Re: Sharing a harddisk between FreeBSD and Linux (Knoppix, Ubuntu)

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 02:07:59 +0300, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:31:42 GMT, Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The computer has a single disk of 19GB, and now I'm trying to
partition it so both FreeBSD and Linux can make optimal use of
it. I want, at least, use the same swap partition for both (if
possible), and share the data. There's no need for Linux to be
able to touch FreeBSD's root partition, and I'm still unsure on
the programs/sources. I think it's unnecessary.

I think reserving a few Gigabytes for Linux (system and
programs only)
There aren't many file systems that are usable for both FreeBSD
and Linux. Sharing a FAT partition is probably the easiest of
them all, but it is practically unusable for any serious work
(like storing user HOME directories), because of the inherent
limitations of FAT (no permissions, no file owners, file size
limits) and the degradation you will experience as the partition
gets more and more fragmented (which is never a problem with UNIX
file systems).

Using a common ext2 file system, on the other hand, goes almost
half of the way towards being usable for both Linux and FreeBSD,
but still lacks all the cool features of UFS on FreeBSD
(i.e. softupdates and snapshots), so it's still a compromise.
Moreover, it may not work 100% correctly for both Linux and
FreeBSD if Linux (while it's running) chooses to use some of the
more modern features of ext2-based filesystems.

Be *very* careful with your data. FreeBSD and linux have a history of not
playing nice with one another's file systems.

Linux doesn't even pretend to have safe writing to ufs partitions, while I
have had problems with FreeBSD writing to linux partitions. I tried to
keep an ext2 home directory while I transitioned between the two several
years ago. With an ext2 mounted 24/7, I had regular issues of random
data being written into the middle of files.

It has been several years since that happened, but having mentioned it
here several times, I have yet to have anyone tell me that this shouldn't
happen any more.

I your data mattes at all, I'd keep separate home directories, and only
mount one another's read only. When I *do* need to move things between
file systems, I generally do it by slapping a tarball onto a fat partition
(although there's either a 2g or 4g limit, I discovered the other day).

hawk
.

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