Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

Surma · 2012-09-03 13:54:24

Hello, I want to replace my (slightly broken due to my carelessness) Ubuntu installation with Arch Linux. I already have a functioning dual-boot configuration, with GRUB installed, so I figured that I may not need to perform all the steps detailed on various tutorials for setting up an Arch+Win7 dual-boot configuration, such as partitioning and installing GRUB. My question is, what exactly do I need to do?

My partitions currently look like this:
13.00 GB restore partition (doesn't say if it's primary or logical)
100 MB SYSTEM RESERVED (some windows stuff I guess? Primary)
333.71 GB Acer (C:) (windows partition. Primary)
25.64 not allocated (some space I cut out from the windows partition)
30.00 GB Ubuntu partition (ext3 I think. Primary)
5.00 GB SWAP (A bit excess with 4 GB RAM, will probably shrink it. Primary, for whatever reason)
291.19 GB Data (F:) (NTFS partition which I keep all my stuff in. Logical)

My plan is to have Arch on one single partition, combining the unallocated space into that (so /home and /boot won't have separate partitions). I'll then just mount C: and F: somewhere convenient so I have access to my stuff.

DSpider · 2012-09-03 14:44:14

Welcome to the forum.

Follow the Beginners' Guide and come back if something isn't clear and other wiki pages, other forum posts or Google isn't answering you. Because with Arch you need to adopt a do-it-yourself mentality. Nobody's going to spoon feed you. Have you read the FAQ?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ

Here are a few tips:

I have Arch on a single partition and it's worked out fine for me. My suggestion is to get rid of the swap partition, get rid of the Ubuntu partition and create a 15 GB root and a 20 GB home, both ext4, because it's probably not a good idea to have such a large root. The HDD read head could travel too much, slowing down the system. With 4 GB RAM you don't even need a swap partition. I have 2 GB of RAM and I barely go over 50% RAM usage. Only when using virtual machines (obviously). If you were using swap for hibernation, you can always use a swap file (see the Swap wiki page).

GRUB (or Syslinux) will have to be reinstalled either way, if you repartition or not. It's no big deal, you'll see.

Alternatively, install a few times in VirtualBox to get the hang of it, maybe watch some Youtube clips on how it's done.

Last edited by DSpider (2012-09-03 14:48:28)

WonderWoofy · 2012-09-03 15:25:20

As DSpider said, you need to do the work for yourself... you will find that these forums are very different from Ubuntu. There tends to be issues with Ubuntu users coming to Arch's forums, not reading the rules and thinking they can behave precisely as they did in their previous community. That will certainly not be very well recieved here. My time with the Arch forums, I have noticed some very common abuses. I think the most basic (and most frequently broken) rules are that bumping and cross posting are very much looked down upon in most forum comminutes and are therefore prohibited in the rules.

I will give you an idea of the way I ahve my partitions set up since it is vastly different from DSpiders. When I first started using Linux, I didn't quite understand the advantages of chopping up the filesystem. But separating /home is a great idea if you want to a) share it between a couple installed distros b) saving your personal data in the event of reinstallation. Arch's rolling release model provides a no reinstall scenerio, unline Ubuntu's 6-month release cycle, so it may not be as crucial, but still convenient.

So I have 15GB for /, 10GB for /var, 200MB for /boot (though recently replaced by a 200MB EFI System Partition), 50GB for /home, and 250GB on a rotational HDD mounted at /home/hdd with symlinks where necessary.

I ahve 8GB RAM and 4GB swap, which easily allows hibernation despite popular opinion.

I am going to have to agree with DSpider that you try a virtualbox first. Module/driver's might be slightly different, but getting a feel for the overall process is probably a good idea since the install is now with a chroot.

Good luck...

nomorewindows · 2012-09-04 11:00:57

Just use your unallocated space, if you can allocate it for Linux, to add more *LOGICAL* parrtitions for Arch. Split it up into piecewise partitions because it is better. You can reuse your swap space, and won't need to be recreated as your swap space for Arch; just tell /etc/fstab where it is, (or AIF if using AIF when installing). You can preserve any data you might have in Ubuntu until everything is moved over into Arch. You still have to make a modification to grub's configuration file to point to your Arch kernel. You won't have to reinstall Grub per se. If you were to overwrite Ubuntu in it's partiton, you might have to reinstall Grub depending on where Grub's/boot directory is located.

Surma · 2012-09-04 15:41:21

I booted from a Live USB and had a look around with fdisk, cfdisk and parted. Apparently, Windows lied to me. The last ntfs partition is not primary. An extended partition begins after the free space and contains the ext3, the swap and the ntfs partition, which are logical. I think what I want now is a setup like the following:

13.00 GiB Primary Restore
100.00 MiB Primary SYSTEM RESERVED
350.00 GiB Primary Windows (changed size because I like round numbers)
100.00 MiB Logical /boot
15.00 GiB Logical /
20.00 GiB Logical /home (will use whatever space is left, which should be ~20 GiB)
300.00 GiB Logical NTFS (again, round numbers)

Seems good? I have a few questions:
Can /boot reside in a logical partition? I read that BSD systems need primary partitions, but Linux doesn't and I know Arch is BSD-like somehow, but I'm fuzzy on the details. Also, does it need to be flagged as bootable?
Why is there ~1 GiB of unallocated space at the start and end of the disk (according to cfdisk)? The man page claims that maximising a volume will render it unusable by DOS and OS/2, so I'm guessing I can't do that without making Windows unable to use it. Is this true?
How exactly do I go about increasing the size of the extended partition to fill up the empty space before it? Maximise in cfdisk? Will that affect the NTFS partition which is a logical volume under the extended?
When all is done and formatted, is the rest just a simple matter of the usual procedure (pacstrap /mnt base and all that jazz) or have I forgotten anything?

Also, the reason I made this thread was because I felt I needed second opinions on my particular case. I have used arch to run a game server for over a year, so I'm quite familiar with the do-it-myself approach and I have googled and read everything I could. I just needed more information.

Also, apparently my network adapter is not supported in the latest install media (2012.08.04). The problem (and workaround) is the exact same as described here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=525966 (exact same network card). Perhaps something I should make a bug report about?

DSpider · 2012-09-05 09:37:46

Can /boot reside in a logical partition? I read that BSD systems need primary partitions, but Linux doesn't and I know Arch is BSD-like somehow, but I'm fuzzy on the details.

Sure. You're installing to the MBR anyway (the first 512 MB of the drive).

Also, does it need to be flagged as bootable?

Only if you go with Syslinux. GRUB doesn't care about boot flags.

As for the rest of the questions... use gparted from a "live" Linux distribution (Parted Magic, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc) to resize or whatever. Follow the Beginners' Guide and you should be fine.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-09-03 13:54:24

Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

#2 2012-09-03 14:44:14

Re: Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

#3 2012-09-03 15:25:20

Re: Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

#4 2012-09-04 11:00:57

Re: Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

#5 2012-09-04 15:41:21

Re: Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

#6 2012-09-05 09:37:46

Re: Replacing Ubuntu with Arch, old config Ubuntu+Win7 dual boot

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