SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I am taking a course to truly learn Linux and am attempting to install Slackware 13.X to a separate USB hard drive. The intent is to keep Windows while learning Linux, and all I have to do is insert the USB drive when needed. I am using cfdisk and have no difficulty getting to the point where it wants me to partition the hhd. However, whether I have the USB connected or not, it will always present the HDA for partitioning. How do I tell cfdisk to recognize and set partitions on the USB hard drive? (i.e.) What is the command? I am an absolute beginner so let's begin at the beginning please...
Simply follow the "cfdisk" command with the device you wish to make changes on. An external drive is probably going to come up as sdb (though there can be a lot of variables in this sort of thing), so the command would look like:
Code:
cfdisk /dev/sdb
If you need help identifying which drives are which, you can check the output of "dmesg" for occurrences of "sd" or "hd", which will be entries pertaining to disk drives. For instance on my machine, the output of "dmesg | grep hd" looks like this:
Code:
hda: Ridata CF, CFA DISK drive
hda: host max PIO4 wanted PIO255(auto-tune) selected PIO4
hda: UDMA/100 mode selected
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 15662304 sectors (8019 MB) w/1KiB Cache, CHS=15538/16/63
hda: hda1
From this output, we can see that the device "hda" is an 8GB Ridata CF card. Using this information, it should be easy enough to figure out which physical device links to specific device nodes.
From this output, we can see that the device "hda" is an 8GB Ridata CF card. Using this information, it should be easy enough to figure out which physical device links to specific device nodes.
Though your reply was very helpful, I ask, "in the output of "dmesg | grep hd" looks like this:" is the straight line a "pipe" or a "1?"
Also contributing to the confusion is that both my internal hdd and the USB hdd are 500gb in size. Hence looking at the numbers will not help and no brand name (as in "Ridata") is mentioned or noted in the choice. But, the most confusing part is that the screen dialog did not change whether the USB was actually attached or not (the choice did not increase when the USB was plugged into the computer.). I would like to post the actual screen dialog but during installation, obviously, no form of cutting or pasting is possible? It involves writing the entire dialog by hand unless you know of a better way.
I am taking a course to truly learn Linux and am attempting to install Slackware 13.X to a separate USB hard drive. The intent is to keep Windows while learning Linux, and all I have to do is insert the USB drive when needed. I am using cfdisk and have no difficulty getting to the point where it wants me to partition the hhd. However, whether I have the USB connected or not, it will always present the HDA for partitioning. How do I tell cfdisk to recognize and set partitions on the USB hard drive? (i.e.) What is the command? I am an absolute beginner so let's begin at the beginning please...
First; Slackware 13.x could be 13.0, 13.1 or 13.37. Which one! Diagnosis is hard since particulars for each version will be addressed different. Explicit would be better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by onebuck
Posted 05-12-10, 17:35
Hi,
I've noticed a problem for some new users that are attempting to use 'Slackware 13.1 BETA1'.
'libata_switchover' has been around since 13.0 but some new users are not aware.
A new user should look at rworkman's 'libata_switchover HOWTO';
FYI: I suggest that you look at 'How to Ask Questions the Smart Way' so in the future your queries provide information that will aid us in diagnosis of the problem or query.
HTH!
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.