[SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

claestw · 2009-10-23 12:49:09

EDIT: Ouch, I just realized there's an "Installation" board down below. Looks like this post belongs there. My apologies.

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I'm trying to install from 2009.08-netinstall. I have both the official installation guide and the beginner's guide with me, and I follow the beginner's guide while skimming through the official guide.

Q1) What partition scheme do we follow?

In Beginner's Guide, it leads the reader to create four partitions: root, swap, /var, /home.

Following this example results in the "no /boot on separate filesystem" warning. I stopped here and consulted the official guide, it lists the Auto-Prepare scheme of: /boot, swap, root, /home.

In Windows and Arch Dual Boot, the example gives: /boot, root, swap, /home.

So...what's up with the Beginner's Guide?

Q2) Always 3 primary and put the rest in logical partitions?

The Beginner's Guide assumes a full disk, so the four partitions are all primary. I have two Windows systems already (sda1, sda2), does it matter what goes in sda3? Must it be /boot? Must it be root? Or does it make absolutely no difference?

I'm thinking of something like this:

sda1 Primary NTFS(Windows)
sda2 Primary NTFS(Windows)
sda3 Primary Linux #root ext3
sda5 Logical Linux #/boot ext2
sda6 Logical Linux swap / Solaris
sda7 Logical Linux #/home ext3

Since it's for desktop use, I suppose /var could just sit in root and it won't really make a difference.

Oh, by the way: Q3) I can't eject my netinstall CD!

When I reboot, the CD won't eject during POST, and I had to boot Windows from the grub menu. Not a big deal, just a little uneasy about it. Perhaps because the CD-ROM was not unmounted before reboot? I seem to recall that these things get locked when mounted. (Not sure.)

Last edited by claestw (2009-10-23 14:40:04)

grey · 2009-10-23 13:25:14

The /boot directory needs to be on a primary partition. That's not strictly true, but in your case it is. That doesn't mean that it needs to be on a separate partition - it could be under /. A separate /boot partition is good practice, but not in any way necessary.
So in your case if you switch /boot and root, you should be fine. I.e.

sda3 Primary Linux #/boot ext2
sda5 Logical Linux #root ext3
sda6 Logical Linux swap / Solaris
sda7 Logical Linux #/home ext3

But the following will also work:

sda3 Primary ext3 /
sde4 Primary swap

I'm not recommending that - the first version is better in many respects - but it might give you an idea on what is possible.

To QT3: it happens - nothing to worry about. But there is no need to boot into windows to eject the CD. Usually you can either enter the BIOS setup, then eject the CD and exit without saving, or choose a 'select boot medium' option (often F8), and then boot from the disk.

Misfit138 · 2009-10-23 13:31:59

A disk partitioning scheme is a very personalized preference. Each user's choices will be unique to their own computing habits and requirements....
In this example, we shall use separate partitions for /, /var, /home, and a swap partition.

Note that an extended partition must be created before you add logical partitions.

grey · 2009-10-23 14:03:36

Still: the one example given in the beginners guide shouldn't result in a warning from the installation procedure. Even with the "this is a purely personal preference" disclaimer. It's confusing for new users, especially the ones that take the time and actually read the friendly manuals.

claestw · 2009-10-23 14:39:00

Thanks for the responses. If I may, I would suggest the following edit to the Beginners' Guide:

1) Put in /boot to avoid the warning.
or,
2) Make a note that /boot needs to be on a primary, while not necessarily having its own partition/filesystem.

This is just from my point of view, that if I had these pieces of information, I would have proceeded past that step with confidence. I'm not asserting that this is a better way to write the guide.

(Personally I'm surprised I didn't know about 2 above. I used Debian briefly in 2000 and Gentoo more recently, and have been running a FreeBSD server at home for the last few years. I must have been lucky all the time.)

As for creating an extended partition, it seems to depend on what disk partitioning tool one uses. The one in Arch's installer will create the extended partition automatically when you start adding logicals (well there wasn't an option to create extended partitions anyway), while (if I remember correctly) in DOS/Windows one needs to manually create the enclosing extended partition, then fill in the logicals.

niblet · 2009-10-23 15:20:57

grey wrote:

Still: the one example given in the beginners guide shouldn't result in a warning from the installation procedure. Even with the "this is a purely personal preference" disclaimer. It's confusing for new users, especially the ones that take the time and actually read the friendly manuals.

I agree. I was sort of confused by the beginner's guide with respect to partitioning as well and had to do some forum searches and googling before I figured it out. That said, I think there are some good forum posts about partitioning preferences and limitations and I think a link to one of those would suffice.

Misfit138 · 2009-10-23 16:00:50

I think the best way to approach this is to either open a bug report or contact dieter directly to establish his logic for adding that warning. That way, I can change the documentation to fit his reasoning, or he can remove the warning.

Dieter@be · 2009-10-24 19:34:02

Hi, there is no good vs wrong here. having /boot separately has some (small) advantages but for many setups it's just not needed.
the warning in aif is also just that, a warning. you can always skip it.

now, to solve this little "cosmetic issue" i suggest to recommend a separate /boot . After all, people who know what they are doing know that they can do it differently anyway.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-23 12:49:09

[SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#2 2009-10-23 13:25:14

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#3 2009-10-23 13:31:59

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#4 2009-10-23 14:03:36

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#5 2009-10-23 14:39:00

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#6 2009-10-23 15:20:57

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#7 2009-10-23 16:00:50

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

#8 2009-10-24 19:34:02

Re: [SOLVED] Uncertainty regarding partition scheme

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