New laptop

tamtam · 09-19-2014, 04:46 PM

Overlooked the old saying look before you buy?

Had two laptops I used for linux die on me within days. Both were old..

Out with the old and in with the new.

Bought a new HP Pavilion Core i3, 1TB, 8G memory. Intention was to dual boot with Slackware.

Got it home, and suprise. Disk manager in Windows reports that it has 4 partitions.
400MB (Recovery Partition)
260MB (EFI System Partition)
912GB (NTFS Windows C)
18.35GB (Recovery D NTFS).

Original idea, before I got hold of laptop, was to shrink C drive and install linux. What now? Any ideas?

Have been trying different distros in VBox and/or VMWare Player. Cannot seem to get performance I would like. That includes Slackware. Recommendations for a good lightweight distro would be appreciated that could run on VM.

yancek · 09-19-2014, 06:19 PM

If it is a new computer and has windows 8 it probably uses GPT so the limit doesn't apply. Since you have an EFI partition, it should be GPT. To determine whether it is, check the various options at the link below including parted and gdisk:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...-how-do-i-know

Checking from windows, see below. This is windows 7 but probably will be the same if you have 8?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-gpt-mbr.html

rokytnji · 09-19-2014, 06:28 PM

I ran into that on this Compaq CQ57. It came with 4 primary partitions also.
I found a free open source partition editor like gparted that had the capability of renaming the Windows 7 ntfs, primary, in your case;

Quote:

912GB (NTFS Windows C)

I renamed it a logical/extended partition while running the live cd. That was all I did while using that.
Then to be on the safe side. I shrunk it using the Windows Disk Manager in Windows 7 to free up some space
for my Linux install.

Now for the bad news. I can't remember exactly the name of the partition tool I used. It was a live iso. It was not Gparted, Parted, or even Parted Magic. I did this long ago and the drive is now in the laptop bag because I run a Linux SSD drive in here now.

Anyhows, that was how I did it. Google search will have to be your friend for the rest.
Sorry I can't help you more.

Edit: Lightweight distros I use are Linux-Lite, MX-14, SaliX Fluxbox, AntiX.
Figure Puppy is not a interest of yours.

sgosnell · 09-19-2014, 08:22 PM

The limit of 4 primary partitions is one reason for the switch to gpt. Another is the limit of 2TB for an MS-DOS partition. The old MS-DOS MBR system was obsolete years ago, but it was kept stumbling along with hacks. Those hacks have just about reached their limits, and it's time for that system to go. You may as well embrace gpt partititons and UEFI systems and get used to them. That's the future, and long overdue.

frankbell · 09-19-2014, 08:56 PM

Linux can be installed to an extended partition. I've done it.

EDDY1 · 09-21-2014, 01:57 PM

As per
http://en.community.dell.com/techcen...as/w/wiki/2838

Quote:

Another benefit of using GPT based disks includes overcoming the 4 primary partition limit of a MBR disk. GPT supports a maximum of 128 primary partitions. GPT data structures are also well defined and stored twice on the disk: once at the start and again at the end.

Flyboy54 · 10-20-2014, 04:41 PM

Use Gparted to reduce the size of the Windows partition, Create an extended partition with the excess gained from resizing thWindows partition, Then install PCLinusOS2014. I have had a lot of luck with this on HP, Lenovo, & Dell laptops. Hope this works for you...

John WA4PRH

Flyboy54 · 10-20-2014, 04:42 PM

Use Gparted to reduce the size of the Windows partition, Create an extended partition with the excess gained from resizing thWindows partition, Then install PCLinusOS2014. I have had a lot of luck with this on HP, Lenovo, & Dell laptops. Hope this works for you...

John WA4PRH

thorkelljarl · 10-20-2014, 06:16 PM

GPT...

If yancek is right that the HDD is GPT, then you can just add linux partitions after you shrink your Windows C partition.

However, use the Windows partitioner. As Windows starts to boot it reads and compares its record of the partition layout and the layout it actually finds. If you shrink the C partition with Windows any changes are recognized. Using something else will cause a discrepancy, and Windows will not boot.

This can be repaired, but why create the extra work.

rokytnji · 10-20-2014, 06:33 PM

I remembered the live iso I used to rename the primary to logical.

The name of it is Partition Logic

All I used it for was to rename the ntfs primary windows operating system partition from primary to logical.
Pull the cd. Then used the Windows Disk Management to shrink Windows operating system partition in 1/2
Then reboot to run a file system check on my Windows operating system to make sure it still boots.

Then the linux install was easy peasy. I was running Slack0 5.6 as a wubi type of install prior to that.

Quote:

Use EXE installer to install Puppy Linux in Windows PC. This involves downloading an exe installer and then clicking on it (the usual way of installing programs in Windows). Find the version you like through the links below. Note that the current release is Slacko at version 5.7, Lucid Puppy is at version 5.28, and the default PAE ISO in Slacko enables access to installed RAM in machines with more than 4 GB.

http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%...%20Release.htm

EDDY1 · 10-21-2014, 02:49 AM

The OP has EFI partion then it should be GPT fdisk - l will fail letting OP know that they need to get disk info using another option.