Michael's ArchLinux Installation

Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[JP Jamous]

Michael,
 
After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some install
on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
any other member could answer.
 
1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
 
2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
 
I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
 
3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
 
A. which one should I install first?
 
B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
 
C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
 
D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which operating
system I want to load?
 
I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Tyler Littlefield]

Hello,
I'll do what I can to answer; I'll tackle the duel boot first.
Usually (from what I understand), people can duel boot both linux and windows, and grub is used as the boot loader. I would recommend installing Linux first if you want to go that rout. Then you can set up your windows partition to use ntfs and you should be set. Instructions on chaining to the xp boot loader should be fairly easy to find all over google.

Second, the audio drivers are in arch, though your system may not be supported. I've seen grml run great on my gateway and netbook, but I can't ever get speech on my toshiba, so...

HTH,
		Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
	http://tds-solutions.net
	Twitter: sorressean

On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:23 PM, JP Jamous wrote:

> Michael,
> 
> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
> have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some install
> on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
> any other member could answer.
> 
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
> 
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
> 
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
> 
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
> 
> A. which one should I install first?
> 
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
> 
> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
> 
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which operating
> system I want to load?
> 
> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Glenn Ervin]

Tyler,
Usually Linux installations, from what I've seen, state in the instructions 
to install Windows first, and then boot to the Linux installation, and the 
grub installer will see the Windows partition and then prepare the remaining 
space for the Linux installation.
But I guess that grub 2.0 will automatically detect partitions and put them 
in the boot options.

Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler@tysdomain.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation


Hello,
I'll do what I can to answer; I'll tackle the duel boot first.
Usually (from what I understand), people can duel boot both linux and 
windows, and grub is used as the boot loader. I would recommend installing 
Linux first if you want to go that rout. Then you can set up your windows 
partition to use ntfs and you should be set. Instructions on chaining to the 
xp boot loader should be fairly easy to find all over google.

Second, the audio drivers are in arch, though your system may not be 
supported. I've seen grml run great on my gateway and netbook, but I can't 
ever get speech on my toshiba, so...

HTH,
Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
http://tds-solutions.net
Twitter: sorressean

On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:23 PM, JP Jamous wrote:

> Michael,
>
> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
> have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some 
> install
> on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
> any other member could answer.
>
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>
> A. which one should I install first?
>
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>
> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which 
> operating
> system I want to load?
>
> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup




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Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Tyler Littlefield]

Thanks for the correction. I remembered from a google article that linux was first, but it looked messy. I''m not sure how you'd get Grub installed and on to the MBR without clobbering windows's boot loader, unless you could use the ntldr as the kernel parameter to grub. I know a friend had linux booting with the windows boot loader to grub, and he edited boot.ini, but that was a messy hack to say the least.
		Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
	http://tds-solutions.net
	Twitter: sorressean

On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:40 PM, Glenn Ervin wrote:

> Tyler,
> Usually Linux installations, from what I've seen, state in the instructions 
> to install Windows first, and then boot to the Linux installation, and the 
> grub installer will see the Windows partition and then prepare the remaining 
> space for the Linux installation.
> But I guess that grub 2.0 will automatically detect partitions and put them 
> in the boot options.
> 
> Glenn
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler@tysdomain.com>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 3:34 PM
> Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation
> 
> 
> Hello,
> I'll do what I can to answer; I'll tackle the duel boot first.
> Usually (from what I understand), people can duel boot both linux and 
> windows, and grub is used as the boot loader. I would recommend installing 
> Linux first if you want to go that rout. Then you can set up your windows 
> partition to use ntfs and you should be set. Instructions on chaining to the 
> xp boot loader should be fairly easy to find all over google.
> 
> Second, the audio drivers are in arch, though your system may not be 
> supported. I've seen grml run great on my gateway and netbook, but I can't 
> ever get speech on my toshiba, so...
> 
> HTH,
> Thanks,
> Tyler Littlefield
> http://tds-solutions.net
> Twitter: sorressean
> 
> On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:23 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
> 
>> Michael,
>> 
>> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
>> have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some 
>> install
>> on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
>> any other member could answer.
>> 
>> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
>> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
>> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>> 
>> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
>> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
>> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>> 
>> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>> 
>> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>> 
>> A. which one should I install first?
>> 
>> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>> 
>> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>> 
>> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which 
>> operating
>> system I want to load?
>> 
>> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> 
> 
> E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.1.0.447)
> Database version: 6.14830
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.1.0.447)
> Database version: 6.14830
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> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 04:23:38PM -0400, JP Jamous wrote:
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?

I don't use archlinux, but I'd assume it will pull down software
packages, which would probably be a combination of all three of the above.

>  
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.

My guess is it might find your sound hardware automatically, but that
ultimately depends on the sound hardware in that machine. If you don't
want to spend time researching that machine's sound hardware on the
net, and how linux does with that hardware, then I would just suggest
trying it, and seeing what happens.

>  
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>  
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>  
> A. which one should I install first?

My suggestion would be to install xp first, followed by archlinux. If
you do it the other way round, xp will clobber the gnu/linux boot
loader, and leave you with a headache that even experienced gnu/linux
users don't relish dealing with if they can help it.

>  
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>  

If you're talking about your xp install, there's no reason for you to
use fat32, unless you know of a good reason for doing so. The linux
kernel has native read support for ntfs, and you can use ntfs-3g to
write to ntfs file systems under gnu/linux as well.

> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?

Like I said in my answer to A above, I'd recommend installing xp
first, followed by archlinux.

>  
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which operating
> system I want to load?

Yes, you can either use the windows boot manager for this, or a
gnu/linux boot manager, such as grub. Which one you want to use
depends on your preference, and on how you set things up.

Greg


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Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 02:41:55PM -0600, Tyler Littlefield wrote:
> I know a friend had linux booting with the windows boot loader to grub, and he edited boot.ini, but that was a messy hack to say the least.

If you read the windows nt boot loader howto (I forget the exact
title), then it's actually pretty straight forward, at least I thought
so. Here's what my boot.ini looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=c:\bootsect.lnx
[operating systems]
c:\bootsect.lnx="Debian GNU/Linux"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

In my case, the first os to boot is gnu/linux, the boot sector of
which can be found in c:\bootsect.lnx, though the file name is up to
you. I generate that file by installing lilo into the gnu/linux
partition, and then using dd to copy the first 512 bytes of the
partition into bootsect.lnx (I.E. dd if=/dev/hda3
of=/windows/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1"). If you wanted windows to be
the default, then I think the line would be like:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

but don't quote me on that, find and read the howto I mentioned, or
see a tip below.

In the operating systems section, for gnu/linux, you have
file_name="description", where description is what will appear on the
boot screen for that entry. As far as I can recall, the rest of it
will already be in the boot.ini file, but again, don't quote me on
that, go read up on it.

Tip: if you've got the boot.ini file edited to your liking, then you
can change the time out, and the boot order through the windows
gui. It should be in the advanced tab of control panel, system. Note
also that I didn't just go opening boot.ini in notepad, I used the
edit button, which will be in the same place where you can change time
out, and boot order, like I just mentioned. You probably can just edit
boot.ini with notepad, but I chose to do it the official way, since I
didn't want to risk being left with an unbootable system. Hth
somewhat.

Greg


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RE: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[JP Jamous]

Guys,

Thank you tremendously. I am ready to play with that baby now.

I appreciate all 3 feedbacks.  

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Gregory Nowak
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 4:57 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 04:23:38PM -0400, JP Jamous wrote:
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is 
> no internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from 
> the internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?

I don't use archlinux, but I'd assume it will pull down software packages,
which would probably be a combination of all three of the above.

>  
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will 
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull 
> them down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.

My guess is it might find your sound hardware automatically, but that
ultimately depends on the sound hardware in that machine. If you don't want
to spend time researching that machine's sound hardware on the net, and how
linux does with that hardware, then I would just suggest trying it, and
seeing what happens.

>  
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>  
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>  
> A. which one should I install first?

My suggestion would be to install xp first, followed by archlinux. If you do
it the other way round, xp will clobber the gnu/linux boot loader, and leave
you with a headache that even experienced gnu/linux users don't relish
dealing with if they can help it.

>  
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>  

If you're talking about your xp install, there's no reason for you to use
fat32, unless you know of a good reason for doing so. The linux kernel has
native read support for ntfs, and you can use ntfs-3g to write to ntfs file
systems under gnu/linux as well.

> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?

Like I said in my answer to A above, I'd recommend installing xp first,
followed by archlinux.

>  
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which 
> operating system I want to load?

Yes, you can either use the windows boot manager for this, or a gnu/linux
boot manager, such as grub. Which one you want to use depends on your
preference, and on how you set things up.

Greg


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gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[trev.saunders]

Hi

unless I'm missing something dual boot with grub is a lot simpler, but that might just be that I've delt with menu.lst / grub.conf more.

Trev

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
I think many have given you good answers up to now.

Here's a few additional things I would mention.

Regarding hardware support, try linux and see what you get, if it 
doesn't work then may be have a look around for drivers. Specifically 
for audio whilst installing, if the modified archlinux CD doesn't detect 
your sound card by default then may be try GRML (if GRML works but the 
archlinux CD doesn't then Chris may like to get some info from you so he 
can try and fix it).

Regarding what is downloaded (assuming if installation is using the 
internet for the source), you will be downloading the entire system (a 
basic one with speakup but not brltty is only about 100MB of download, 
it goes up if you want gnome, brltty, etc). If you have package CDs then 
if you have all the core packages and the ones for speakup, etc it 
shouldn't need anything from the internet (NOTE: I haven't done an 
install from package CDs).

Finally coming to the dual booting stuff, I have always done it with 
Windows first installed. One thing you may want to do (if possible) is 
tell windows to only use part of the disk as that would save having to 
resize it. In the audio tutorial I do show you how to configure grub so 
that you can select which OS to boot when the computer starts, however I 
did make a mistake. The error is that I enabled the makeactive line in 
the windows section and installed grub to the linux partition, this 
simply means that when you boot windows you won't get the grub screen. 
To solve, either install grub to the MBR or do not include the 
makeactive line.

Regarding the use of NTFS, do use it as that's best for windows XP. To 
access NTFS from linux you will probably want the ntfs-3g package.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
> Michael,
>
> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
> have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some install
> on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
> any other member could answer.
>
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>
> A. which one should I install first?
>
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>
> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which operating
> system I want to load?
>
> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>
>    

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Michael Whapples]

Regarding causing the windows boot loader issues, this is why I install 
lilo or grub to the partition boot sector. I don't know whether grub2 
has sorted out installing to the partition, but that really was 
something which has made me hold back from using grub2.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Tyler Littlefield wrote:
> Thanks for the correction. I remembered from a google article that linux was first, but it looked messy. I''m not sure how you'd get Grub installed and on to the MBR without clobbering windows's boot loader, unless you could use the ntldr as the kernel parameter to grub. I know a friend had linux booting with the windows boot loader to grub, and he edited boot.ini, but that was a messy hack to say the least.
> 		Thanks,
> Tyler Littlefield
> 	http://tds-solutions.net
> 	Twitter: sorressean
>
> On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:40 PM, Glenn Ervin wrote:
>
>    
>> Tyler,
>> Usually Linux installations, from what I've seen, state in the instructions
>> to install Windows first, and then boot to the Linux installation, and the
>> grub installer will see the Windows partition and then prepare the remaining
>> space for the Linux installation.
>> But I guess that grub 2.0 will automatically detect partitions and put them
>> in the boot options.
>>
>> Glenn
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Tyler Littlefield"<tyler@tysdomain.com>
>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux."<speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
>> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 3:34 PM
>> Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation
>>
>>
>> Hello,
>> I'll do what I can to answer; I'll tackle the duel boot first.
>> Usually (from what I understand), people can duel boot both linux and
>> windows, and grub is used as the boot loader. I would recommend installing
>> Linux first if you want to go that rout. Then you can set up your windows
>> partition to use ntfs and you should be set. Instructions on chaining to the
>> xp boot loader should be fairly easy to find all over google.
>>
>> Second, the audio drivers are in arch, though your system may not be
>> supported. I've seen grml run great on my gateway and netbook, but I can't
>> ever get speech on my toshiba, so...
>>
>> HTH,
>> Thanks,
>> Tyler Littlefield
>> http://tds-solutions.net
>> Twitter: sorressean
>>
>> On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:23 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
>>
>>      
>>> Michael,
>>>
>>> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
>>> have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some
>>> install
>>> on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
>>> any other member could answer.
>>>
>>> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
>>> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
>>> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>>>
>>> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
>>> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
>>> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>>>
>>> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>>>
>>> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>>>
>>> A. which one should I install first?
>>>
>>> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>>>
>>> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>>>
>>> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which
>>> operating
>>> system I want to load?
>>>
>>> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Speakup mailing list
>>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>        
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> Database version: 6.14830
>> http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.1.0.447)
>> Database version: 6.14830
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>>      
>
>
>    

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Chris Brannon]

Michael Whapples wrote:
> for audio whilst installing, if the modified archlinux CD doesn't detect 
> your sound card by default then may be try GRML (if GRML works but the 
> archlinux CD doesn't then Chris may like to get some info from you so he 
> can try and fix it).

You bet he would!
One person did have a sound issue recently, and that was fixed by
simply building him an new image with a newer kernel.

As an aside, the new TalkingArch images should be out soonish.
The x86_64 image is being built under qemu right now.  That's an
8-hour process.  For comparison, the 32-bit image takes less than an hour!
So once they're done, I'll do a little testing, upload, and write a release
announcement.  That will be tomorrow or Tuesday, I hope.

Michael, thank you for making that very nice collection of audio tutorials!
That's great work.

-- Chris

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Farhan]

Hello, not to completely rain on your parade or anything, but if you
install linux first then windows afterword, you'll have a messy
bootloader problem on your hands.
when I installed arch, I just used one / partition on /dev/sda3.
so my partitions look like this.
/sda1 windows xp. sda2 1 gig swap partition, sda3 slash partition.
 I installed this on a netbook and I got rid of my quickboot partition.

On 4/25/2010 15:34, Tyler Littlefield wrote:
> Hello,
> I'll do what I can to answer; I'll tackle the duel boot first.
> Usually (from what I understand), people can duel boot both linux and windows, and grub is used as the boot loader. I would recommend installing Linux first if you want to go that rout. Then you can set up your windows partition to use ntfs and you should be set. Instructions on chaining to the xp boot loader should be fairly easy to find all over google.
> 
> Second, the audio drivers are in arch, though your system may not be supported. I've seen grml run great on my gateway and netbook, but I can't ever get speech on my toshiba, so...
> 
> HTH,
> 		Thanks,
> Tyler Littlefield
> 	http://tds-solutions.net
> 	Twitter: sorressean
> 
> On Apr 25, 2010, at 2:23 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
> 
>> Michael,
>>
>> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki site. I
>> have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. Some install
>> on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few questions if you or
>> any other member could answer.
>>
>> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is no
>> internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from the
>> internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>>
>> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
>> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull them
>> down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>>
>> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>>
>> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>>
>> A. which one should I install first?
>>
>> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>>
>> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>>
>> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which operating
>> system I want to load?
>>
>> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

RE: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[JP Jamous]

Yes, you folks have given me a wealth of information. One question remains.

Windows have a primary partition and Linux has a logical. Correct? I want to
make sure I partition the hard drive correctly. 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 5:47 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

Hello,
I think many have given you good answers up to now.

Here's a few additional things I would mention.

Regarding hardware support, try linux and see what you get, if it doesn't
work then may be have a look around for drivers. Specifically for audio
whilst installing, if the modified archlinux CD doesn't detect your sound
card by default then may be try GRML (if GRML works but the archlinux CD
doesn't then Chris may like to get some info from you so he can try and fix
it).

Regarding what is downloaded (assuming if installation is using the internet
for the source), you will be downloading the entire system (a basic one with
speakup but not brltty is only about 100MB of download, it goes up if you
want gnome, brltty, etc). If you have package CDs then if you have all the
core packages and the ones for speakup, etc it shouldn't need anything from
the internet (NOTE: I haven't done an install from package CDs).

Finally coming to the dual booting stuff, I have always done it with Windows
first installed. One thing you may want to do (if possible) is tell windows
to only use part of the disk as that would save having to resize it. In the
audio tutorial I do show you how to configure grub so that you can select
which OS to boot when the computer starts, however I did make a mistake. The
error is that I enabled the makeactive line in the windows section and
installed grub to the linux partition, this simply means that when you boot
windows you won't get the grub screen. 
To solve, either install grub to the MBR or do not include the makeactive
line.

Regarding the use of NTFS, do use it as that's best for windows XP. To
access NTFS from linux you will probably want the ntfs-3g package.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
> Michael,
>
> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki 
> site. I have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files. 
> Some install on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few 
> questions if you or any other member could answer.
>
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is 
> no internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from 
> the internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will 
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull 
> them down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>
> A. which one should I install first?
>
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>
> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which 
> operating system I want to load?
>
> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>
>    

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Glenn Ervin]

If you install windows first, depending on the distro, the installation 
program will create the proper type of partition for the Linux installation, 
and then it will install the boot loader.
Glenn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JP Jamous" <JP@Jepelsy.com>
To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
<speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 5:22 PM
Subject: RE: Michael's ArchLinux Installation


Yes, you folks have given me a wealth of information. One question remains.

Windows have a primary partition and Linux has a logical. Correct? I want to
make sure I partition the hard drive correctly.

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 5:47 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

Hello,
I think many have given you good answers up to now.

Here's a few additional things I would mention.

Regarding hardware support, try linux and see what you get, if it doesn't
work then may be have a look around for drivers. Specifically for audio
whilst installing, if the modified archlinux CD doesn't detect your sound
card by default then may be try GRML (if GRML works but the archlinux CD
doesn't then Chris may like to get some info from you so he can try and fix
it).

Regarding what is downloaded (assuming if installation is using the internet
for the source), you will be downloading the entire system (a basic one with
speakup but not brltty is only about 100MB of download, it goes up if you
want gnome, brltty, etc). If you have package CDs then if you have all the
core packages and the ones for speakup, etc it shouldn't need anything from
the internet (NOTE: I haven't done an install from package CDs).

Finally coming to the dual booting stuff, I have always done it with Windows
first installed. One thing you may want to do (if possible) is tell windows
to only use part of the disk as that would save having to resize it. In the
audio tutorial I do show you how to configure grub so that you can select
which OS to boot when the computer starts, however I did make a mistake. The
error is that I enabled the makeactive line in the windows section and
installed grub to the linux partition, this simply means that when you boot
windows you won't get the grub screen.
To solve, either install grub to the MBR or do not include the makeactive
line.

Regarding the use of NTFS, do use it as that's best for windows XP. To
access NTFS from linux you will probably want the ntfs-3g package.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
> Michael,
>
> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki
> site. I have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files.
> Some install on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few
> questions if you or any other member could answer.
>
> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is
> no internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from
> the internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>
> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull
> them down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>
> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>
> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>
> A. which one should I install first?
>
> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>
> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>
> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which
> operating system I want to load?
>
> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>
>

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup




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Database version: 6.14830
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Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[trev.saunders]

Hi,

ok, drives can have up two 4 primary partitions, of which 1 can be an extended partition.  An extended partition can have some reasonably large (16 or 64) logical partitions, I don't really remember.  Any way, so you have primary partitons and logical, the primary partitions are numbered 1-4 and the logical ones start at 5.  How you partition a given disk comes down to preference and use.  Another thing worth pointing out here is that above the primary and logical partitions bios can support linux can have what is called logical volumes, this is a bit more complicated, so you might decide not to bother, but it gives you some really nice features like dynamically resizeable sections of disk.  You will certainly want 1 partition for   windows, and atleast 1 for linux I'd suggest  2 1 for the root file system with the system files, and second /home for your personal stuff.  You'll probably also want a partition for swap, since you only have 256Mb of ram, if this were a server you might be able to get away without swap, but for a personal machine I would suggest having a fair bit of swap.  Since this gets you to 4 partitions, it would probably make ense to put some on a extended paritition.

HTH
Trev

RE: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
The answer to this does depend on your situation.

If you will have a total of four partitions or less then you may as well 
have them all as primary partitions. If you need more than four 
partitions then you will need to use an extended partition and use some 
logical partitions.

Linux can be installed on logical partitions but I think I have read 
somewhere people having trouble with installing grub to the partition 
boot sector on a logical partition, in which case you either want to 
install grub to the MBR or use the windows boot loader as others have 
described.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
> Yes, you folks have given me a wealth of information. One question remains.
>
> Windows have a primary partition and Linux has a logical. Correct? I want to
> make sure I partition the hard drive correctly.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 5:47 PM
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation
>
> Hello,
> I think many have given you good answers up to now.
>
> Here's a few additional things I would mention.
>
> Regarding hardware support, try linux and see what you get, if it doesn't
> work then may be have a look around for drivers. Specifically for audio
> whilst installing, if the modified archlinux CD doesn't detect your sound
> card by default then may be try GRML (if GRML works but the archlinux CD
> doesn't then Chris may like to get some info from you so he can try and fix
> it).
>
> Regarding what is downloaded (assuming if installation is using the internet
> for the source), you will be downloading the entire system (a basic one with
> speakup but not brltty is only about 100MB of download, it goes up if you
> want gnome, brltty, etc). If you have package CDs then if you have all the
> core packages and the ones for speakup, etc it shouldn't need anything from
> the internet (NOTE: I haven't done an install from package CDs).
>
> Finally coming to the dual booting stuff, I have always done it with Windows
> first installed. One thing you may want to do (if possible) is tell windows
> to only use part of the disk as that would save having to resize it. In the
> audio tutorial I do show you how to configure grub so that you can select
> which OS to boot when the computer starts, however I did make a mistake. The
> error is that I enabled the makeactive line in the windows section and
> installed grub to the linux partition, this simply means that when you boot
> windows you won't get the grub screen.
> To solve, either install grub to the MBR or do not include the makeactive
> line.
>
> Regarding the use of NTFS, do use it as that's best for windows XP. To
> access NTFS from linux you will probably want the ntfs-3g package.
>
> Michael Whapples
> On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, JP Jamous wrote:
>    
>> Michael,
>>
>> After listening to your MP3, I downloaded Archlinux from the Wikki
>> site. I have pulled down the latest version. It has IMG and ISO files.
>> Some install on CDs and others go on USB drives. Yet, I have a few
>> questions if you or any other member could answer.
>>
>> 1. I have an ISO of core files and another large one, in case there is
>> no internet access. My question is what is it going to pull down from
>> the internet upon installation? Is it Linux files, drivers, or other?
>>
>> 2. I found an Inspiron 1300 with a Celeron D and 256 MB on board. Will
>> ArchLinux find the audio drivers automatically or do I have to pull
>> them down and somehow link them to it? I am assuming the latter.
>>
>> I have a final question, which is broken down into 4 parts.
>>
>> 3. If I run both Linux and XP Pro on the machine.
>>
>> A. which one should I install first?
>>
>> B. Can I use NTFS or do I need FAT32?
>>
>> C. Is there a specific order to install both operating systems?
>>
>> D. Will there be a duel Operating system manager to choose, which
>> operating system I want to load?
>>
>> I would greatly appreciate any guidance to the above questions.
>>
>>
>>      
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>
>    

Re: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Michael Whapples]

I will be honest and say I don't tend to use swap partitions (I have 2GB 
of ram and the hard disk is a bit limited on space), so may be that's 
why I get this question.

I understand that one can use a swapfile for swap space instead of a 
swap partition. Now I can think of an advantage to a swapfile, its 
fairly easy to adjust your swap space, but is there advantages to having 
a swap partition?

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, trev.saunders@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> ok, drives can have up two 4 primary partitions, of which 1 can be an extended partition.  An extended partition can have some reasonably large (16 or 64) logical partitions, I don't really remember.  Any way, so you have primary partitons and logical, the primary partitions are numbered 1-4 and the logical ones start at 5.  How you partition a given disk comes down to preference and use.  Another thing worth pointing out here is that above the primary and logical partitions bios can support linux can have what is called logical volumes, this is a bit more complicated, so you might decide not to bother, but it gives you some really nice features like dynamically resizeable sections of disk.  You will certainly want 1 partition for   windows, and atleast 1 for linux I'd suggest  2 1 for the root file system with the system files, and second /home for your personal stuff.  You'll probably also want a partition for swap, since you only have 256Mb of ram, if this were a server yo
>   u might be able to get away without swap, but for a personal machine I would suggest having a fair bit of swap.  Since this gets you to 4 partitions, it would probably make ense to put some on a extended paritition.
>
> HTH
> Trev
>
>    

Re: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Kerry Hoath]

There are advantages to having a swap partition.
Firstly, accessing a partition directly for virtual memory bypasses file 
system overhead. You can just read/write pages to absolute sectors on the 
partition.

You also need a swap partition if you wish to use suspend to disk also known 
as hibernate.

There are also certain cases where Kernel can dump diagnostic stuff to the 
swap partition but these are special cases.

There is a school of thought that says it is safer to swap to a partition 
rather than a file, less chance of file system corruption if something goes 
bad in the vfs code.

I usually assign twice the amount of physical ram to swap,
however if using suspend to disk you need the size of ram in one swap chunk 
unless you are using the tuxonice kernel modifications and patches.
The s2disk code can compress the swap partition using lzo for the ram image, 
still working on getting that to go.

Swap is also useful as when processes are asleep they can be paged out. 
Without swap, this can not happen and if processes get too large you end up 
with the oom killer killing the largest processes.
I've seen cases for example when running an xfs_check on a large fs where 
Linux needs upwards of 6gb ram both virtual and physical mixed.

It also allows the shells on virtual consoles to be swapped to disk freeing 
up ram for the processes that need it.
Regards, Kerry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation


>I will be honest and say I don't tend to use swap partitions (I have 2GB of 
>ram and the hard disk is a bit limited on space), so may be that's why I 
>get this question.
>
> I understand that one can use a swapfile for swap space instead of a swap 
> partition. Now I can think of an advantage to a swapfile, its fairly easy 
> to adjust your swap space, but is there advantages to having a swap 
> partition?
>
> Michael Whapples
> On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, trev.saunders@gmail.com wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> ok, drives can have up two 4 primary partitions, of which 1 can be an 
>> extended partition.  An extended partition can have some reasonably large 
>> (16 or 64) logical partitions, I don't really remember.  Any way, so you 
>> have primary partitons and logical, the primary partitions are numbered 
>> 1-4 and the logical ones start at 5.  How you partition a given disk 
>> comes down to preference and use.  Another thing worth pointing out here 
>> is that above the primary and logical partitions bios can support linux 
>> can have what is called logical volumes, this is a bit more complicated, 
>> so you might decide not to bother, but it gives you some really nice 
>> features like dynamically resizeable sections of disk.  You will 
>> certainly want 1 partition for   windows, and atleast 1 for linux I'd 
>> suggest  2 1 for the root file system with the system files, and second 
>> /home for your personal stuff.  You'll probably also want a partition for 
>> swap, since you only have 256Mb of ram, if this were a server
> yo
>>   u might be able to get away without swap, but for a personal machine I 
>> would suggest having a fair bit of swap.  Since this gets you to 4 
>> partitions, it would probably make ense to put some on a extended 
>> paritition.
>>
>> HTH
>> Trev
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Jason White]

"Kerry Hoath" <kerry@gotss.net> writes:

> There are advantages to having a swap partition.
> Firstly, accessing a partition directly for virtual memory bypasses
> file system overhead. You can just read/write pages to absolute
> sectors on the partition.

True, although I have read claims that under modern Linux kernels, it is
no longer the case that swap partitions give higher performance than
swap files. Regrettably I can't remember the details, but I assume that
since space for the swap files is pre-allocated, the kernel now keeps
track of where the sectors are on the device so that it doesn't have to
invoke the file system when writing to the swap space.

The other advantages mentioned are uncontroversially correct, though, as
far as I know.

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Michael Whapples]

Thanks for the information. I did sort of know about the suspend to disk 
advantage.

I do have a question. As my reason for using swap files for swap space 
is to do with having 2GB of RAM and so using the RAM times two rule for 
swap means 4GB which is more than I think my laptop's HD wants to take 
permanently (I mean it would restrict the other partitions more than I 
would want to go). Now I have heard people mention about LVM allowing 
more dynamic allocation of disk space, how possible are the following 
and how safe are they:

* To expand and shrink volumes with data on (eg. an ext4 partition 
holding the main system)?
* Suspend to disk, does it work if swap is a volume in LVM?
* Is there any issues with using swap in a volume?
* What is the options for installing grub when using LVM? Remember my 
preference has been to install it to the partition boot sector.

Thanks for any answers.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Jason White wrote:
> "Kerry Hoath"<kerry@gotss.net>  writes:
>
>    
>> There are advantages to having a swap partition.
>> Firstly, accessing a partition directly for virtual memory bypasses
>> file system overhead. You can just read/write pages to absolute
>> sectors on the partition.
>>      
> True, although I have read claims that under modern Linux kernels, it is
> no longer the case that swap partitions give higher performance than
> swap files. Regrettably I can't remember the details, but I assume that
> since space for the swap files is pre-allocated, the kernel now keeps
> track of where the sectors are on the device so that it doesn't have to
> invoke the file system when writing to the swap space.
>
> The other advantages mentioned are uncontroversially correct, though, as
> far as I know.
>
>
>
>    

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[trev.saunders]

Hi,

> Thanks for the information. I did sort of know about the suspend to disk 
> advantage.

I'm not sure it might have been tuxonice, but I feel like I remember that s2disk could use a swap file.

> 
> I do have a question. As my reason for using swap files for swap space 
> is to do with having 2GB of RAM and so using the RAM times two rule for 
> swap means 4GB which is more than I think my laptop's HD wants to take 
> permanently (I mean it would restrict the other partitions more than I 
> would want to go).

I think this real is a bit outdated, fro m a point where paging out to disk was common.  I have a laptop with 2G of ram too, I've never had more than 1G of swap.  On that machine, with few acceptions, I see very little swapping to disk and usually large amounts of free ram, which meanbs swap is basically just for s2disk, and with compression, 1G seems to be enough.

> Now I have heard people mention about LVM allowing 
> more dynamic allocation of disk space, how possible are the following 
> and how safe are they:
> 
> * To expand and shrink volumes with data on (eg. an ext4 partition 
> holding the main system)?

this is certainly doable, in some cases you can do it on line (the filesystem is mounted while you expand it).  Personally I would do it off line with a livecd if neccessary.  Increasing or decreasing the size of a logical volume is very easy, you then have to grow the filesystem afterwards or shrink it first.

> * Suspend to disk, does it work if swap is a volume in LVM?

I'm going to try this soon, I don't see any reason why not but that doesn't mean it'll work.

> * Is there any issues with using swap in a volume?

Same, I don't see any, but I'l  try it in the next week or so and know better.

> * What is the options for installing grub when using LVM? Remember my 
> preference has been to install it to the partition boot sector.

 well, logical volumes (like partitions) live in a volume group, which is a set of physical volumes who's space has been put in 1 pooll.  You can certainly install grub on any of the partitions involved.  You need to have atleast 2 partiotions total, they could be different drives.  This is because /boot can't be on lvm, but root can be.  So assuming you want to put everything but /boot on lvm, you could certainly install grub on the partition that is /boot.  Note that if you put root on lvm, your initrd will need to setup lvm and mount root, personally I make my own initrd's for this, its not hard, but I think somedistros (debian and gentoo come to mind) have tools to do this.

HTH
Trev

Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Kerry Hoath]

Ok lvm does allow more flexibility however there are some limits.
You can use just ramsize for swap, so 2gb would be enough and this would let 
you suspend to disk.

You can resize partitions with lvm however you need to resize the underlying 
filesystem first. You can't resize a mounted filesystem so resizing the root 
file system won't happen unless you boot from a live cd.
Usually what happens is you have a /boot partition and then the rest of the 
system loads off logical volumes. To do this however you need an initial 
ramdisk and lvm built into that initial ramdisk image. This is something i'm 
sure arch linux has.

I often actually set up /boot with say 100 megabytes, then a small root fs 
then the rest of the stuff on logical volumes.
To change the size of partitions you need to reduce the size of the file 
system then reduce the number of logical extents in the file system. not 
sure if there are tools to do this easily.

I think you can grow reiserfs when it is mounted but shrinking it requires 
an unmount.
xfs can only grow.
ext4 I believe needs to be unnmounted for resizing.

If diskspace is tight then perhaps doing without lvm would save you 
complexity.
the smallest disk I have in a server is 60 gig so space is not an issue 
here.
I don't usually use lvm on the virtual machines which are 2 gig in size, 
they don't need the complexity.

As to the comment on swap, I don't see a lot of stuff swapped out but if 
there is no swap then swapping is not an option.
Yes the system can swap to lvm although note that you need support in the 
initrd for the s2disk technology either the kernel stuff or tuxonice.
Regards, Kerry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: Michael's ArchLinux Installation


> Thanks for the information. I did sort of know about the suspend to disk 
> advantage.
>
> I do have a question. As my reason for using swap files for swap space is 
> to do with having 2GB of RAM and so using the RAM times two rule for swap 
> means 4GB which is more than I think my laptop's HD wants to take 
> permanently (I mean it would restrict the other partitions more than I 
> would want to go). Now I have heard people mention about LVM allowing more 
> dynamic allocation of disk space, how possible are the following and how 
> safe are they:
>
> * To expand and shrink volumes with data on (eg. an ext4 partition holding 
> the main system)?
> * Suspend to disk, does it work if swap is a volume in LVM?
> * Is there any issues with using swap in a volume?
> * What is the options for installing grub when using LVM? Remember my 
> preference has been to install it to the partition boot sector.
>
> Thanks for any answers.
>
> Michael Whapples
> On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Jason White wrote:
>> "Kerry Hoath"<kerry@gotss.net>  writes:
>>
>>
>>> There are advantages to having a swap partition.
>>> Firstly, accessing a partition directly for virtual memory bypasses
>>> file system overhead. You can just read/write pages to absolute
>>> sectors on the partition.
>>>
>> True, although I have read claims that under modern Linux kernels, it is
>> no longer the case that swap partitions give higher performance than
>> swap files. Regrettably I can't remember the details, but I assume that
>> since space for the swap files is pre-allocated, the kernel now keeps
>> track of where the sectors are on the device so that it doesn't have to
>> invoke the file system when writing to the swap space.
>>
>> The other advantages mentioned are uncontroversially correct, though, as
>> far as I know.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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