Best stable media partition filesystem for Linux/OSX dual boot

Hi there, dual booting linux and Snow Leopard.. I am re-formatting my media partition (which I keep separate from the linux and osx files so as to keep them safe if I want to reinstall/upgrade the operating systems or mess something up), and was wondering as to the best filesystem I should pick? I would do ext4, but from what I understand osx cannot read/write to it natively or in a stable fashion. Keep in mind the media partition will be used to hold/read all the files when using the computer, including when watching movies, playing music, writing documents, storing photos, etc..
Any suggestions? Thanks!

gagejd wrote:How bad is this instability with hfs+? Am I going to lose some files or corrupt a few documents when I randomly reboot the computer, or shutdown improperly?
I rarely reboot or shutdown improperly, so I have no insights to offer into the impacts of these behaviours on HFS+ in Linux.
IIRC, I once had a catastrophic and irreparable error when I used the command line in Linux to change a directory name on an HFS+ filesystem from being all lowercase to start with an uppercase letter. I had to restore the filesystem contents from backup.
Other than that, I have lots of minor, easily fixable, but somewhat troublingly frequent errors with incorrect numbers of inodes and such like.
If you are bringing Windows into the equation, I seem to recall a Slashdot article from within the last couple of years which had a question re: sharing files in a triple-boot environment (Windows, OS X, and Linux). If you can track down the article, the comments may be useful.

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Recommended partition layout for Ubuntu/Arch dual boot?

I just got a new (old) laptop, and my plan is to dual-boot Arch and Xubuntu. The Xubuntu is mostly to hold me over so I have a stable system while I'm setting Arch up/if I mess up Arch somehow/for testing. It has a new 160GB (149.05 GiB) drive, and my plan is to allocate roughly 35 GiB each for the Xubuntu and Arch / partitions, and a roughly 80 GiB partition for common data (that is, most of my home directory folders will be symlinks to that partition - e.g. ~/code will link to /common/code*).
Right now, my plan is to have three logical partitions - one for Xubuntu, one for Arch, and one that contains the common and swap partitions. So, I'm asking (A) are there any better ideas for partitioning, (B) does Arch still need a /boot partition, and (C) how should I handle the bootloader situation? (i.e. should I install Xubuntu's to the MBR and have it chainload to Arch's on a separate partition, or what?)
*The reason I'm not using a common /home partition is because my config files and the like will probably be different between the two OSes.

A) Probably -- partitioning is always a relative subject
B) no...and it never did
C) Whatever you prefer.
Basic tips :
Having a separate /home helps in re-installing(if you ever have to) and it saves your config files.
Having a separate /var allows you to put a different filesystem on it which may be more suitable to the type of files in /var
You can use a separate /boot, if you are going to use the same /boot for both Xubuntu and Arch. That way 1 partition handles both. If not, I think there is no need to create a separate partition. If you do create one and plan to use it for Xubuntu and Arch, make sure that you install a filesystem that is acceptable to both distros. For eg. Arch grub is patched so it can read from ext4. I do not know if Xubuntu's grub is patched or not.
Last edited by Inxsible (2010-06-24 03:55:20)

Partition scheme for new 64b dual boot Arch/Win7

Hi,
I'm about to install those 2 OSs on a new PC.
I plan to use PMagic to partition the disk, then install Win 7 (ult 64b) and finally-Arch 64b.
I've read that Win7 actually uses TWO partitions a (relative small) boot partition and a "main" partition.
My questions:
1. While using PMagic to prepare my HD, should I prepare ONE or TWO NTFS partitions for Win 7?
2. If 2, what size should the Win 7 boot partition be (I've thought about 50 MB)?
3. If 2, How can I "tell" Win 7 during install to use those two existing partitions rather than creating a new win-boot partition?
4. Will GRUB recognize both OSs in case of 2 Win partitions?
Thanks
Last edited by mibadt (2010-09-12 07:49:10)

if you don't want to run in any errors, just set up win7 first . it creates a 100mb (boot?) partition, one for the system and around 1MB free space (don't ask me why).
grub itself doesn't recognizes the windows installation but its easy to edit the file. i think you just have to change the partition that it directs to window's boot partition (/dev/sda1 in my case)
mine is looking like this:
## (2) Windows
menuentry "Windows" { set root=(hd0,1)
chainloader +1

[request] Jriver Media Center 19 for linux

It would be very nice a package for Jriver Media Center 19 for linux.
Reference here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=35.0
I have installed manually in my system. It's a 32 bit package and it needs lib32-curl 7.23.1 (not the last one in repository).
You can see my discussion here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84651.0
Luckly requirement for libcrypto++ and libboost-regex has been dropped!
I remember that this Media Center is one of the best ever made. The version for linux is Audio only, but can play also DSD bitstream.

It would be very nice a package for Jriver Media Center 19 for linux.
Reference here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=35.0
I have installed manually in my system. It's a 32 bit package and it needs lib32-curl 7.23.1 (not the last one in repository).
You can see my discussion here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84651.0
Luckly requirement for libcrypto++ and libboost-regex has been dropped!
I remember that this Media Center is one of the best ever made. The version for linux is Audio only, but can play also DSD bitstream.

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.2 Media Pack v1 for Linux x86-64-bit avaliable NOW!

Hi Friends;
Finally Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.2 Media Pack is available at e-delivery site.
For a now it has been published for linux x86-64.
Setup size almost 83G
Here is the some notes:
New Installation Customers who do not have access to My Oracle Support will not have access to key documents needed to perform a New Installation of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2. This Part Number includes Document files which should be referred to when a ‘Document xxxxxx.1′ is referenced within the Documentation.
The first document to review is the “READ FIRST – Document 1320300.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Release Notes, Release 12.2.html”. This is your starting point for performing a New Installation.
Documents included under the Documents directory:
Check first:- Document 1320300.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Release Notes, Release 12.2.html
Document 389422.1, Recommended Browsers for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.html
Document 1155883.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Desktop Client Hardware and Software Requirements.html
Document 1314621.1, Oracle E-Business Suite NLS Release Notes, Release 12.2.html
Document 1330701.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.2) for Linux x86-64.html
Document 1330702.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.2) for Oracle Solaris (64-bit).html
Document 1330703.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.2) for IBM AIX (64-bit).html
Document 1330704.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.2) for HP-UX Itanium.html
Document 1355068.1, Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2 Patching Technology Components Guide.html
Document 1376618.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Stack Release Notes for Release 12.2.2.html
Document 1469456.1, DATAINSTALL AND HRGLOBAL APPLICATION 12.2 SPECIFICS.html
Document 1506669.1, Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.2 Readme.html
Document 1560906.1, Applying the Release 12.2.2 AD and TXK Release Update Packs.html
This information&entery is avaliable at Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 Supplemental Documentation – REVIEW FIRST V39664-01 at e-delivery site.
Enjoy it
Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.2 Media Pack v1 for Linux x86-64-bit avaliable NOW! | Helios&#039;s Blog
Regard
Helios

Hi Friends;
Thanks for inputs... Still there is no input at Steven Chan blog yet
Anyway
@Hussein Sawwan
We know very well who is the fastest gun in forum so well And yes let the fun begins
@Asif
Thanks for input man
@Nayas
Let us know how the installation goes
Regard
Helios

Hello, I am trying to upgrade to yosemite, but I get the "disk cannot be used to startup your computer" error. Resizing the partition does not work, I get the error "MediaKit reports no such partition" probably because I installed linux in dual boot

Hello, I am trying to upgrade my macbook pro to yosemite, but I get the "disk cannot be used to startup your computer" error.
Resizing the partition does not work for me and I get the error "MediaKit reports no such partition" probably because I installed linux in dual boot and the disk manager is lost.
Anyway to tell the yosemite installer that it should not pay attention whether the disk is bootable or not ?
If I am doomed, any way to delete the installer and downloaded OS from my hard drive ?
Thanks for your help

As usual, the Linux installer wrecked the partition table. You would have to boot from your OS X installation disc and repartition. Doing so will of course remove all data from the drive, so you must back up first if you haven't already done so.

Partitioning drives for linux and windows 7

I want to know if there is a piece of software that is free that can partition my drives so that I can triple boot OSX lion, windows 7 (which is currently blocking...) Linux (ubuntu puredyne).
A little bit of guidance would be much apprieciated as I have already tried fixing the partition tables MBR in the terminal and ended up disabling windows.
I know how to reinstall windows but what software can partintion the drives for linux as a triple boot?
Thanks.

Well, this is possible using Disk Utility as well as the Linux formatter. However, to triple boot will require special software: The rEFInd Boot Manager - Roderick Smith.

Best CD/DVD Burning Application For Linux?

What's the best lightweight burning application for Linux? I'm trying to avoid Brasero and K3B.

I'm currently using k3b its great as is Brasero, I would go so far as to say both are commercial quality applications. I've used growisofs for dvds which is a command line app, extremely light weight: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DVD_writing I have not used Nero Linux before though it was my favorite program on windows.
This recorder application sounds very interested, looking forward to trying this one out when I get home tonight.
Last edited by dabski (2008-05-29 01:38:28)

EFI partition deleted after removal of dual boot of OSX10.8 and Ubuntu/Linux Mint - using rEFIt

so, i recently installed ubuntu to check out the advances in the linux world since i last looked into them 10+ years ago... very impressed, but when i tried to delete ubuntu and remove the various partitions (which i was able to do just fine using gparted) reFIT still displayed the **** linux logo from the install i deleted....
OSX still boots fine... a install of Linux Mint i have on another partition(s) still boots fine ... everything appears to work... but i want to know what the possible issues are so i can be prepared...
this is frustrating...
so i went in and looked around with the remaining partitions and noticed the EFI partition which hadn't shown before i mistakenly tried to install another distro over ubuntu after wiping the partition it was on...
so i erased the EFI partition hoping that this would remove the g-damned hold out linux boot logo in reFIT... it didn't... now i suppose i can go back in and create a new EFI partition through gparted but that stupid linux logo will still be there... and i'll have another problem of getting the proper information back onto the EFI partition, which i am unsure of how to do, or where to even dig up the proper information...
i want to edit my boot mbr or grub or whatever the eff apple comps use as a boot record so that (or i am using as a boot record since i'm using reFIT) to get rid of this **** logo, so i can install another distro of linux and probably windows without having the **** supernumerary logo...
i would rather not wipe the whole drive (aka the primary partition the recovery partition) and do a fresh new install of os x (mountain lion) because i have OSX set up just the way i want it for personal use and work use... all my various tools and so on...
i don't use time machine and can't do a "restore" from a previous back up...
some one please help me out here, what are my options? am i going to have to bite the bullet and do a wipe of the entire drive and all its partitions to get my MBP back to 'normal'???
PS - using a macbook pro late 2011, standard specs, 13"...

stqn wrote:
Expi1 wrote:Thanks, I'm mostly struggling with how to partition for Arch and then how to do the bootloader. I'm using Win8 64-bit and from what I understand a Legacy BIOS bootloader. I'm not entirely sure what I should be partitioning the C: into, I've done partitions before, just not for Arch and then I'm not sure whether to use GRUB or syslinux, or if I even need those. Or if I need to use GPT or MBR?
Your disk is already partitionned so you don’t have to choose between GPT or MBR, the choice is already made.
You don’t partition “C:”, that is the name of a Windows partition. You partition a drive.
Grub or syslinux, use whatever the beginners guide tells you to. Personally I think syslinux is simpler which is why I’m using it (but I’m not dual-booting, if that matters).
You’re not saying what your problem is with partitionning, so it’s hard to help.
Thanks for getting back to me, I'm not sure if I just create one large partition for Archlinux or if I have to create multiple? Where I'm also confused is with the Creating Filesystems part of the guide. I don't understand how I'd do this in Windows, or what /dev/sda1 is referring to.
As for the bootloader part, the Beginner's Guide gives you a choice between syslinux and grub, what I'm not sure about is which to use considering I'm dualbooting. How it will affect my windows bootloader, do I disregard that and use GRUB now? I'm unclear on how that works.
I'm also aware I need to disable Secure Boot, I just searched my BIOS options and couldn't find anything remotely relating to that, so I'm assuming it's not an issue since this computer was originally on Windows 7 anyway?
Thanks again, Expi.
Last edited by Expi1 (2014-03-06 19:54:30)

T400s Linux/Windows dual boot with Linux from Esata Flash Drive

This project is about a dual boot Windows/Linux system without using the normal dual boot changes in the bootloader of the windows hard drive. When I started this I found bits and pieces of information on the web but no complete description so I wrote this post.
I have done a dual boot system on my previous Thinkpad where I had partitioned the hard drive between Linux and windows. For this project I wanted to leave the windows hard drive absolutely intact and unaltered, and boot Linux from a flash drive in the esata port on the back of the T400s. Obviously this uses the F12 boot list function key to boot from the flash. The advantage of this is that Windows is totally unaltered and when I need Linux, I plug in the esata flash drive, hit F12 during the boot cycle and select booting from the esata flash drive. The reason for Esata rather than USB is simply speed. I have a nice fast Linux installation.
I used the OCZ esata flash drive but suspect any of the alternatives will work. It did not need the accessory usb cable because the Thinkpad powered the esata flash directly.
To boot from the esata drive I had to make the following changes in the bios
    I left the esata flash plugged in as I went into the bios
    Bios>config>Serial ATA and changed the Sata controller mode option to compatibility
    Restart and back into the Bios
    Bios>startup>boot - in my case the esata flash drive showed up as ATA HDD2 and was excluded from the boot order so I had to un-exclude it and move it to the point in the boot order that I wanted.
Next I downloaded a linux installation iso and put it on a CD - in my case opensuse. Then booted from the CD
From now on this instructions are specific to opensuse and yast but can be generalized to whatever Linux is being used.
In my case yast came up with a good set of suggestions for automatically partitioning the flash drive but then crashed during the partitioning itself. So I rebooted and specified the partitions manually.
    A fat32 partition left as a partition which both windows and Linux could see (in my case about 20% of the drive) (/dev/sdb1)
    An extended partition with the remainder of the drive (/dev/sdb2) which contains the following logical partitions
    A linux Swap partition of 2GB (/dev/sdb5)
    A linux /home partition –the remainder of the drive (/dev/sdb6)
    A linux /root partition of 8GB (/dev/sdb7)
Yast automatically suggested mount points of C,D,E for the windows partitions. Unfortunately because of the way the Thinkpad hard drive was laid out Yast had C assigned the ThinkPad Service partition and D assigned to the SW_Preload (or main windows partition). However there was an edit function that allows for the reversal of those mount points so that the windows C drive is mounted in Linux as Windows/C thereby avoiding confusion. I had already backed up and removed the Thinkpad factory install data so I did not have to deal with that. Yast suggested Windows/E for the mount point of the FAT32 partition on the flash drive, which I accepted.
The yast install configurator made all this manual selection easy, and after the manual configuration the partitioning worked perfectly.
Next step was Linux user configuration which went fine
Next was booting.
In the section management tab
    delete the windows 1 and 2 options (since we are not dual booting directly)
In the boot loader installation tab
    uncheck boot from mbr ( this stops the install from installing Grub and dual boot on the windows c drive
    check boot from root partition (this installs grub and all associated files in the Linux root partition (/dev/sdb6)
I believe that the correct procedure at this point is to click Boot Loader installation details which will bring up the Grub device map. In the device map there will be a line for the fixed hard drive (aka the windows drive) and a line for the esata flash drive. When the installer started up these were in hard drive and esata drive order. However when we boot directly from the flash the esata drive will be grub drive hd0 and the fixed hard drive will be grub hd1. The device map order needs to be changed to reflect this ie the esata drive should be first not second.
I did not do this and ended up initially doing Grub command line editing to boot and later manually editing the grub files using information I had previously learned the hard way and through google.
At this point let the installer go ahead and install Linux. After doing this it should come back and tell you to reboot. Do not do it yet because we need to install the MBR into the flash drive.
I suspect that there is a way of doing this in Yast running from the Live CD but it was not obvious to me so I used the manual method that I have used before.
Open a root terminal
Mount /dev/sdb6 to /mnt/sdb6 (my linux root)
Touch /mnt/sdb6/boot/grub/flag
The purpose of this is when we go looking later at the grub command prompt we need an easy to find unique file
Start grub and do the following
#grub
            grub> find /boot/grub/flag
                (hd1,5)    -- the result of the find in my example
            grub> root (hd1,5)   -- using the result of the find in my example
            grub> setup (hd1)   -- install mbr -- my example parameters - if you get this wrong you will trash some other drive!!!
                  hopefully grub announces success
            grub> quit
Reboot and select the flash drive. In my case I still had the grub devicemap wrong and had to edit the grub commands during boot to tell grub how to find the correct partition and then edit them again after booting
Typical linux install issues that we all always seem to have and can be solved with a little (or a lot of) google research.
As I said at the beginning I now have an untouched windows installation and a nice fast Linux installation. I hope that this will be of some use to someone.

Hi chrissh
i tried this exact procedure... on the exact same notebook (T400s). However, as soon as I set the
   Bios>config>Serial ATA to "compatibility", I cannot use my default Windows installation! I immediately get the "blue screen of death".
I doubt I did anything differently since this is the first step of your procedure and my laptop is brand new!
any idea?

Partitioning Hard drive ubuntu arch dual boot

Hello I am running on Ubuntu 11.10, and I'd like to try out Arch Linux. I'm pretty much a complete beginner, and would like to know exactly how to manually configure my hard disc partitions to allow for a ubuntu/arch dual boot.
I have read the beginner's guide and have tried searching for existing documentation on how to configure the partitions. I have not been able to find anything helpful and I apologise if there are already clear instructions aimed at beginners floating around. In this case, could someone point out this documentation to me?
Thank you
Last edited by Goatfluff (2012-01-14 03:28:42)

Hi there and welcome to arch.
First off, Google offers a plethora of information as to how to go about it.
Our wiki has also quite a few hints.
Just have a browse around. There's plenty of info out there.

About:config settings change by themselves when switching between windows/linux on dual-boot machine with profile shared between OSs

I dual-boot ubuntu and windows7, and have set up firefox to use the same profile data when running under either OS. This works great, except:
(1) each time I switch OSs and start firefox, it runs the "checking add-on compatibility" test (which is a minor annoyance)
(2) each time I start firefox in ubuntu after recently using it under windows, the about:config setting "browser.backspace.action" gets reset from my preferred setting (0) to the default setting (2).
How can I prevent these two things from happening?

Maybe it is better to use separate profiles for each OS and create symlinks or hard links to the sqlite databases that you want to share.
Your Linux profile may be using extensions (e.g. Ubuntu Firefox Modifications) that modify specific settings and in such a case you can't really prevent this.<br />
You can use a user.js file to initialize specific prefs on each start, but that makes it impossible to make changes on the about:config page that last the current session and you need to remember which prefs are affected.

Logical Partition Only? Windows Arch Dual Boot

ASUS Eee PC
I want to dual boot for the present time and my hard drive is currently partitioned as:
Winows - NTFS - Primary partition - 70 GB
Hidden - Fat32 - Primary partition - 15 GB
Unknown - Other - Primary partition - 20 MB
Unallocated - 147 GB
I have no idea what the hidden and other partitions are, but I don't want to delete them just yet.
This leaves me only one partition to install Arch on. Can I make the all of unallocated a logical drive and install Arch or do I need at least one primary partition?
Thanks,
Kent

There's also usually an option to make a set of recovery disks. I think I had a 12GB recovery partition and the "set" of discs was going to be 21CDs but it would free up that space and a primary partition.

Lessfs - deduplicating filesystem for Linux

Hi all!
I've created PKGBUILD for the lessfs FUSE filesystem, it's already in AUR.
The software is nearly perfect for backup purposes and it's one of the few open source deduplicating file systems (other being btrfs and ZFS, both unstable on Linux).
Cheers!
Tomato

gagejd wrote:How bad is this instability with hfs+? Am I going to lose some files or corrupt a few documents when I randomly reboot the computer, or shutdown improperly?
I rarely reboot or shutdown improperly, so I have no insights to offer into the impacts of these behaviours on HFS+ in Linux.
IIRC, I once had a catastrophic and irreparable error when I used the command line in Linux to change a directory name on an HFS+ filesystem from being all lowercase to start with an uppercase letter. I had to restore the filesystem contents from backup.
Other than that, I have lots of minor, easily fixable, but somewhat troublingly frequent errors with incorrect numbers of inodes and such like.
If you are bringing Windows into the equation, I seem to recall a Slashdot article from within the last couple of years which had a question re: sharing files in a triple-boot environment (Windows, OS X, and Linux). If you can track down the article, the comments may be useful.

Best optical media (cd/dvd) for optical drive, iMac 21.5

I had my optical drive replaced 2 weeks ago. I had bought 3 different cd/dvd media OEMs. The imac will recognize some but others fails. Apple refuses to publish or share a list of media that will always work with their optical drive. One tech guy told me to buy only +r/+rw format. Ha, thats hard to find and much more expensive. So what is best cd/dvd -r/-rw disks to buy???? Frustrated imac owner..I cannot keep buying and returning disks! Thanks

Well, these iMac drives are finicky and, they are superslim laptop style drives installed vertically where any media could easily shift by 1/100th of an inch, so it's a gamble. I usually use my external burner - it is solid, works well, and can read anything. I've learned that the drive in my iMac likes Verbatim or Imation disks, so you might want to try one of those - they use different drives (change the mfr occasionally), so yours may be different.

Best stable media partition filesystem for Linux/OSX dual boot

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