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So I'm sitting here using the Macbook Guide off the wiki to dual boot OSX and Arch together and I cant figure out how to use "parted".
At the step that says:
"Delete the empty space partition and partition the space as you would for any other installation. Note that MBR is limited to 4 primary partitions (including the efi partition). That leaves 2 primary partitions for arch. One strategy is to have a system and home partition, and use a swap file (I haven't tried to use logical partitions). Another is to dedicate one partition to a shared partition (see below)."
So in OSX I used Disk Utility to create a "FAT32" partition out of my free space for Arch and my table in parted looks like this:
Number Start End Size File System Name Flags
1 20.5kB 210MB 210MB fat32 EFI System Partition boot
2 210MB 63.8GB 63.5GB hfs+ Customer
3 63.9GB 80.0GB 16.1GB fat32 UntitledWhat do I do now? I'm really confused as to how I am supposed go about this. If I can only use 2 primary partitions.
Last edited by Lumpiia (2011-04-17 03:04:47)
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If it is a question of how to use parted then you should just google "using parted". If it is a question of how you should partition the space you have given that you have only 2 primary partitions, it depends on how many partitions you require. You can easily install arch on that one partition that you have as fat32 and you won't even need to use parted (I think) but only require the installer to format that partition to the format of your choice. If you need more partitions then 1 of those primary partitions need to be converted to a logical partition and that will enable you to create more partitions of that logical partition. But seeing your confusion I would advise that you know what you are doing before you go ahead. Dual booting on a mac is not very straightforward, I think.
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You have to use MacOS Disk Utility to do any partitioning because Linux utilities don't support hybrid GPT/MBR partioning (at least they didn't before, it's been a while for me). You should make two partitions for Arch - one main partition of at least 8-10 GB and a swap partition equal to the amount of RAM you have. Format doesn't matter, just make them both FAT32. Then whenyou go to install Arch, select "use existing partitioning". When you pick what you're using each partition for, it'll let you choose to reformat them appropriately.
Two other things that may be helpful:
1. You can only boot off the first 4 partitions, so make sure EFI, Arch and MacOS are all in the first four.
2. You might want an extra partition for transferring files back and forth as Linux support for HFS+ is poor, and MacOS support for various Linux partition formats is poor.
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You have to use MacOS Disk Utility to do any partitioning because Linux utilities don't support hybrid GPT/MBR partioning
You can also use gdisk.
IIRC Arch's grub is patched with gpt support. Lots of helpfull documentation about the different layouts on the gdisk page; including Hybrid MBRs: The Good, the Bad, and the So Ugly You'll Tear Your Eyes Out.
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