ThinkPad x200/Slackware-14.2/x86_64 installation problems: cfdisk partition type and refusal to install.
 

Just received a used Lenovo ThinkPad x200 with no OS (which would be gone in any case), and have encountered two issues new to me. Since I'm replacing hard drives in two other portables (Dells) I want to ensure that new, full installations work on all of them.

Running cfdisk I see a filesystem type of 'linux root x86_64'. When is this used? Initially I set dev/sda1/ to that filesystem, /dev/sda2/ to swap, and /dev/sda3/ was assigned to /. I started over and set /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda3/ to linux filesysem, the first to / and the second to /home.

There's no 'bootable' option in the cfdisk menu. Is that automatically assigned to /dev/sda1/ and not shown on the partition table?

Next problem occurred during setup after selelecting a full install. When I tried installing a message box immediately appeared reading that the installation was complete and I could reboot the partition. Of course that was not true (no drive noise, no waiting a couple of hours for files to transfer).

Looking forward to learning what that new filesystem type is and how to get the installation script to actually install the packages.

Rich

Yes you can hit b to set bootable flag, although it may not be needed, Linux does not care about it.

Emerson,

Thanks for that information.

Now I need to learn why the ThinkPad does not start installing Slackware.

Rich

This site might have some useful information
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

Thanks, David. I'll look at that. It's been suggested that I move the thread to the Slackware-installation forum; I'll see if I can do this.

Rich

Just booted the ThinkPad and this time it started installing packages. I checked all BIOS entries, but changed nothing, yet perhaps that made a difference.

Thanks both of you for responding,

Rich