Allan Gottlieb wrote:
I just received a new laptop (dell 6430s) with a 256GB SSD and naturally
want to install gentoo. I have installed gentoo several times but this
is my first with an SSD.
Dell configures a small first partition and places windows on two other
partitions (one small; the other the rest of the disk).
I reinstalled windows shrinking the large partition very considerably (I
essentially never use the dell partition or windows; but they are
convenient to have if you need service from dell).
In my current system, I have
/root "native partition"
/usr lvm2
/local lvm2
/var lvm2
/tmp lvm2
/opt lvm2
/a lvm2
My plan is to have root+usr on one "native partition" (to appease the
oracle at udev) and the rest on lvm2 as in my current configuration.
Although I will install dracut and perhaps try/use it, I do not want my
partitioning scheme to *force* me to use it. I believe combining root
and usr (off lvm2) will accomplish this goal.
I was not surprised to see that the latest manual has root+usr combined,
but was surprised that they specify an additional small /boot partition.
I had thought that went out of favor a few years ago. Is it back
because of the root+usr merge? Do people here recommend a separate
/boot?
It's just the way the Gentoo docs have always been. As with most things
related to Unix, retrospective justifications are commonplace. I think
it made a good deal more sense 10 years ago than it does today. Back
then, ext2 was a safer option for boot loaders and live-distros alike.
Nowadays, it generally doesn't matter and can be a source of confusion
(I always thought that the self-referencing boot symlink was silly).
There are some situations where it could afford more flexibility.
However, I no longer specify a separate /boot unless there is a clear
case for doing so.
I know that it is important to have ssd partitions well aligned. It
appears that fdisk is doing this automatically (see below). Does the
following partitioning seem OK?
Disk /dev/sda: 256.1 GB, 256060514304 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 31130 cylinders, total 500118192 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: 0x58737050
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 80324 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 81920 1622015 770048 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 1622016 64536575 31457280 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 64536576 500118191 217790808 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 * 64538624 127453183 31457280 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 127455232 131649535 2097152 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 131651584 341366783 104857600 8e Linux LVM
These are all perfectly aligned except for the first partition, not that
it matters. Incidentally, no special parameters are required for tools
such as pvcreate, mkfs.ext4, mkfs.xfs and such. They will generally do
the right thing based on the information exposed by sysfs.
Cheers,
--Kerin
