Arch Linux

rjrjr

Member

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 42

Macbook Dualboot partition confusion!

I'm really excited to build an Arch system to play alongside my OS X, but I am royally confused by the partitioning. I know that I can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions, but what should they be? Two are already taken by the EFI bootloader and OS X, so that leaves me with two left. The Macbook wiki is a bit unclear as to how to deal with the remaining two partitions. Do I need a /boot? Do I need a separate /home partition? I'm migrating from Ubuntu which did this stuff automagically.

Thanks in advance. I must be a lot more of a newb than I thought if I was stumped by the installer

austin.rbn

Member

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 77

Re: Macbook Dualboot partition confusion!

You do not need separate patitions for /home and /boot. That all comes down to your needs and preferences. The Arch Linux installer should flag the location of /boot (whether that be saved on / or as a separate partition) as the "boot" partition. You can then edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to chainload to your other bootmanager for OS X.

This is all explained in the Beginner's Guide, so you may want to take a look at that. Also, I have no experience dual-booting with Mac OS X, but the above applies to dual-booting generally, I hope.

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"Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer." -- Alan J. Perlis

rjrjr

Member

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 42

Re: Macbook Dualboot partition confusion!

The Beginners Guide helps, but just to make sure:

I can use a 20GB ext3 for / and the remaining 90GB for an ext4 /home, and my system will boot...right?

Do I need to flag my / as bootable when using cfdisk?

Last edited by rjrjr (2010-03-22 14:42:20)

grey

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2007-08-23

Posts: 679

Re: Macbook Dualboot partition confusion!

I can use a 20GB ext3 for / and the remaining 90GB for an ext4 /home, and my system will boot...right?

Well, let me put it this way: 20GB ext3 for / and 90GB for an ext4 /home will not prevent your system from booting. Whether it will actually boot is a different question.

Do I need to flag my / as bootable

Not if you are planning to use grub. It ignores that flag.

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Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.

rjrjr

Member

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 42

Re: Macbook Dualboot partition confusion!

That setup has worked out fine thus far. Base system is installed. Thanks for the help.