On 2009/12/03 17:17 (GMT-0800) Ray Davison composed: > The only time I ever got Linux to install on a drive that already had an > OS, it only installed when I gave it a primary partition.
That is an installer limitation, not a Linux limitation. Pick a more competent distro and that apparent limitation might be less compelling, or inapplicable (IOW, not the Ubuntu version most often encountered). Whether Linux actually needs a primary is really a dependency on the primary or sole boot manager used. If Grub is to be used as the primary or sole boot manager, it should usually be installed on a primary. More often than not however the Linux installers default to putting it on the MBR, which may or may not be a good idea, depending on what else is installed and whether there are other boot loaders also being used (part of which is explained in the URLs in my previous thread response). > And that is > definitely not my first choice. To each his own. The only reason to distinguish between primary and logical is due to legacy BIOS limitations and the fallout from them, one of which is IBM Boot Manager has to be on a primary, and another of which is that initial boot manager code must be identified in the MBR's portion of legacy partition tables and reachable via code that fits in the tiny MBR code space. As filesystems go there is nothing to distinguish between primary and logical. Linux isn't stupid like DOS WRT "visible" primary partitions. To Linux, a partition is invisible if unmounted, visible if correctly mounted as a supported type. Since a Linux partition is never visible to DOS natively, there's no good reason Linux can't use one or more primaries on a system that includes DOS. > I have been running Dos, Win and OS/2 together since W95. At first I > had DOS and Win95 on primary, FAT16, C: and everything else on logicals. > W2K was too big for that so I put it on a logical after whatever > versions of OS/2 I had. Even tho modern OS/2 may not need to be under > 1024 I still keep them up front. Typically, W4 and eCS each at 800M. My W4 is only 101.9M, used only for maintenance, located on the very first partition, without LVM. eCS, with LVM, I keep at 800M as well, normally on /dev/xda10 (6th logical) so that letters the maintenance partition sees match those assigned under LVM to the maximum extent possible. My first FAT partition is normally #3. W2K & WXP I always put on D:, but not any particular logical location. Then again, I _normally_ don't put doz and eCS on the same machine, and don't often use removables (other than floppies or opticals) as boot devices. > And DOS is now the only OS on C:, the only primary. All my desktops > have either W2K or WXP on a logical. My laptop has both. And none of > my desktops have any LVM. All my HDDs are front panel plug-in and LVM > makes it difficult to swap drives; they have to be mounted. > With that as a starting point can I put Linux on a logical(s)? Linux doesn't distinguish whether it's installed on a logical or not. You can have any competent Linux installer put Grub or Lilo on the Linux /boot or / partition WRT whether they are logicals or not. The only requirement is to have some boot loader or manager that can load/chainload (to) it. IBM BM can do that. So can other freeware and non-free boot managers, Grub4DOS, WinGrub and versions of Grub not furnished with the Linux distro being installed. If the Linux installer you're running refuses to install its bootloader on the / or /boot partition, wherever located, or not install any bootloader at all, abort the install, and find another distro to install, or better instructions for running it. -- " We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion." John Adams, 2nd US President Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Join us December 9, 2009 for the Red Hat Virtual Experience, a free event focused on virtualization and cloud computing. Attend in-depth sessions from your desk. Your couch. Anywhere. http://p.sf.net/sfu/redhat-sfdev2dev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
