Hi. I've searched release notes, bugzilla and news archives for an answer to this, but haven't found one. I have found one other query on fedoraforum, but no solution. ( http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-259666.html )
I started installing f14 on a machine (P4, 2GB ram, 30GB free on 75GB HD, 1st partition is WinXP). I use manual setup of partitions, as I have always done, planning to use the following approximate scheme: sda1 - primary - ntfs - 45 GB - winXP sda2 - primary - ext2 - 200 MB - /boot sda5 - extended - ext4 - 7 GB - /home sda6 - extended - swap - 2 GB - [swap] sda7 - extended - ext4 - 20 GB - /
It seems that anaconda overrides my choice of not ticking the 'create primary partition' box in the 'add partition' dialog, making all three first partitions created primary. This means that both /boot and either /home or / would be primary partitions.
Questions: - 'Olde' knowledge says that only one primary partition can be visible to the system at one time. Is this not longer true?
- If still true, the system wouldn't be able to see the home or root partition, would it?
- If the behaviour is by design, what is the reasoning behind it? Is it better than letting the admin decide?
I haven't yet tried partitioning with fdisk first, but will try to do that tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a usable workaround.
Have a nice weekend,
Frode Petersen
Frode wrote:
Questions:
'Olde' knowledge says that only one primary partition can be visible to the system at one time. Is this not longer true?
Don't quote me (DQM), but I think this only applies to Windows. DQM, but I think grub doesn't care. I boot systems installed on partitions that are not primary all the time. I only have 3 primary partitions:
1 for Windows (empty), just in case I ever want to install it 1 for swap, exactly the size of the available RAM 1 primary extended partition (the remainder of my hard drive), which is subdivided into a number of logical partitions. These contain fedora 14, fedora 15, rawhide, my collected data (usually mounted to /home/me/Documents), etc.
I use this setup, since Windows will not recognize the linux swap partition (82), nor will it recognize the linux extended partition (85), nor will it recognize the logical ext4 partitions (83) inside the extended. Linux is entirely invisible to Windows, should I ever install it, and the Windows installer will not even recognize the size of the full hard drive, since it only 'sees' the first partition (type vfat or ntfs, so that the Windows installer can see it), which I reserve for Windows, hence the 2 systems can coexist on one hard drive. I don't have to worry about the windows installer deleting or formatting my fedora partitions.
I haven't yet tried partitioning with fdisk first, but will try to do that tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a usable workaround.
I always partition with fdisk first. I create the layout for my hard drive, deciding all the sizes of each partition. I don't use logical volumes. Once done, I reboot and use anaconda's manual partition setup, to ensure that my layout prevails and that each partition is used for the purpose for which I created it.
On Sunday 26 June 2011 02:33:10 Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
I don't have to worry about the windows installer deleting or formatting my fedora partitions.
A bit OT, but if you ever install windows, you *do* have to worry about it rewriting your grub bootloader. Windows doesn't see any of the Linux partitions, and furthermore will not behave friendly to create a multi-boot environment. Once you install windows, you'll need to use the rescue CD to reinstall grub into the MBR of your drive, in order to access Linux again. ;-)
HTH, :-) Marko
Marko Vojinovic wrote:
you do have to worry about it rewriting your grub bootloader.
Absolutely correct!
I boot into rescue mode and reinstall the grub bootloader to the MBR of /dev/sda. This is the only little 'glitch'. Once Windows is installed, however, it has no further effect.
On 06/25/2011 06:10 PM, Frode wrote:
Questions:
- 'Olde' knowledge says that only one primary partition can be visible
to the system at one time. Is this not longer true?
IIRC the problem is that there's only room in the partition table for four partitions, so if you want to have more, you have to create an extended partition and create the rest as logical partitions. What you may be thinking of is the fact that for Windows to boot from a partition it has to be marked as the (one and only) active partition (i.e., bootable) but neither Grub nor Linux in general cares about that. This may not in fact be true any more, but up through at least Win98 it was.
Frode writes:
HD, 1st partition is WinXP). I use manual setup of partitions, as I have always done, planning to use the following approximate scheme: sda1 - primary - ntfs - 45 GB - winXP sda2 - primary - ext2 - 200 MB - /boot sda5 - extended - ext4 - 7 GB - /home sda6 - extended - swap - 2 GB - [swap] sda7 - extended - ext4 - 20 GB - /
It seems that anaconda overrides my choice of not ticking the 'create primary partition' box in the 'add partition' dialog, making all three first partitions created primary. This means that both /boot and either /home or / would be primary partitions.
Questions:
- 'Olde' knowledge says that only one primary partition can be visible
to the system at one time. Is this not longer true?
It was never true. You could always divide a disk into up to four primary partitions, one of which can be an extended partition that's further subdivided into logical partitions.
The only restriction was in the default DOS/Win bootloader. One of the primary partitions is marked as the active partition, and the default DOS/Win bootloader boots from whichever partition is marked active. And whichever O/S gets booted always has access to all disk partitions.
If grub gets installed as the bootloader, it completely ignores the active partition flag, and uses its own menu system and configuration file to let you select which partition and operating system it boots.
Sorry for the delayed response, and thank you all for the replies and clarifications!
Frode
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Frode Petersen -
Joe Zeff -
Marko Vojinovic -
Peter G. -
Sam Varshavchik