nkbj@image.dkfdisk) before you read this
document. The tips herein are tested using FreeBSD 2.2.2, but they should be
valid for newer versions as well. Do not hesitate to mail me if you have
comments, questions or suggestions about this document. I would also like to
hear from people who have experience using Linux together with NetBSD or
OpenBSD.
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system much like Linux. The main difference is that, while the Linux kernel has been written from scratch, FreeBSD is based on the freely redistributable parts of 4.4BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) known as 4.4BSD-lite. This fact might lead some people to suggest that FreeBSD is closer to being ``real'' UNIX® than Linux. FreeBSD runs only on the Intel PC platform (i386 and higher); ports to the DEC Alpha and Sun Sparc platforms are being worked on at the moment. NetBSD and OpenBSD are similar to FreeBSD, and both run on several platforms. Hardware requirements for all these *BSD systems are similar to those for Linux.
The development of FreeBSD is managed in a different way than the Linux development. A core team of developers serve as arbitrators and provide leadership for the project. Big changes are discussed in advance on the mailing lists. The FreeBSD project has two development trees (just like Linux): ``-CURRENT'' and ``-STABLE''. The ``-CURRENT'' development tree is where the development of new features happens. Development to the ``-STABLE'' tree are restricted to bug fixes and some thoroughly tested new features.
FreeBSD can be used and (re-)distributed freely just as Linux. Most parts of the system are released under the BSD copyright; the rest is under the GNU GPL or other open-source licences.
Linux and FreeBSD label hard drives and partitions after two differents schemes. This section explains the main differences between the two schemes. In fact the FreeBSD labelling scheme is an adaption of the traditional BSD labelling style ported to live within the PC's fdisk partitions. Thus it is very similar to other BSD-based Unix systems such as NetBSD, OpenBSD, Ultrix, Digital Unix, SunOS, and Solaris.
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). Note
that the Linux fdisk program doesn't display the BSD partitions in a
FreeBSD slice from the main menu, but it can display BSD disklabel information
if you give the command `b'. The output is something like this
(/dev/hda4 is the FreeBSD slice):
bash# fdisk /dev/hda Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/hda: 64 heads, 63 sectors, 621 cylinders Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 bytes Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 1 27 54400+ 83 Linux native /dev/hda2 28 28 55 56448 83 Linux native /dev/hda3 56 56 403 701568 83 Linux native /dev/hda4 404 404 621 439488 a5 BSD/386 Command (m for help): b Reading disklabel of /dev/hda4 at sector 1624897. BSD disklabel command (m for help): p 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 64512 1624896 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 404 - 419) b: 104832 1689408 swap # (Cyl. 420 - 445) c: 878976 1624896 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 404 - 621) e: 64512 1794240 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 446 - 461) f: 645120 1858752 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 462 - 621) BSD disklabel command (m for help): q bash#
The letters `a'...`f' in the first column are the same labels as shown below in the example for a FreeBSD slice. There are three special partitions in BSD parlace. The letter `a' designates the root partition, `b' designates the swap partition, while `c' designates the whole slice. See the FreeBSD documentation for more information on the ``standard'' way of assigning these letters to different partition types.
The hard drives are labelled in the following way in Linux and FreeBSD:
Linux FreeBSD
First IDE drive /dev/hda /dev/wd0
Second IDE drive /dev/hdb /dev/wd1
First SCSI drive /dev/sda /dev/sd0
Second SCSI drive /dev/sdb /dev/sd1
The partitions (FreeBSD slices) on an IDE drive are labelled in the following
way (/dev/hda is used as an example):
Linux FreeBSD
First primary partition /dev/hda1 /dev/wd0s1
Second primary partition /dev/hda2 /dev/wd0s2
Third primary partition /dev/hda3 /dev/wd0s3
Fourth primary partition /dev/hda4 /dev/wd0s4
The partitions in my FreeBSD slice is labelled in the following way. It is the
labelling you get by default. It is possible to change the labelling if you do
a custom installation of FreeBSD (/dev/hda4 is the FreeBSD slice in
the example):
Linux label FreeBSD label FreeBSD mount point /dev/hda5 /dev/wd0s4a / /dev/hda6 /dev/wd0s4b swap /dev/hda7 /dev/wd0s4e /var /dev/hda8 /dev/wd0s4f /usr
If you run dmesg in Linux you will see this as (The linux kernel must be
build with UFS filesystem support for this to work. See section
Installing and preparing Linux):
Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 >
If you have installed FreeBSD in the /dev/sd1s3 slice
(/dev/sdb3 in Linux parlace), and /dev/sdb2 is a Linux
extended partition containing two logical partitions (/dev/sdb5 and
/dev/sdb6), the previous example would look like this:
Linux label FreeBSD label FreeBSD mount point /dev/sdb7 /dev/sd1s3a / /dev/sdb8 /dev/sd1s3b swap /dev/sdb9 /dev/sd1s3e /var /dev/sdb10 /dev/sd1s3f /usr
This will be shown as
Partition check: sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 > sdb3 < sdb7 sdb8 sdb9 sdb10 >in the output from
dmesg.
If you have a Linux extended partition after your FreeBSD slice you're in
for trouble, because most Linux kernels installation floppies are build
without UFS support, they will not recognise the FreeBSD partitions inside the
slice. What should have have been seen as (/dev/hda3 is the FreeBSD
slice and /dev/hda4 is the Linux extended partition)
Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 > hda4 < hda9 hda10 >is seen as:
Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 >
This can give you the wrong device assignment and cause the loss of data. 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!
This section describes how I got Linux and FreeBSD to share a swap partition. There may be other ways to get the same result. You can install FreeBSD before Linux if you want to, just pay attention to the order of the partitions in the FreeBSD slice.
The first step is to install Linux as normal. You have to leave space for the FreeBSD slice at your hard drive. You don't have to make a Linux swap partition, but if you want one, put it in the space you want to allocate for FreeBSD. That way you can delete the Linux swap partition later and use the space for FreeBSD.
When you have installed Linux you have to build a new kernel. Read The Linux Kernel HOWTO if this is new to you. You have to include both UFS filesystem support (read only) and BSD disklabel (FreeBSD partition tables) support:
UFS filesystem support (read only) (CONFIG_UFS_FS) [N/y/m/?] y BSD disklabel (FreeBSD partition tables) support (CONFIG_BSD_DISKLABEL) [N/y/?] (NEW) y
Install the new kernel and reboot. Remove any line including the word swap
from your /etc/fstab file if you have made a Linux swap partition.
Make sure you have a working Linux boot floppy with the new kernel. Now
you are ready to install FreeBSD.
Install FreeBSD as described in the FreeBSD documentation. Remove the Linux
swap partition if you have made one (you can use the FreeBSD fdisk
program.) Pay attention to the order of the partitions in the FreeBSD
slice. If you use the default labelling the second partition will be the swap
partition. Complete the installation of FreeBSD and reboot into Linux
using the new Linux boot floppy.
Run dmesg when you have booted into Linux. In the output you should see
something like this:
Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 >
This means that /dev/hda4 is your FreeBSD slice, while
/dev/hda5, /dev/hda6, /dev/hda7 and
/dev/hda8 are the FreeBSD partitions. If your swap partition is
the second partition in the slice, it will be /dev/hda6.
You have to put the following line into your Linux /etc/fstab file to
enable the swap partition:
/dev/hda6 none swap sw 0 0
While FreeBSD can use any type of partition as swap space, Linux needs a
special signature in the swap partition. This signature is made by mkswap.
FreeBSD ruins this signature when it uses the shared swap partition, so you
will have to run mkswap each time you boot into Linux. To do this
automagically you have to find the script that runs swapon at boot time.
In Red Hat Linux it is /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit. Put the following line
into that file just before swapon -a:
awk -- '/swap/ && ($1 !~ /#/) { system("mkswap "$1"") }' /etc/fstab
This will run mkswap on any swap partitions in /etc/fstab every
time you boot except if they are commented out (having ``#'' as the first
character in the line.)
Run free to check out the size of the swap space when you have rebooted
into Linux. You should also reboot into FreeBSD to make sure everything works
as expected. If it does not, you have probably used the wrong partition
as swap partition. The only solution to that problem is to reinstall FreeBSD
and try again. Experience is a great teacher. :-)
You can easily boot FreeBSD with LILO. Do not install the FreeBSD boot selector
(Booteasy) if you want to use LILO. Append the following lines to your
/etc/lilo.conf file and run lilo (assuming the FreeBSD slice is
/dev/hda4):
other=/dev/hda4
table=/dev/hda
label=FreeBSD
If you have installed FreeBSD on the second SCSI drive, use something like
this (the FreeBSD slice being /dev/sdb2):
other=/dev/sdb2
table=/dev/sdb
loader=/boot/chain.b
label=FreeBSD
Unfortunately the UFS driver in the Linux 2.0.xx kernels do not include support for FreeBSD. When you try to mount a FreeBSD filesystem, you just get some error messages (the filesystem actually gets mounted, but you cannot do anything with it.) This problem has been solved in the newer Linux kernels (version 2.1.87 and higher.)
There is another version of the UFS driver for Linux 2.0.xx kernels (xx <= 30)
on
metalab.unc.edu (the former sunsite.unc.edu). It is called U2FS
and the current version is u2fs-0.4.3.tar.gz. A version of U2FS
(ufs-0.4.4.tar.gz) for Linux 2.0.31 and higher (2.0.xx; not 2.1.xx) can
be found at
this site along with further information about U2FS (and UFS.)
Now you have to build a new kernel with support for the U2FS filesystem and BSD disklabels. See section Installing and preparing Linux for more information on this. You can leave out UFS filesystem support from the kernel when you use U2FS.
When you have installed the new kernel, you can mount your UFS filesystems (all the partitions in the FreeBSD slice except the swap partition) with a command like this:
mount -t u2fs /dev/hda8 /mnt
You should use a command like
mount -t ufs /dev/hda8 /mntif you use a Linux kernel version 2.1.87 or higher. From Linux kernel version 2.1.112 you must add
-o ufstype=44bsd to the command like this:
mount -t ufs -o ufstype=44bsd /dev/hda8 /mnt
The UFS (and U2FS) driver is read-only. That is; you can read from the UFS filesystems but you cannot write to them. An experimental read-write UFS driver has replaced the read-only driver in Linux kernels version 2.1.112 and higher; writing to FreeBSD partitions is supported from version 2.1.127.
To mount ext2fs filesystems under FreeBSD, you first have to build a new kernel with ext2fs support. Read the FreeBSD handbook to learn how to do that. Put the line
options "EXT2FS"in your kernel configuration file for the new kernel.
When you have booted with the new kernel, you can mount an ext2fs filesystem by giving a command like:
mount -t ext2fs /dev/wd0s3 /mnt
Due to a bug in FreeBSD 2.2.8 and earlier you will have to unmount all ext2fs
filesystems before you shut down FreeBSD if you are using these any of
these versions. If you shut down FreeBSD with an ext2fs filesystem mounted,
FreeBSD cannot sync the UFS filesystems. This results in fsck being run
the next time FreeBSD is booted. You can work around this bug by putting the
line:
umount -a -t ext2fsin the
/etc/rc.shutdown file. The bug has been fixed in FreeBSD 3.x.
The iBCS package has support for running FreeBSD binaries under Linux;
but it's old and unmaintained. I cannot get it to work. Please let me know if
you have had better luck with this.
FreeBSD has the ability to run Linux binaries, both in a.out and ELF formats. To do this you have to take the following three steps:
/etc/rc.conf
file and change
linux_enable="NO"to
linux_enable="YES"and reboot. Another way to load the Linux binary support is to execute the command
/usr/bin/linux. This way you don't have to reboot, and you
don't always have the Linux binary support loaded (i.e. you save memory.)
Remember to add the line
options COMPAT_LINUXto the FreeBSD kernel config file if you build a new FreeBSD kernel.
linux_lib-2.4.tgz (newer versions might be
available.)
Run the following command to install the package:
pkg_add <path_to_package>/linux_lib-2.4.tgz<path_to_package> is the directory where the package is stored. You may also load it off the net by:
pkg_add ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-stable/All/linux_lib-2.4.tgzor by re-running
/stand/sysinstall. Enter ``Configure'', ``Packages''
and use the menus. You should execute the following command if you are running
statically linked Linux binaries:
brandelf -t Linux <name_of_statically_linked_linux_binary>
I have successfully run the Linux versions of Applixware 4.3 and Netscape 3.01 (both ELF format) under FreeBSD 2.2.2 using this method (yes, I know there is a native FreeBSD version of Netscape 4.) The Linux versions of acroread and StarOffice 3 and 4 also work well under FreeBSD. StarOffice 5 depends on native Linux threads and currently do not work under FreeBSD. Read the FreeBSD documentation for more information on this topic.
The latest version of this mini-HOWTO can be downloaded from this site in several formats (including SGML and PostScript.) The document has been translated into Japanese by Mr. Teruyoshi Fujiwara as part of the JF project.
You can find some articles about the difference between Linux and FreeBSD here.
You can find more informations about FreeBSD (and download the whole system) at this site. You can also buy the system on CDROMs from Walnut Creek CDROM (their servers are running FreeBSD.)
The Linux Kernel HOWTO (and this mini-HOWTO) is released as part of The Linux Documentation Project.
Thanks to the members of the *BSD user group in Denmark for answering the questions of a FreeBSD newbie, to Mr. Takeshi Okazaki for bringing the existence of U2FS to my attention, and to Mr. David O'Brien for valuable suggestions.
Trademarks are owned by their owners.
Although the information given in this document is believed to be correct, the author will accept no liability for the content of this document. Use the tips and examples given herein at your own risk.
Copyright © 1997-2000 by Niels Kristian Bech Jensen. This document may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the LDP License at http://www.linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html.