)?
Considering the specs and your available memory you could consider using ZFS instead of UFS. This means that you can create virtual filesystems and don't have to bother yourself too much with their sizes. Problem is that it heavily depends on how you're going to use the machine.

For a server it would make sense to keep /var and /usr/local separated to make sure that one can't negatively influence the other (so: if you install too much software then you wouldn't risk your system suddenly being unable to write logfiles).

But for a regular desktop you could probably just do with keeping /, /usr/local and /home separated. So that your installed software and your private data can't influence the base system (with its logfiles and stuff).

Speaking of /usr/home. It's because FreeBSD is dated, many perks are left overs from old days ;) Back in the day it was common to keep / and /usr separated, also because this make it easier to change boot settings (long story). Not to mention that you could keep your boot environment relatively small. But that has become a bit obsolete over time, so now we still have /usr/home (where /home is usually a link) but it's also not uncommon to simply create /home (which is what I do on my servers).

Problem though is that there isn't really a "one size fits all" kind of scenario.
 
As long as you can't come up with an answer for yourself, "why should I have separate filesystem?", then let it be.
There isn't really any advantage of manually creating separate filesystems for /usr /var and such as, long as you're the only user of your computer and using it as a desktop.

Yes, ZFS is powerfull, but you won't gain much out of it on your setup IMO.
I would allways advice someone new to FreeBSD, to learn the FreeBSD basics first, and maybe later try ZFS.
You can save yourself a lot of headache ;)
 
Ok guys, Thank you for your time and patience. I think I will go for it tomorrow... I'l sleep on the subject today and decide about the ZFS or UFS.
You are very kind.

Regards.
 
Hello!I am back now with FreeBSD installed!! Installation was pretty forward...
Now I am struggling with the fact that I have no network connection. Already checked the cable with other PC and is ok.
ifconfig re0 gives status: no carrier

I am googling... In the meanwhile, if somebody have suggestions...

Thanks.
 
Hei Brutanas.

Don't ask google please. The way to go on FreeBSD is allways the same...

ifconfig re0 gives status: no carrier
1. Check if the Handbook has the information. In your case: 11.5.2. Configuring the Network Card or simply run bsdinstall netconfig
2. Read related manpages.
3. For additional documentation on 3rd party software, check the homepage (if any) and look for more in /usr/local/share/examples(..share/docs).
4. Information on hardware and drivers are here and here.

If all that does documentation does not work for you, ask here on the forum rather that asking google.
Blindly following instructions from the web will often make it hard to get help here, when you first have done lots of weird stuff to your configuration....
 
Well... good advise... Tks.
I think I got it:
First I mounted a pci network card. The other not functioning was on-board.
Now I have solved the no carrier issue. But still no route to host.
I checked netstat -r and the new network interface is not there.
I read the handbook but I not able to find how can I change the interface for the new one, since the output of netstat -r show only the loopback and re0, instead of my new one (rl0).
 
Check the output of: ifconfig

That will tell you the name of the other interface. NICs in FreeBSD are named based on the driver used, and a number (re0, xl0, igb1, etc). Once you find the name of the interface, then you can configure. Try to configure it manually first, to make sure things work. Then you can make the settings permanent by editing /etc/rc.conf.

If you have a DHCP server on the network, the following is all that's needed to configure it manually: dhclient <interfacename>

If that works, then a simple ifconfig_<interface>="DHCP" in /etc/rc.conf will do it.

Edit: just noticed you listed the interface name in your post above (rl0).
 
yeah, I did that, and this interface has an IP address! the problem is that is not in the routing table. The old one is there. I think that's the reason for the "no route to host" error.
I have to understand how to change the interface in the routing table...
 
!!!!!
It's fixed now!!
I just forced again the dhclient rl0 and then netif forcerestart... and that's it... the routing table suddenly showed rl0 and I can ping!!
:)
 
Hello again,

sorry for re-open the topic, but it is very related...
After install I used gparted to create a new freebsd-ufs partition on the other disk (ada1)
Than, formated with "newfs -U /dev/ada1"
At the end of the output I got the error:
GEOM: ada1: the secondary GPT table is corrupt or invalid
GEOM: ada1: using the primary only -- recovery suggested

I tried to recovery it with "gpart recover ada1" but no success".
Also can not mount my new /home on that disk due to that error.

How should I procced?

Just info: during install I did choose zfs on the other disk and everything went ok.

thanks.
 
Than, formated with "newfs -U /dev/ada1"
gpart recover would be the right command to fix that, but you created a filesystem on the whole disk instead of inside a partition. Start over again...

gpart destroy -F /dev/ada1 (destroys all data on the harddisk!)
gpart create -s gpt /dev/ada1
gpart add -a 1m -t freebsd-ufs /dev/ada1
newfs -j /dev/ada1p1

It's not called formatting, you create a filesystem ;)
 
hum... I am feeling stupid... :-|
ok I did it...
My goal now is to create /home/ and mount it on the new partition (put it on fstab) and link /usr/home to that one (since there is no fstab entry for /usr/home).
I hope I am thinking correctly this time...
 
Just do as I explained in post #8.
Then add the following entry to /etc/fstab
Code:
/dev/ada1p1    /usr/home/brutanas        ufs        rw        2    2
reboot...

Edit:
To copy over the contents of your home directory, mount the harddisk on /mnt
mount /dev/ada1p1 /mnt
 
ok, but what about other users that I will create?
Should'nt umount /usr/home (zfs) and mount it on /dev/ada1p1?
This way should be for every users. correct?
 
Why didn't you asked that a little earlier? Planing a bit ahead is allways a good idea ;)

gpart delete -i 1 /dev/ada1
gpart add -a 1m -freebsd-ufs -s 166G -l brutanas /dev/ada1
gpart add -a 1m -freebsd-ufs -s 166G -l maria /dev/ada1
gpart add -a 1m -freebsd-ufs -l pepe /dev/ada1
newfs -j /dev/ada1p1
newfs -j /dev/ada1p2
newfs -j /dev/ada1p3

...create corresponding entries in /etc/fstab, but not before you actually created the users.
 
sorry for my ignorance, but what is the advantage of that since in the future more users can be added to the system?
Shouldn't be easier to mount the /usr/home to the new disk?
 
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