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Hi,
I'm creating a new debian virtual machine. As virtual disks are free, I want to use tree for my new machine. The scheme will be like this:
sda -> /boot
sdb -> /root
sdc -> swap
Because I can have how many disks I want, partitions are not needed. More than that, partitions are not desired, because without partitions I can grow the disk size easily with only one xfs_growfs. If the disk is partitioned, growing is much more difficult.
The problem is that the debian wheeze installer don't let me select a disk without partitioning it. Why the installer has to be so disruptive?
If I recall correctly the only partitions necessary are /swap and / and I'm not sure /swap is needed. Don't get sidetracked into the section the sets up an array of partitions if you don't want them.
Even if you want to use whole disks you still have to partition them. In this case, each disk should have a single primary partition filling the entire disk.
Secondly, the scheme described above won't work, because there is no / partition. Presumably that's what sdb is meant to be, not /root which is root's home directory.
roseway wrote:Even if you want to use whole disks you still have to partition them. In this case, each disk should have a single primary partition filling the entire disk.
To be clear, under Linux it is permissible to create a filesystem directly on a block device (i.e., no partitions on the disk); however, such a filesystem is generally not bootable (e.g., don't put / on it).
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian Kernighan
roseway wrote:Even if you want to use whole disks you still have to partition them. In this case, each disk should have a single primary partition filling the entire disk.
Secondly, the scheme described above won't work, because there is no / partition. Presumably that's what sdb is meant to be, not /root which is root's home directory.
sdb is /, the "root" partition. That was a mistake.
roseway wrote:Even if you want to use whole disks you still have to partition them. In this case, each disk should have a single primary partition filling the entire disk.
To be clear, under Linux it is permissible to create a filesystem directly on a block device (i.e., no partitions on the disk); however, such a filesystem is generally not bootable (e.g., don't put / on it).
Because of that, the correct layout I was looking for was:
sda1 -> ext2 -> /boot
sdb -> xfs -> /
sdc -> swap
But I think it is not possible with the current debian installer. I will have to use xfs_copy to copy the file-system from a partitioned disk (sdx1) to a new non partitioned one (sdy).
tessio wrote:...But I think it is not possible with the current debian installer. I will have to use xfs_copy to copy the file-system from a partitioned disk (sdx1) to a new non partitioned one (sdy).
I guess I don't understand the advantage. You could partition the disk manually to use the entire disk if you wanted, create any size filesystem you wanted inside the partition and grow it any time you like.
You can't do it with Debian's installer, but there's nothing at all stopping someone from creating a 1GB filesystem inside a 1TB partition if they wanted to.
Because if a create a 1tb partition, some day may come that I will need 1.2tb. Without partitions I can grow the virtual disk and file-system without messing with fdisk stuff.
I too prefer the super-floppy format, but with real disks. The LMDE installer allows you to mount your drives under /target/ and proceeds to fill them, so what you want is out there, somewhere. If you don't mind a bit of manual configuration after the event, you can skip the installer completely and clone a Live-Session...
