My system currently has Slackware 14 installed. I want to install Mint 17 Xfce.
I have just one HDD. My partition scheme is as follows -

1. /
2. swap
3. /home

I had absolutely no problem installing Slackware on this, with LILO installed as usual in the MBR of /dev/sda. I know nothing about GRUB. It is completely new to me.
When I tried to install Mint with the same setup, it said this.

"The partition table format in use on your disks normally requires you to create a separate partition for boot loader code. This partition should be marked for use as a "reserved BIOS boot area" and should be at least 1 MB in size. Note that this is not the same as a partition mounted on /boot. If you do not go back to the partitioning menu and correct this error, boot loader installation may fail later, although it may still be possible to install the boot loader to a partition"

At this point I bailed out. A system which will not boot is the last thing I want! What should I do? And why does Mint not like my very simple partitioning, which is the same as I have used for at least a decade with Slackware and other systems without any problems. I have never needed a separate partition for the boot loader. I thought boot loaders lived in the MBR and not in any partition. Surely if in a partition the code could not be read until the partition had been mounted, so how could it boot?

Also - my system (a laptop) requires the following kernel parameters to be appended at boot time...

acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor

...otherwise screen brightness control does not work. I know how to do this in LILO, but not in GRUB. Will I be able set this up during installation - or later, and how?

I've installed Mint 17 several times in recent months and have never seen that message. If you use EFI/GPT partitioning, you will need a separate partition for those files but it would need to be considerably larger than 1MB. I have seen posts at the ubuntu forums dealing with a separate BIOS partition but have never needed it myself. You might try those forums if you don't get a response here as Mint is basically Ubuntu with some modifications.

The message says that the bootloader installation "may" fail. Were you trying to install the Mint bootloader to the partition on which you installed Mint and booting both with Lilo?

That would imply a gpt formatted disk with (non-UEFI) BIOS. Let's see (as root) this from Slack

$ parted -l
Model: ATA ST1000LM024 HN-M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 26.2GB 26.2GB ext4
2 26.2GB 36.7GB 10.5GB linux-swap(v1)
3 36.7GB 1000GB 964GB ext4


Error: /dev/md0: unrecognised disk label
Warning: Error fsyncing/closing /dev/md0: Input/output error
Retry/Ignore?

I have no idea what /dev/md0 is, nor why it should have a disk label.

Your output shows you are using GPT partitioning and the /dev/md0 is in reference to RAID. I don't use either so can't help but I'm sure someone else will come along.

I do not use RAID either. I was not aware that I was using GPT, but if that is the problem why did Slackware install on this system exactly as it is now without any difficulty? Perhaps because it uses Lilo and not Grub? Perhaps if I remove Grub and install Lilo in Mint it can be made to boot? But if it will not boot after installation then I will have no way of doing that, so will be stuck with a paperweight instead of a computer.

This is silly, but it looks as if I will have to stick to Slackware as it is easier to install!

Read the message and stop panicing. It says (my emphasis)Even if it does fail you can always chroot into slack and fix lilo.
Grub2, like lilo, uses a load-list to accomplish the stage 2 loading. It implement it differently, especially where it detects gpt - this is even mentioned in the slack doco - here.
Create the partition, mark it appropriately, and continue. One meg is plenty. There is effectively no limit to gpt partitions so you don't have to worry about the 4 primary partition limit of MBR.

I haven't tried a mix pf grub2 and lilo so I don't know if grub will automatically find slack - I would imagine it should with the Mint installer.

Actually I was not planning on keeping Slackware. I want to reformat the root partition and install Mint instead. I don't have room for another system. So if Mint will not boot, I am stuck.

I tried to create a partition using the Mint installer, but it failed every time, with an error. Where should the partition be? Start of disk? I would have to resize the existing partition to do that. I think I will have to start fresh with a new partitioning. I wanted to keep the old /home which has nearly a GB of my personal stuff and media in it. I don't have any more backup space on my external disks so will have to buy another 1 TB drive before I can do this, I think.

Ok, that's not what I expected. If it were me, I'd delete the root partition and swap (do you really need over 10 Gig ?) and define partitions for Mint, including the reserved boot partition. I'd leave the data partition alone, and add it in later once user(s) have been set up.
It should be possible to include it in the install as /home (note, don't format it), but that assumes Slack and Mint use the same gid/uid ranges. Probably do, but I haven't used Slack in so long I couldn't comment.

There is an explanation of what the BIOS boot partition is used/needed for in the second post at the link below to Ubuntu forums, Mint is mostly Ubuntu underneath so the same applies.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2081273


What might that error be? Are you referring to the error in your initial post? You can resize your current partitions with gparted which is on the Mint DVD.

Thanks syg00. The only reason I needed 10 GB of swap is for suspend to disk (hibernate). For this the swap has to be larger than the physical RAM, and I have 8 GB of that, so I made the swap 10. But then I found I could not get hibernation working anyway! Fortunately suspend to RAM does work, and the battery lasts at least a day in suspended mode, so not all is lost. I hate having to boot the laptop every time I want to use it.

I like your idea about deleting the root and swap partitions and just leaving the data (not re-formatted, of course!). For the BIOS partition, should this be the first partition on the disk? How big would you make it? In the installer, when it comes to specifying the device where to install the boot loader, should I specify that partition (e.g. /dev/sda1) or just the device in general (/dev/sda)?

Yancek, I cannot remember the exact message, but it was something like "cannot create the partition within the constraints given". All very mysterious.

If you are going to use GPT partitioning when installing Mint, you apparently need this BIOS boot partition. As to the size of it, that is in the message you posted in your initial post; 1MB or greater. I don't use GPT so I'm not sure what in it but it's not all your standard boot files. If you are going to install over Slackware then you would need to install Grub to: /dev/sda which would put part of the code in the mbr.

I would think you could boot Mint from Slackware/Lilo without installing Grub on Mint. I know you can do that with Grub or Grub2 as the entries point to the kernel/initrd. I haven't used Lilo for many years and don't really know the intricacies of it. The link below has an explanation of doing this with an example if you are interested.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...lo-4175495803/

I honestly do not know how I ended up with GPT partitioning. I have no reason to want it. Now I have it but I would like to get rid of it. But to do this I would have to delete everything on my drive, and that is not an option. I do not intend to keep Slackware. It is an outdated version and does not actually work very well. It used to run fine, when I first installed it, but now it is very buggy and time to get rid of it. I will just use Mint for a while and see if I get along with it OK. If not, I will go back to Slackware but install it fresh.

I will make a new partition, install Grub to /dev/sda, cross all my fingers and toes and hope Mint will boot.

Thanks for all the help.

If you are planning to install Mint 17, it might be a good idea to read the link below. It shows how to select GPT to create a new partition table so it will also have an option to select MBR partition table using GParted which is on the installation medium. If you have any data on your current install, make sure you back it up before doing this or it will be gone as the warnings indicate.

http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mint-17/

Unfortunately I cannot do this. I have almost one TB of data on the drive in the third partition (mounted on /home) which I want to preserve. I cannot therefore create a new partition table, but will have to live with the old (GPT) one. I have no interest in dual-booting. If I can ever manage to install it, Mint will be the only OS on my machine.

I disabled EFI long ago in favor of legacy BIOS, as the Slackware DVD would otherwise not boot. I must have made a mistake somewhere and selected this GPT partitioning format instead of MBR, and am now stuck with the consequences. I just want to replace my old Slackware OS with Mint 17 64-bit Xfce, but without re-formatting my old /home partition. The Mint installer will not let me do this because of the GPT partitioning. I apparently have to make a new partition for the BIOS before it will let me do that, but Gparted refused to make a new partition when I told it to. So it seems I cannot install Mint. I find it quite strange that I was able to install Slackware 14.0 on this system exactly as it is now without the slightest difficulty, but Mint is giving me a very hard time indeed.