[9fans] sharing venti with p9p

[John Stalker <stalker@maths.tcd.ie>]

This question is inspired by my current install problems, but I think
it is of more general interest.  What I want is a multiboot system
with a fossil+venti plan9 system sharing a disk with an another os,
in this case FreeBSD, which has plan9ports installed.  I expect many
of you have a similar setup.  What I have is each os living on its
own dos partition, slice in BSD language, with its own disklabel.
The venti lives in a partition on the plan9 slice and is therefore
invisible to p9p, since FreeBSD can't read the plan9 disklabel.
In particular, I can't use the venti/checkindex or venti/checkarenas
from p9p as a diagnostic tool when plan9 fails to boot.  It seems I
ought to have put isect and arenas in separate slices so as to be
able to get at them independently of which os is booted.  Is this
possible?  If so, can I also write to the venti from p9p without
problems?  From my understanding of venti this ought to work, but my
understanding of venti is pretty shallow at this point.

-- 
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282