How to manually partition nexenta (opensolaris)
 

Hi,
I wanted to manually partition my disk while installing nexenta to dual boot between windows and nexenta (GNUSolaris). But the partitioning is so cryptic and is asking me for start cylinders and such and there is no help what so ever. I am perfectly at home using fdisk and have used it while installing OpenBSD in the past and have also dealt with cylinders, sectors and so on related to hard disk. But this partitioner is so cryptic and does not give a clue as to what it expects. I searched the net and could not come up with anything of use to my situation. Could some one please help by pointing to the right resource or a few pointers on how to go about partitioning the hard disk.

Thanks

Just create one slice for the swap (1GB as slice 1) and a put all remaining space on slice 0 for slash. Keep slice 2 as it is (the whole partition).

Actually the problem is not with the slices (or in linux speak partitions). They have already been created on my machine.

/dev/hda1 - contains windowsXP
/dev/hda2 - contains ubuntu dapper which i wish to remove and install nexenta.

/dev/hda3 - contain openbsd
/dev/hda4 - is extended partition
/dev/hda5 - linux swap
.
.
. and so on.

My problem is that nexenta provides an automatic partitioning which erases the whole disk and installs it. But It also provides a manual partitioning option. And while using the manual partition option, I run into the following trouble I have enclosed the output of the process:

[HTML]
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0d0 <drive type unknown>
/pci@0, 0/pci-ide@1f, 1/ide@0 /cmdk@0,0

Specify disk (enter its number): 0 <----- Number I entered

AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
0. other

Specify disk type (enter its number): 0 <----- Number I entered

Enter the number of data cylinders : <----This is where I am stuck and don't have a clue what to enter.

My hard disk partition table (Expert mode) I obtained from linux is as follows:

# fdisk /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 4865 cylinders

Nr AF Hd Sec Cyl Hd Sec Cyl Start Size ID
1 00 1 1 0 254 63 1023 63 28740222 07
2 00 0 1 1023 254 63 1023 28740285 8193150 83 <--- /dev/hda2
3 80 0 1 1023 254 63 1023 36933435 10233405 a6
4 00 0 1 1023 254 63 1023 47166840 30989385 0f
5 00 254 63 1023 254 63 1023 63 1574307 82
6 00 254 63 1023 254 63 1023 63 8193087 83
7 00 254 63 1023 254 63 1023 63 4144707 0b
8 00 254 63 1023 254 63 1023 63 17077032 83

[/HTML]

Can you tell from the above output what number I have to enter for the number of data cylinders nexenta is asking while manually partitioning ? Do I enter 1023 the number of cylinders for the /dev/hda2 partition or 4865 the total number of cylinders for the whole disk ?

Or can you provide a simpler method of installing nexenta on my /dev/hda2 partition.

Thanks

Actually not, you haven't created/selected a partition yet, nor slices which are to be created inside this partition.
forget that way.
Sure, first remove the hda2 partition with your preferred partitioning tool (I believe you can launch the Solaris one, fdisk, from the installer), then resume the install.
Solaris should now give you the choice of recreating a partition from available space.

After that you'll have to create those slices I was talking about.

It doesn't, it still want to know the number of cylinders.

Well, I believe it is asking you the size of the partition to create.
The unit looks like being a cylinder, what's wrong with that ?

How can I be sure about that? It might as well wipe the entrie harddisk. It doesn't tell what it's going to do.

I want to create a partition which uses all available free space, and leave existing partitions alone. Do I really have to calculate cylinders to do that?

Can you post exactly the questions and answers that lead you to that menu, and the full text of what the installer is showing when it asks you for a number of cylinders ?

I don't remember having had any confusion with the disk settings when I installed nexenta, but perhaps did I chose a full disk install. I can't check as I moved later the file-system to another disk.

It's the same as ravee posted here recently. And I get the same questions regardless if there is space to create a new partition or not:

-----
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0d0 <drive type unknown>
/pci@0, 0/pci-ide@1f, 1/ide@0 /cmdk@0,0

Specify disk (enter its number): 0 <----- Number I entered

AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
0. other

Specify disk type (enter its number): 0 <----- Number I entered

Enter the number of data cylinders : <----This is where I am stuck and don't have a clue what to enter.
-----

Hmmm, you are right, I overlook the first posting.
The problem is for some reason, the geometry isn't retrieved by Solaris.

This is what I have with my disks:
Try these commands from Solaris and post what they report:

Nexenta probably has better hardware support than Solaris 10 for x86 computers. Am I right?

I would say the latest Solaris Express has the best H/W support, other Open Solaris distributions follow or are in par, then is Solaris 10, except for the proprietary drivers that may be present in Solaris 10 / Solaris Express but not in non Sun distros (if any).

Both give the same result:

There is no /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0, but there is /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0p0, so I tried both fdisk commands again with that and then I got this from both:

I have a Dell Optiplex GX620, and my harddisk is a 250 GB SATA drive. fdisk in Linux says:

That is a problem.
Try "devfsadm -v" to see if it shows up.
?? do you mean asking for c0t0d0p0 returns you an error message for c0d0p0 ?
Are you root when running this command ?
SATA is a piece of information that was worth mentioning.
Perhaps your SATA controller support by Solaris is an issue and your hard disk is simply not seen.
/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0p0 looks to me more your CD drive than a hard disk.

Nothing at all shows up:
No, my mistake. The error message was:
Yes, I run them after booting from the install CD.

That might be the case. I don't understand Solaris device names.

BTW, I was able to install Nextenta OS on a secondary old-style IDE harddisk. But that disk is slow and noisy and sometimes interfere with my CD-ROM drive, so I rather not use it when I have a fast and quiet SATA disk with plenty of free space. This old IDE disk is currently not connected.