Arch Linux

Dreameen

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-09-06

Posts: 252

Partition Planning

Hi.

Right now, I have Mandrake 10 comm. and Windows XP installed and the output of df looks like this

/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6
                      4,0G  1,9G  1,9G  51% /
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
                      5,4G  4,5G  877M  84% /mnt/windows

I will format the windows partition and I want to install arch instead.
And my question is:

1. How should I create the partitions for arch with the current configuration(keep in mind that I want to keep Mandrake and Windows partition will be formatted).

Regards.

morphus

Member

From: Braunschweig

Registered: 2003-08-06

Posts: 145

Re: Partition Planning

do you have a swap partition anywhere?

Dreameen

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-09-06

Posts: 252

Re: Partition Planning

Yes I have a Swap partition mounted(size=212mb) before the main Mandrake partition mounted as /.

So, generally it looks like this:

1-st partition-->/mnt/windows
2-nd partition-->Swap
3-rd partition-->/

morphus

Member

From: Braunschweig

Registered: 2003-08-06

Posts: 145

Re: Partition Planning

There shouln't be any problem using the arch installer and installing arch onto /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1. You don't have to make any swap-partition since you got one

You should the let arch install a bootloader (I recommend grub) onto the mbr of the harddisk. You have to tweak grub to boot mandrake, but that shouldn't be the problem.

ravster

Member

From: Queen's U, Kingston, Canada

Registered: 2004-05-02

Posts: 285

Website

Re: Partition Planning

Since you are using Mandrake already, you should be having a bootloader already installed onto the boot sector. If this is the case you might want to skip the installation of a bootloader altogether. You can use the old bootloader without problems. This is what I have done with my RH8+WinXP+Arch install. I've left the grub from my RH8 installation as it is.

---

ravidesai.com

Dreameen

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-09-06

Posts: 252

Re: Partition Planning

Cool

Yes i have lilo installed in my MBR. So what do i have to add to lilo.conf to load arch after installation??

Here's my current lilo.conf output:

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
default="linux-nonfb"
keytable=/boot/pl.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=30
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw

image=/boot/vmlinuz
        label="linux"
        root=/dev/hda6
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent"
        vga=788
        read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
        label="linux-nonfb"
        root=/dev/hda6
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5"
        read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
        label="failsafe"
        root=/dev/hda6
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5 devfs=nomount"
        read-only
other=/dev/hda1
        label="windows"
        table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
        label="floppy"
        unsafe

Dreameen

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-09-06

Posts: 252

Re: Partition Planning

Ok. I see that there is an example of a proper lilo.conf entry for arch at the Bootloader install step, so the above question isn't that important.

Anyhow, when I look at the cfs output I see that the windows partition is set as:
-PRIMARY
-with a flag=BOOT

When I delete this partition and choose to create a new one from the available space cfs asks whether it should be PRIMARY or LOGICAL partition. To tell you the truth I don't know what should it be. Should I also set the flag to BOOT on my first arch partition or what. If someone could clarify these things I'd be very grateful.

morphus

Member

From: Braunschweig

Registered: 2003-08-06

Posts: 145

Re: Partition Planning

google for more information; with the given infos the windows partition was primary and you could also install arch into a primary partition. Leave the flag untouched.

i3839

Member

Registered: 2004-02-04

Posts: 1,185

Re: Partition Planning

Logical partitions are a trick invented to circumvent the max 4 primary partitions problem. I'm not sure if they can be only the last partition or not, but that's what I always thought.