[ale] Linux install breaking windows?

mike at trausch.us mike at trausch.us
Thu Feb 9 00:30:02 EST 2012 

On 02/09/2012 12:03 AM, James Sumners wrote:
>> I actually rather like running it in a VM, but that is also often not
>> practical; most people's Windows licenses won't allow them to reinstall
>> it inside of a VM, because OEM licenses are bound to the hardware (that
>> is, "legally" speaking).
> 
> I don't really care if it isn't practical. Dual booting is something I
> do not reccomend _at all_. But if you insist on it, then pony up and get
> a $40 320GB drive for the second OS. Hell, even a USB thumb drive could
> be used.

LOL!

If you can find one, please, *please*, let me know!  The last time I
went out to purchase a drive I **WANTED** something like a 320 GB drive
(hell, even *that* was too big for my application) and the smallest
thing I could find was a 500 GB for $99, after shopping at three
different places.

And there was only one of those left.

> My actual reccomendation in a case, as I think this is, where someone
> just wants to dabble with Linux to start learning is to use a VM hosted
> by their primary OS. VirtualBox is great, and you can install as many
> distros as you have time and disk space for. Just switch to full screen
> when you're using the VM so that you're not distracted by the host OS.

Agreed.

Now that VirtualBox supports full-screen, multiple-head, 3D accelerated
display, it is actually virtually transparent and significantly easier
to use than rebooting over and over again.

Of course, the wrong type of person would go "nevermind this, it's kinda
slower than I thought it would be" if they are running in a VM.

The other really nifty solution is to use a single, non-sparse image
file hosted within NTFS on Windows' partition.  This limits I/O to the
NTFS filesystem in such a way that it's almost impossible even for a
broken driver to screw it up, and it works rather well.  If only Windows
could be so versatile; heck, you can't even install Windows on a GPT
disk if the system uses BIOS instead of EFI.  How lame is that?

My desktop and one of my servers uses GPT (without EFI, using GRUB 2
which installs itself in the protective MBR as well as a
specially-designated GPT partition) now; I switched over to it after I
made a mistake in an emergency disk failure situation not that long ago
on my desktop.  That mistake would never have happened if I were using a
sane partitioning scheme; I utterly forgot to scrape the EBRs when I
backed up my system.  I'd somehow completely forgotten that such buggery
was necessary, since it'd been years since I needed to do such a thing.

See below the signature for the current disk layout and BIOS information
on my desktop, if interested.

	--- Mike

-- 
A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
                                   --- Carveth Read, “Logic”

====================================================================
aloe ~ # dmidecode | head -n 39
# dmidecode 2.10
SMBIOS 2.6 present.
57 structures occupying 1945 bytes.
Table at 0x0009F400.

Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
	Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
	Version: V17.13
	Release Date: 06/29/2011
	Address: 0xF0000
	Runtime Size: 64 kB
	ROM Size: 1024 kB
	Characteristics:
		ISA is supported
		PCI is supported
		PNP is supported
		BIOS is upgradeable
		BIOS shadowing is allowed
		ESCD support is available
		Boot from CD is supported
		Selectable boot is supported
		BIOS ROM is socketed
		EDD is supported
		5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
		3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
		3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
		Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
		8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
		Serial services are supported (int 14h)
		Printer services are supported (int 17h)
		CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
		ACPI is supported
		USB legacy is supported
		LS-120 boot is supported
		ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported
		BIOS boot specification is supported
		Targeted content distribution is supported
	BIOS Revision: 8.15

aloe ~ # fdisk -l /dev/sda

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util
fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1  3907029167  1953514583+  ee  GPT

aloe ~ # gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.6.13

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 3907029168 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 58413AB8-96D5-44F5-BADA-2FC417919344
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907029134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2157 sectors (1.1 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048           12287   5.0 MiB     EF02  GRUB 2
   2           12288         1036287   500.0 MiB   0700  Linux /boot
   3         1036288        63950847   30.0 GiB    0700  Linux /
   4        63950848        97505279   16.0 GiB    8200  Linux Swap
   5        97505280      3907028991   1.8 TiB     8E00  LVM VG aloe

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-5): 1
Partition GUID code: 21686148-6449-6E6F-744E-656564454649 (BIOS boot
partition)
Partition unique GUID: 88FDB124-6CAF-47B0-B175-1F0629E42E45
First sector: 2048 (at 1024.0 KiB)
Last sector: 12287 (at 6.0 MiB)
Partition size: 10240 sectors (5.0 MiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: GRUB 2

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-5): 2
Partition GUID code: EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (Linux/Windows
data)
Partition unique GUID: 8A2E92F4-E38A-4889-91EB-143C888AFE6C
First sector: 12288 (at 6.0 MiB)
Last sector: 1036287 (at 506.0 MiB)
Partition size: 1024000 sectors (500.0 MiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: Linux /boot

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-5): 3
Partition GUID code: EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (Linux/Windows
data)
Partition unique GUID: DAA7E48D-407C-425A-9424-42E3107F8DAF
First sector: 1036288 (at 506.0 MiB)
Last sector: 63950847 (at 30.5 GiB)
Partition size: 62914560 sectors (30.0 GiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: Linux /

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-5): 4
Partition GUID code: 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F (Linux swap)
Partition unique GUID: D77587ED-191A-4126-8FB2-84F94314CE2F
First sector: 63950848 (at 30.5 GiB)
Last sector: 97505279 (at 46.5 GiB)
Partition size: 33554432 sectors (16.0 GiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: Linux Swap

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-5): 5
Partition GUID code: E6D6D379-F507-44C2-A23C-238F2A3DF928 (Linux LVM)
Partition unique GUID: 76FEC8A9-ED80-407C-9C3A-F73BD4AAC8EF
First sector: 97505280 (at 46.5 GiB)
Last sector: 3907028991 (at 1.8 TiB)
Partition size: 3809523712 sectors (1.8 TiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: LVM VG aloe

Command (? for help): q
aloe ~ #

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