My 1st CFDISK partitioning and mountpoints - Is there a WIKI error?

Question

Hi....
I have a single drive laptop and want to use the FIRST 32 gig of the drive for ARCH. I managed ti do a manual partitioning and filesystem mountpoints though it seems wrong somehow. I also have one question. I have 3 gig of ram.
WIKI ERROR? or - explanation needed:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … ition_Info
I tried to follow the partitioning and mountpoints parts exactly though got VERY confused.
Here's what I ended up with during the install phase:
    Device:Type:Mountpoint:Format
    dev/sda2:swap:swap:yes
    dev/sda1:ext2:yes
    dev/sda3:ext2:boot:yes
And here's what my menu.lst looks like now that I'm running at least:
    /dev/fd0    (fd0)
    /dev/hda    (hd0)
    /dev/hdb2    (hd1,1)
    /dev/hda3    (hd0,2)
I did NOT do exactly what the WIKI said as this seemed wrong... to me anyways... hehehe
I hope and figure it's me that was wrong.. what are the chances of that! :--)
FIRST OF ALL I DID GET THIS DONE with cfdisk:
sda1    Boot       Primary     Linux                             10240 #root
sda2               Primary     Linux swap / Solaris              1024  #swap
sda3               Primary     Linux                             26480 #home
THEN I got confused setting the mountpoints:
The guide says: First you will be asked for your swap partition. Choose the appropriate partition (sda3 in this example).
I THOUGHT the swap was sda2 !!!!!
Then later it says:
You will now be prompted to add any additional partitions. In our example, only sda2 is remaining. Choose a filesystem type and mount it as /home.
ANYWAYS...
My objective is to have the most LOGICAL smallest number of partitions... OD I have to have 3 PHYSICAL partitions? Is that the best idea? I'm interested in best practices with thoughts of backups, reinstalls of boot or whatever, without risking data etc.
Can anyone tell me how I got so confused???
My first attempt to follow the beginners partitioning mountpoints guide failed, so the second time I just did what I THOUGHT would work... It did.. though at the top here you can see what my menu.lst etc. looks like... seems wrong or at least NOT the most logical...
Any pointers etc. greatly appreciated!!!!
Last edited by yvonney (2008-06-22 17:42:29)

Answer 1

I think the wiki is correct but the distinctions between the steps are perhaps not as clear as they could be.  The whole partitioning paragraph is actually:
First you will be asked for your swap partition. Choose the appropriate partition (sda2 in this example). You will be asked if you want to create a
swap filesystem; select yes. Next, choose where to mount the / (root) directory (sda1 in the example). You will be asked what kind of filesystem you want.
< Descriptions of the different Filesystem Types cut >
Choose and create the filesystem (format the partition) for / by selecting yes. You will now be prompted to add any additional partitions. In our example, only sda3 is remaining. Choose a filesystem type and mount it as /home. Again, create the filesystem and choose Done. Return to main menu.
The final three sentences shoule perhaps be seperated:
Choose and create the filesystem (format the partition) for / by selecting yes.
You will now be prompted to add any additional partitions. In our example, only sda3 is remaining. Choose a filesystem type and mount it as /home.
Again, create the filesystem and choose Done. Return to main menu.
So, following the example the order of mount operations is:
swap partition, filesystem 'swap' (/dev/sda2)
/ partition, filesystem [ext3|reiser3/JFS etc] (/dev/sda1)
Any other partitions e.g.
/home, filesystem [ext3|reiser3/JFS etc] (/dev/sda3)
I can't see any mention of /dev/sda3 = /boot in the wiki aside from the auto-partition description
Last edited by ghostHack (2008-06-25 17:32:27)