Drive partitioning in preparation to installing linux
I have an asus laptop with a 500 gb hd. The hd is partitioned into 10 partitions and runs the native Windows 7, linux mint, and bodhi linux. Some of the partitions have nothing in them and some that are utilized can be overwritten without loss. My objective is to install the latest bodhi linux in some partition(s) on this hd.
To begin with, I recall reading that for easier updates to future versions of any linux distro, it is better to put /home in a separate partition. Thus one partition will be needed for /home, one for /, and one more to be used as swap. Moreover the bodhi installer asks where to place grub. Should grub be placed in a partition of its own? If yes, what name should I give to it? If not, where should I install grub? I propose to carry out the above by using gparted live to select or create two partitions, (re)format them as a suitable linux filesystem (which one?), and select / and /home as their mount points. Next select or create one more partition and (re)format it as swap. After this I will run the Bodhi installer. If all goes well, the installer should detect the created partitions and mount points and carry out the installation as planned. If not, I can reformat using the respective tool from within the installer, try again, and see what happens. All I want to ask at this point is whether what I propose to do is corect. If not, how should I go about doing it? Finally, what about the "where to install grub" question? |
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You can install Grub from Bodhi in the master boot record and it should detect your other operating systems and create an entry in the boot menu for each. You can install Grub for Bodhi onto its filesystem partition and then you will have to update the other bootloader you are using so that it will be aware of the new installation. If you already have a swap partition, it is pointless to create another one. Where you install Grub then depends upon which bootloader you want to use. Windows??, Mint? the old Bodhi?, the new Bodhi? |
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Currently the Bodhi bootloader comes up at startup. I am going to use Bodhi more than Mint. Quote:
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1. now or 2. later in case I want to install another linux distro but I want to continue using the new Bodhi bootloader. |
I haven't installed Bodhi recently but most Ubuntu derivatives like Bodhi and Mint have an option during the install of "Device for Bootloader Installation". The default is /dev/sda which will install it to the master boot record. If you don't make any change to the default then each time you install a new system it installs its bootloader to the master boot record. Also, on Ubuntu and Mint, you will generally have several options to install such as install alongside other OS, erase disk and install and Something Else which used to be the Manual or Expert mode. This last option is what I always use as I can then see what is happening and have more control.
If you see the Bodhi boot menu when you boot your machine then its Grub is in the mbr. Quote:
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With regard to the swap partition, you may not even need it. Depends upon how much RAM you have. I've also had some installs that would not complete unless a swap was created so you may need to. You can always create it during or after installation. If you create a new swap it may change the uuid and that might affect it on Mint and your old Bodhi but it's not a big problem. Quote:
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yancek,
Thank you for your your time and your informative answers. Thinks have fallen largely into place but there is always room for some further elaboration. So here we go. Quote:
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Last but not least, when some distro's Grub is installed in the mbr, does it overwrite any Grub pre-existing in the mbr from some previous installation? I would bet it does, but just the same, I'd rather hear it from higher authority. |
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You don't 'need' Grub installs on secondary systems if your original Grub menu file has an entry pointing directly to the kernel/initrd files. If you don't have a Grub install on a secondary system that would eliminate the possibility of a chainload entry working. I generally leave Grub on multiple partitions simply because the files take up so little space. You could test this from Bodhi since you are using its Grub bootloader. Move the grub directory from the /boot directory of Mint to some other location (check permissions first so you can set them back later if necessary). After doing this, try booting Mint from the Bodhi Grub. If you Mint entry in Bodhi Grub points to the kernel, it should boot. Conversely, if you had an entry such as the one below in the Bodhi grub.cfg file to boot another system also using grub2, it would not boot unless you had Grub installed on that partition. Quote:
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yancek,
Thank you for your valuable info. I do have a much better understanding of pre-installation partitioning issues as a result and it is now time to test what I have learned in practice. I hope all goes well. Btw, the Bodhi installer does not offer the blank line option for Grub installation, but it is good to have this option in mind to use it if or when it is offered. As for the test involving the Linux Mint Grub, I cannot run it now because I deleted the respective partition. It was taking too much space in my hd and repeated efforts to shrink it using GParted failed producing the same non-informative error message. |
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Good luck with it all. |
On my desktop PC, I installed grub into the MBR; it points to a small boot partition, /dev/sda2. Originally, /dev/sda2 was mounted at /boot of a distro installed in /dev/sda5. I unmounted /dev/sda2 at /boot, remounted it at /mnt/Boot, copied the contents of /mnt/Boot to /boot, then installed grub on /dev/sda5.
I hand-edited the grub.cfg file on /dev/sda2 to just chainload grub on each distro-containing partition. When I install a new Linux distro, the bootloader goes on the same partition as the distro, and grub.cfg on /dev/sda2 gets an edit (so I know what distro is in which partition). |
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