AntiX and GPT hard drive partioning.

Changeling · posted: 2013-10-03 22:20

Is AntiX ready for hard drive instalation in the GPT format? I am definitely a Newbie!

BitJam · posted: 2013-10-04 00:44

Partitioning for GPT is easy with gparted, once you know where
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. OTOH, the current antiX installer only works with MBR partitioned disks. If you want to install antiX on a GPT disk then you will have to do some of the install manually. You'd have to have the disk partitioned with GPT before you start the install process. You should then be able to install antiX on an existing partition.

The manual part comes in when installing the boot loader. Tell the installer to skip the boot loader part. If you already have a Linux bootloader installed then just add an entry for the antiX installation. If you don't have a Linux bootloader installed then you will have to install one manually. I give instructions for that
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, but I must warn you that I haven't tried this myself yet.

Marv · posted: 2014-11-17 19:38

BitJam wrote:... If you want to install antiX on a GPT disk then you will have to do some of the install manually. You'd have to have the disk partitioned with GPT before you start the install process. You should then be able to install antiX on an existing partition.

The manual part comes in when installing the boot loader. Tell the installer to skip the boot loader part. If you already have a Linux bootloader installed then just add an entry for the antiX installation. If you don't have a Linux bootloader installed then you will have to install one manually. I give instructions for that
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, but I must warn you that I haven't tried this myself yet.

Sorry to resurect an old'ish post but i thought it might be better to keep them together ...

Does this same problem apply to the MX-14 installation process?

The reason i ask is that i DID partition my drive before doing the install using GParted and set it to GPT in the process.
The install went fine, no problems at all. It even did a bootloader for me. And, initially, all went fine.

However, a week or so (maybe longer) later i got an error message when i start GParted:

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The backup GPT table is not at the end of the disk, as it should be.  This might mean that another operating system believes the disk is smaller.  Fix, by moving the backup to the end (and removing the old backup)

I clicked"Ignore" and i got:

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Not all of the space available to /dev/sda appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 44146353 blocks) or continue with the current setting?

Again i said"Ignore"
GParted then showed me that i have a little over 21gig showing"free" at the end of my drive - after my swap fs which i had specifically placed at the end of the drive.

First time i saw this"issue" i tried letting GParted fix it and it didn't workout to well __{{emoticon}}__
Now i just keep clicking"ignore" ... <censored> bites tongue to stop mysef saying something topical that might get me on some watch-list </censored>

Any suggestions please?

rokytnji · posted: 2014-11-17 21:01

parted is what I learned handled gpt on my apple ssd hard drive that is gpt partitioned.

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harry@biker1:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for harry: 

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
Disk /dev/sda: 121.3 GB, 121332826112 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14751 cylinders, total 236978176 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   236978175   118489087+  ee  GPT
harry@biker1:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA APPLE SSD SM128 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 121GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      1049kB  9438MB  9437MB  ext4
 2      9438MB  121GB   112GB   ext3

I used no swap on it. It was already a GPT drive I bought pulled out of a apple laptop.
All I did was make a / ext 4 partition and a large /home ext3 partition and told the installer
checkbox to save/preserve home so as not to format it during the install process.

Mine throws no errors in gparted. Mine was a bare empty NTFS drive when I started.

Alanarchy · posted: 2014-11-26 14:39

Removed.

In case you're curious, I broke, not one, but two computers. __{{emoticon}}__

My advice on GPT is worthless until I can get it right. __{{emoticon}}__

BitJam · posted: 2014-11-26 17:45

We dropped grub-legacy a year ago (maybe more). We use grub-2 and syslinux both of which work fine on gpt partitions. For UEFI booting, I've been using the signed shim and grub-2 from Ubuntu which allows me to boot in secure-boot mode.

If you are interested in instruction on how to do this PLMK. It hasn't worked with all kernels but it has worked with recent kernels both 32-bit and 64-bit.