Installing Slackware with GPT partition table
 

I need to use a GPT partition table and tried installing Slackware(64) 13.1. But it reported that there were no partitions when the disk did have about 10 partitions in the GPT partition table. The MBR partition table was set up with the protective entry that is normal with GPT.

I did a test install using just 2 partitions, initially pointed to via an MBR partition table, and later changed over to a GPT partition table pointing to the same sectors, with the protective MBR, and Slackware boots up and runs just fine.

The lilo command also works just fine. I tried it because I was not sure if it looked at the partition entries, and it would be a critical piece to keep the system running.

Any idea when Slackware will have GPT support? GPT is required for partitions larger than 2TB or starting after the 2TB line. There are now 3TB drives out, and RAID arrays much larger than 2TB have been possible for years.

Slackware 13.1 already has support for GPT compiled into the stock kernels.
There is a problem with some disk tools that do not support GPT (e.g.fdisk and cfdisk). Use parted instead.

You missed the point. I've already made the GPT partitions. The problem is that once this is done, Slackware's installer won't function with it.

I recently saw AlienBOB say something in IRC about adding GPT support to the installer. For now, you will have to do one of various workarounds such as apparently you have done. It's on their TODO list, so it will be done eventually.

Hopefully it will be in the version of Slackware following the next one to come. Maybe the next is 13.2 and it will be in 14.0.

You can either install to another disk and transfer it to this one,
or do a "manual install" if you are familiar with Slackware. I installed on GPT some time ago
(then i had to compile GPT support in the kernel). You can mkfs/mount the partitions you want and
then installpkg --root /your_mount_point all the packages from the a/ and n/ series. After that
you will need to put the correct entries in lilo.conf and run lilo to put it on the protective MBR.

If everything goes fine, you will have a bootable/usable system. Then you can installpkg
the rest of the system.

For now what I will do is create all the partitions at arbitrary locations on a temporary extra disk plugged in to be /dev/sda. Then via a Live CD, and the target disk plugged in at /dev/sda (partitioned with gdisk) and the staging disk moved to /dev/sdb, do a raw sector copy of each partition (sizes the same). Then mount the target partitions the way they should be on some mount point, chroot into that, and run lilo.

GPT and gdisk
 

Hi,

I already use GPT partitions for about 3 years and never had problems with them and Slack.
But I just mount the partition manually and then do an install. Actually most of the time now
I just upgrade using slackpkg and then it even doesn't need to know about the partition type.

BTW: I use gdisk instead of parted for GPT and that works perfectly well and works almost exactly
the same as good old fdisk. When will gdisk be added to Slackware ?

Kees

Is this what you are looking for?
It's now supported in -Current

My upgrades tend to coincide with hardware upgrades, so I just do the installer on DVD approach. I'll try the mounting manually and see what happens. And I do use gdisk (installed from source) for now (until I get around to write my own).

That might be. I'll have to try that out.

If you have a GPT disk, you still need to format a swap partition before starting setup (similar to using a LVM volume for swap): "mkswap /dev/sdX". If you do that, then setup will detect the swap partition and offer to use it.

Eric

Cool that the installer got GPT support.
Think it would work to use the -Current installer + 13.1 packages to install Slack 13.1 on GPT?

Yes.

Heh, I like the version number shown in the new Current installer (13.37)