Help installing Arch?

So I've been looking over the Arch wiki articles, and I think I have a good idea of how to go through the install process, but the problem is that I already have Ubuntu set up in a dual boot, and I'm somewhat confused about the /boot partition. Doesn't Ubuntu load GRUB to the MBR? The Arch installer seems to want a /boot partition, and I'm not sure how the boot flag will work out and where GRUB will go...

Here's a screenshot of GParted. As you can see, sda1 is my Windows partition with the boot flag, and sda2 is an extended partition with my Linux and Data partitions in it. I know it's kind of convoluted, and let me know if it would be best to just torch that whole extended partition and redo stuff.



I'm just still confused as to if I need to make a new /boot partition, or if I can somehow point that part of the installer to hda1, or to the Linux '/' partition? And then what's with needing to install GRUB after setting that up?

TIA

 

Hi pixelot,
basically, you need extra /boot partition.
If i look at your pic with partitions, i see you got one primary ntfs part., then extended and 3 logicall.
I suppose you use grub loader.
I see you got only one / (root) part. for linux + swap. This is not gonna work if you want triple boot.
You'll have to redo your part. scheme (if you dont have free space entirely redo).

Basically to answer some q:
1. grub always install to mbr (except if you use it some special way), so second linux install goes again to mbr.
2. installation (as i would do - others might go other way) go:
- win
- 1st lin
- 2nd lin
3. win install - not much to speak of, right?
4. 1st lin:
same way as you did it last time, with exception you reserve /boot on standalone part. (important), then /, then swap
5. 2nd lin:
will share /boot with 1st lin install (don't format it - there are already files from 1st install), extra /, share same swap part. like 1st.

so at the end you might finish with something like:
sda1 windows part
sda2 /boot (shared for both linux distros)
sda3 swap partition - shared again
sda4 extended part
sda5 / (root part 1st lin) (logical)
sda6 / (root part 2nd lin) (logical)
sda7 /shared (or any other convenient name that's not included by default in distro -like /opt, /home etc) (logicall) - you might use this to shared data between your two distros (but not necessary)
?sda8 /home - i dunno if it'd do good or bad to share your /home between distros - in my opinion some things may go wrong there - topic for longer discussion ....

be ready to play a bit with /boot/grub/grub.conf if problems (like hide / unhide some partitions for windows)

to share /boot
good: if you upgrade kernel - both distros write to the same grub.conf, so you don't have to bother and manually edit it every time
bad: there is possibility, in case that both distributions would have the same name for kernels, they would have overwritten each other's kernel (this is not much likely though, since in kernel names is usually included some special distro's related tag name or number)

this is about it, though i never used arch, there might be some specialities

p.s.
Basically, if you wanna study a bit about it, look in google for 'dual boot linux linux', windows is something extra you dont need to take care much about .

And as inspiration link to grub that boots more than 100 OSs )
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143973

gl&hf

 

I would suggest putting swap also onto one of the logical partitions as the number of primary partitions is limited. At least one of the win7 editions already creates 2 primary partitions.

 

Thanks for your replies!

Just to clarify, I only want to boot Arch and Windows. My main question is why I need a /boot partition since I didn't have one for Ubuntu, and why I can't just put Arch root / on my ext3 partition, install GRUB to the MBR, and leave everything else like it is?

But your replies do give me a better understanding already. Thanks.

 

The simple thing fact is, you don't have to have a separate /boot partition. Having just a unified /(root) is enough. I recommend ext4. Usually, a separate /boot partition is created for security reasons and (less so) speed increases as they have /boot in ext2. (Ext2 doesn't use journalling, which makes it faster.) Some even make separate /var, /tmp, /boot.

If you're computer is a personal one, it's way simplier this way and easier to manage. And the speed increase is probably in nanoseconds.

I used to have:
/boot in ext2
/var in reiserfs
/ in ext4
/swap
/home in ext 4

in my linux partitions. But not only is that tedious, it also is very tedious if one of your partitions grows larger than it's partition size.

So now I use:


I have as follows:
In an extended partition,
/
/swap
/home
The "Data" drive in NTFS
The C: Windows drive.

It's very simple and elegant this way. All my linux settings is in /home (2Gb). Since I'm in Vista, I have it to 40Gb, and install everything to my middle Data partition. All the Windows programs are in the folder "Windows Programs". My documents and stuff and in the data partition, and simulinks are created to /home.

 

Sory pixelot, thought you are in need of triple boot, so my reply wasn't accurate.
Anyway, considering to have /boot extra is what i usually do, since i usually use LVM to split my hdd's and also it's better to have it as primary partition (in case of recovery).
So i mostly use /boot as standalone primary partition.

 

agreed, surely better...

 

I suggest you read up on easybcd it makes dualbooting alot easier. So instead of using grub for booting windows/linux it'll use windows's boot loader. Every time linux performs a kernel update you won't have to adjust your grub configuration. Just remember to install grub and your linux system on the same partition.

 

So do I just not set a /boot mount point, and ignore the warning about that? Thanks!

 

Don't set a separate /boot partition. In your case. Unnecessary.

 

Then when I'm installing GRUB, do I have to edit everything that says /boot/grub/menu.lst or kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 to something on the root partition, or is that pointing to the root partition already? It looks like that's how it's set up on my Ubuntu install, but I just want to make sure before finalizing...

Thanks again.

 

nah Just leave it as it is. Grub would have automatically made changes to reflect where you linux kernel is. You will have to edit the Windows entry because you're dual booting.

For the windows one:
change root (hd0,?) where ? represents your Windows install partition. If you installed it in sda1, ? = 0. If you installed it in sda7, ? = 6. THis is because ? starts the count from 0. And uncomment the relevant entries to reflect the format. You can edit the "title" entry to say what you want the boot menu to say.

 

Thanks again so much. I had already figured out that other stuff. It's at hd0,0 (sda1) and I uncommented it to match the other entries. Here goes the install...

 

No problem. Chime back for the results!

 

Yeah, so I booted up and evidently I have to install the Xorg server and Gnome before I have a GUI, and evidently my wireless isn't working even though I installed the wireless_tools package, so I can't download the packages to install?

I may have to figure out how to get my wireless working and reinstall it, or else not use Arch if I can't network.

 

Wireless_tools isn't the firmware for your wireless adapter. What is your wireless brand and model? For my Intel it's the Intel 4965 firmware. You'll have to install it from the CD. Follow the instructions for xorg and GUI install.

 

It's weird because it should be a Linksys WMP54G, but lspci | grep -i net shows Ralink RT2561.

So I need to load that driver from a disk?

 

No, no. Linksys WMP54G is the model of your router. Ralink RT2561 is your wireless adapter. You'll need to find the driver for that. http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup has the info on Wireless Setup. I couldn't find rt2561's info. But there are some info about RT adapters in general.

 

Just for the sake of any who come upon this thread seeking answers, here's what I found out, and I'm going to try this out now.

 

Aye. The Arch forums should be the first port of call.