Arch Linux

mynis01

Member

Registered: 2011-04-29

Posts: 71

Best way to install Arch on Mushkin Calisto 120Gb SSD?

I have a laptop which has a standard old school BIOS setup. It is a Lenovo g530 rev 4151, t4400 3gb ram. I will be installing the Mushkin Calisto 120gb SSD in the near future. This drive has a 512K erase block size and 4K nand page size. I want to use GPT, gdisk, and syslinux as this sounds like the best way to set it up from reading the Arch SSD wiki, but I couldn't find where it said whether this is possible on a motherboard that doesn't support EFI. Do I need to downgrade to a standard MBR with GRUB2? Also I read that syslinux has to load files from your root partition during startup and if they get moved it won't be able to boot your system (/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin). Does this mean that they simply have to stay in the same place in the directory structure, or does this mean where the data is physically placed on the hard drive? The reason I ask is because I'm worried that TRIM might relocate the file.

admiralspark

Member

From: Alaska, USA

Registered: 2011-01-07

Posts: 87

Re: Best way to install Arch on Mushkin Calisto 120Gb SSD?

Just out of curiosity, and I think I must be misunderstanding your question....what exactly are you asking for? I mean, I don't see why the default install will be any different, except for using syslinux. As with all bootloaders, if you move the initramfs and kernel from their position in /boot you won't be able to boot, regardless of which bootloader you use.
If you're set on using an MBR, grub or grub2 work fine. Grub is probably faster but grub2 has update-grub (an easy-to-use script).
For this:

Also I read that syslinux has to load files from your root partition during startup and if they get moved it won't be able to boot your system (/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin). Does this meant that they simply have to stay in the same place in the directory structure, or does this mean where the data is physically placed on the hard drive?

The files must remain in the same directory in the FS, in the same partition. But if you move the partition to another part of the HDD they theoretically would work fine.
Don't bother with trying to get EFI working if the bios doesn't use it. All else fails and the drive doesn't like using an MBR for some reason, try Chameleon boot loader--I hear it has some interesting MBR-to-EFI crossover stuff.

---

Team Ignition Kernel Developer
linux-ideapad developer/maintainer
Flame Kernel developer for Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S3
Want a cheap, reliable VPS with AWESOME customer service?

mynis01

Member

Registered: 2011-04-29

Posts: 71

Re: Best way to install Arch on Mushkin Calisto 120Gb SSD?

My concern was based on the line in the GPT wiki that says that GPT was part of the UEFI specification. Upon asking a few people however, it seems that using GPT does not require a motherboard with some type of EFI support. Thanks for the reply admiralspark, Chameleon looks very interesting I might have to check that out.