You are not logged in.

#1 2011-01-11 00:25:14

drk
Member
Registered: 2011-01-10
Posts: 2

a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

Hello, I'm trying out arch (still with virtualbox), and I'm following the 'beginners guide' on the wiki.

I managed to install it but ended up with a few doubts, about some parts of the installation.

On the "Partition Hard Drives" part, it says that there are 3 types of disk partitions (primary, extended, logical), but when I'm creating the partitions with cfdisk, I can only choose between primary and logical. Does the extended gets created automatically when I create some logical partitions?

When I have to set the filesystem mountpoints, I think that I don't do anything to the /dev/sda (I only set the ones with numbers at the end - the partitions), but I don't think the wiki is clear on this, the only thing I see there is this part: "Recall that partitions end in a number. Therefore, sda is not itself a partition, but rather, signifies an entire drive" which is easily overlooked when you don't understand much.

When you need to choose the mirrors (/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist), the wiki doesn't tell much. For example, what is the difference between choosing ftp or http servers? do you choose both? In the beginning there's a server that has as a comment #any, does this mean it will choose automatically which server it will use?

that's it... for now :)

Offline

#2 2011-01-11 00:35:18

ngoonee
Forum Fellow
From: Between Thailand and Singapore
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 7,354

Re: a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

Moving to 'Newbies Corner' since this is for discussing about the forum and wiki itself, not their contents.

In the spirit of the Arch Way (check the wiki), I'd suggest the following for your questions:-
1. Search for what primary/extended/logical partitions are on google.
2. Choose the mirror which is closest to you. Or just use reflector (search for it on the wiki/forum/google).


Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
Griemak-Bleeding edge, not bleeding flat. Edge denotes falls will occur from time to time. Bring your own parachute.

Offline

#3 2011-01-11 00:46:33

admiralspark
Member
From: Alaska, USA
Registered: 2011-01-07
Posts: 87

Re: a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

Hey drk,
I mean no offense by this, so please don't take it wrong, but Arch (much like Gentoo--I know I know) is the linux power user's distro. Though their documentation is a hundred times better than just about anything else out there, they do expect those who wish to install it to possess a certain level of knowledge; and if not, at least the know-how to use google or the rest of the wiki to find it out.
Arch is an excellent resource for learning how linux systems are built and function---it is certainly not Ubuntu.


Team Ignition Kernel Developer
linux-ideapad developer/maintainer
Flame Kernel developer for Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S3
Want a cheap, reliable VPS with AWESOME customer service?

Offline

#4 2011-01-11 07:28:11

moosie
Member
Registered: 2011-01-08
Posts: 20

Re: a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

For the hard drive part, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but sda refers to the whole drive where as sda# refers to a partition, one might say portion, of this drive; i.e sda1 would be the first partition sda2 the second and so on. As for the mirrors for the difference between ftp and http refer to this link: http://daniel.haxx.se/docs/ftp-vs-http.html  I haven't read this but it seems to be a good source of knowledge. Also for the mirrors and the install as a whole I recommend watching this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjTTl_9aUXc in the video the reflector and curl are used to come up with the fastest mirrors based on your location and he goes through the whole installation process all the way to the point where he installs gnome.

Offline

#5 2011-01-11 08:44:01

ngoonee
Forum Fellow
From: Between Thailand and Singapore
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 7,354

Re: a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

moosie wrote:

For the hard drive part, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but sda refers to the whole drive where as sda# refers to a partition, one might say portion, of this drive; i.e sda1 would be the first partition sda2 the second and so on. As for the mirrors for the difference between ftp and http refer to this link: http://daniel.haxx.se/docs/ftp-vs-http.html  I haven't read this but it seems to be a good source of knowledge. Also for the mirrors and the install as a whole I recommend watching this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjTTl_9aUXc in the video the reflector and curl are used to come up with the fastest mirrors based on your location and he goes through the whole installation process all the way to the point where he installs gnome.

In general, if you're not sure of something, better not to post it. Also, don't do googling for someone else, Arch users are expected to be competent to do their own research. Else you end up feeding help vampires (not necessarily saying the OP is one).


Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
Griemak-Bleeding edge, not bleeding flat. Edge denotes falls will occur from time to time. Bring your own parachute.

Offline

#6 2011-01-11 09:07:33

moosie
Member
Registered: 2011-01-08
Posts: 20

Re: a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

Ok ngoonee will do thanks for the advice.

Offline

#7 2011-01-12 00:51:09

drk
Member
Registered: 2011-01-10
Posts: 2

Re: a few doubts in the 'beginners guide'

Ok, thanks for the answers.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB