Linux extended partitions not compatible?

[cbrace]

Hi all,

I have a Asus Eee PC 1000 on to which I would like to install FreeBSD.

Using Fedora installed on a USB stick, I shrunk down the Windows partitions, and created several partitions of 20GB each in the extended partition, one of which I used to installed Fedora, and another which I was going to use dedicate to FreeBSD.

However, when I booted FreeBSD from a USB stick and started sysinstall, fdisk didn't see anything of the extended partition, only the Windows logical partitions. The rest was reported as empty space, which it is not.

Anyone know what is going on here?

Thanks.

 

[cbrace]

I have found the answer:

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).

From: The Linux+FreeBSD mini-HOWTO

This thread is also helpful: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=4605

 

[cbrace]

OK, I have freed up space after the Linux partitions, 80GB, but the FreeBSD fdisk still doesn't see this space. Gparted says that it is "unallocated". Can it be that it is somehow considered still part of the extended partition by FreeBSD?

Further in the article mentioned above, the author writes:

My advice is to always put your FreeBSD slice after any Linux extended partitions, and do not change any logical partitions in your Linux extended partitions after installing FreeBSD!

At this point, I can't see how to do that. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[phoenix]

Better way is to create the primary partitions first (one for Windows, one for FreeBSD), then create an extended partition with all the logical partitions inside for Linux. That way, the numbering of the slices won't ever change (ad0s1 is the first primary partition, ad0s2 is the second primary partition, ad0s5 is the first logical partition, etc) and you can create/delete logical partitions without worrying about renumbering of the other partitions.

While one cannot install/boot FreeBSD from a logical partition (/ filesystem needs to be on a primary partition), one can put other filesystems into logical partitions (/usr, /var, /home, and so on).