Arch Linux

docsaimname

Member

Registered: 2011-12-03

Posts: 4

[Answered] Issues and questions regarding installation

I have decided upon attempting to learn more of a foundation in Linux by installing Arch from Ubuntu, Linux Mint Debian Edition, and Fedora.  I have gotten quite irritated in my recent experimentation with Fedora, and a fair amount of application instability.

I have installed Arch in a virtual machine, and played through the initial installs, but am having issues with an actual install on my machine.  I need to dual-boot Windows 7 as well as a Linux distribution.  I honestly only use the Windows allocation for schoolwork, and as a back-up when I have no time to repair the Linux partitions.

My issue with the installation has to do with the manual partitioning the disks during the installation with cfdisk and not properly allocating space. I have two of the sda slots allocated to Windows 7, and it's bootloader, and 40 gig's of free space set aside for Arch.  In a few attempts at modifying the partitions tables, cfdisk appears to stop permitting partitions after sda4, leaving me stagnate with unallocated space rendered empty.  I have, at that point, set up a root mount point, a swap partition, Windows partition and subsequent bootloader.  I am primarily confused about the partitioning recommended, and what would happen if i did not make specific partitions.  The wiki seems to stress a separately needed /boot partition, and strongly suggests an independent /home partition.  I understand some benefits of a separate /home partition, segregation of data from OS, as well as not needing to format or move my data if i re-partition.  I make regular backups of my home partitions, whether changing distros or not.

If I were to just allocate a swap and root partition through cfdisk, would this be adequate for the system startup? Would the bootloader work appropriately even if not in an independent partition?  Would my home directory be at risk if coupled with the root directory?

I'm sorry for the muddle, but before I compromise my primary tool for schoolwork, I'd just like this explained.

If more information is needed, please let me know.

Last edited by docsaimname (2011-12-04 17:20:24)

Mavirick

Member

Registered: 2011-12-01

Posts: 62

Re: [Answered] Issues and questions regarding installation

If you are looking to make a customized partitions I would recommend a live cd like gparted to do all the partition editing. 

You should know that you are limited to 4 primary partitions on a harddrive, if you want more than that you need to turn the fourth partition into a extended partition to create the additional partitions in that section.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: [Answered] Issues and questions regarding installation

Two partitions, for swap and /, are sufficient for your Arch installation.

stryder

Member

Registered: 2009-02-28

Posts: 500

Re: [Answered] Issues and questions regarding installation

As Tomk said, just use a partition for root and one for swap. Just want to point out that your problem creating partitions after the fourth one is probably due to mbr limitation of 4 primary partitions. The 4th one has to be a logical extension to create further partitions.