Arch Linux

tjsanda

Member

From: Longview, Wa

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 8

[SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

I would like to try this Dist. but I dont really know how to go about it with my setup.
I already have Windows installed on my laptop with 2 80gig SATA HDD's in Raid 0 configuration.  Is it possible to add Archlinux to this already setup Raid configuration?  If so, please enlighten me!!!

Last edited by tjsanda (2009-09-25 17:43:16)

vogt

Member

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2006-11-25

Posts: 389

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … _Fake-RAID is what you are looking for.

tjsanda

Member

From: Longview, Wa

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

Thank you, looks kind of complicated, but I'm going to give it a shot.

tjsanda

Member

From: Longview, Wa

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

After trying almost every distro out there, I gave up on trying to install to my raid array.  It seemed as though Dmraid did not support the ich8m raid controller.  Then, Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty came out and low and behold, it reads and installs to my raid configuration!  Everything works flawlessly, and fast too.  Thank you for your help.

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

After trying almost every distro out there, I gave up on trying to install to my raid array.  It seemed as though Dmraid did not support the ich8m raid controller.  Then, Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty came out and low and behold, it reads and installs to my raid configuration!  Everything works flawlessly, and fast too.  Thank you for your help.

Well, we are all happy that you found distro for yourself, but I know that Arch works with RAID arrays as well. Of course, Arch requires you to manually make configs as you want it. I don't know how the latest ubuntu jaunty does it. Haven't used ubuntu in years now.

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tjsanda

Member

From: Longview, Wa

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

Yes, I see that Arch does work with raids, as most distros do, my problem has been that dmraid would not recognize my particular configuration.  I think the reason may very well be that there is no support for the ich8m raid chipset.  I think the standard ich8 may be recognized, but not the 8m.  I dont really know, it's just a guess.  I still plan on tring Arch Linux (and some others) when and if I can get them to recognize the raid configuration.

tjsanda

Member

From: Longview, Wa

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

This is what I have found. 

Any distro that comes with dmraid 1.0.0_rc15 seems to recognize my raid array.  Any that have the older versions, do not.  Ubuntu 9.04 comes with version 1.0.0_rc15-6, I believe, so it works fine.  When I find a way to get the latest version on other Distros, I will try them.  Thanks for all input on this matter.

mcmillan

Member

Registered: 2006-04-06

Posts: 737

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

If you want to give arch another shot it's pretty easy to build your own package with a newer version. Take a look at the wiki for the Arch Build System I just tested the PKGBUILD file and it built ok just changing the version number and the location for the source. I can't say for sure if it will work since I don't have a RAID array, but it doesn't look like the rc14 in arch's repo was being patched in any way so I'd be surprised if that causes problems. The only other hurdle I'd see if if the ubuntu people are patching anything to make it work on your system, but you seem to think it's just the version.

sekiz

Member

Registered: 2008-12-31

Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

This should do pal. There is very few you can do with other distros and arch cannot.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=73097

tjsanda

Member

From: Longview, Wa

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows

I finally had a chance to really sit down and play with installing and setting up Arch.  After spending  the day setting everything up the way I want,  I'm impressed. There were a few small issues to straighten out, but all in all not too bad.  I'll be using Arch for my daily computing now just because it seems so much faster than Ubuntu or Windows.