[gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte ones. 
  I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various tools 
will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?

Re: [gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte ones.  I
> suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various tools will now by
> default create correctly aligned partitions?

Most of them should. Latest fdisk and gdisk should align to 1MB and
latest parted etc. should as well.

Re: [gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:23:49 -0500, Paul Hartman wrote:

> > I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
> > ones.  I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
> > tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?  
> 
> Most of them should. Latest fdisk and gdisk should align to 1MB and
> latest parted etc. should as well.

I researched this for the latest issue of LXF and the only one that still
uses 512K blocks is cfdisk (cgdisk is fine).


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 48: freewill offering

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Re: [gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Michael Mol]

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LXF?
On Jun 26, 2012 5:53 PM, "Neil Bothwick" <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:23:49 -0500, Paul Hartman wrote:
>
> > > I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
> > > ones.  I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
> > > tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?
> >
> > Most of them should. Latest fdisk and gdisk should align to 1MB and
> > latest parted etc. should as well.
>
> I researched this for the latest issue of LXF and the only one that still
> uses 512K blocks is cfdisk (cgdisk is fine).
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> Top Oxymorons Number 48: freewill offering
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 26 June 2012 22:54:32 Michael Mol wrote:
> LXF?

"Linux Format", the best monthly journal for all things Linux in the 
world. Bar none.

(For some reason they've unsubscribed me and ignored my e-mail saying 
I'd not unsubscribed. I must get round to starting a new subscription.)

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte ones.  I
> suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various tools will now by
> default create correctly aligned partitions?
>
>

I guess it depends on what tools you use to create partitions but I
believe the stable version of fdisk does now align to 4k by default.
Just make sure the starting address is divisible by 8 and you should
be good to go no matter what tools you use.

HTH,
Mark

[gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 27/06/12 00:13, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte ones.
>   I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various tools
> will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?

Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's 
the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you 
need to type commands; I hate that).

I guess I should now switch to something else.  I guess it's time for 
GParted (I'd prefer something for KDE, but it looks like there's nothing 
offered.)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

> > I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
> > ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
> > tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?  
> 
> Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's 
> the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you 
> need to type commands; I hate that).

If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Evolution stops when stupidity is no longer fatal!

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[gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 27/06/12 01:22, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>
>>> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
>>> ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
>>> tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?
>>
>> Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's
>> the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you
>> need to type commands; I hate that).
>
> If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
> abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.

I've no idea whether my mainboard can boot from it.  It *seems* it has 
UEFI, but I'm not really sure.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/06/12 01:22, Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>
>>>> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
>>>> ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
>>>> tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's
>>> the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you
>>> need to type commands; I hate that).
>>
>>
>> If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
>> abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.
>
>
> I've no idea whether my mainboard can boot from it.  It *seems* it has UEFI,
> but I'm not really sure.

I think it just depends on your bootloader. Gentoo's grub legacy can
boot from GPT and of course grub2 can too.

[gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 27/06/12 02:06, Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 27/06/12 01:22, Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
>>>>> ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
>>>>> tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's
>>>> the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you
>>>> need to type commands; I hate that).
>>>
>>>
>>> If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
>>> abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.
>>
>>
>> I've no idea whether my mainboard can boot from it.  It *seems* it has UEFI,
>> but I'm not really sure.
>
> I think it just depends on your bootloader. Gentoo's grub legacy can
> boot from GPT and of course grub2 can too.

I guess I'll just try with a quick Ubuntu install.  I suspect though 
that the BIOS must be able to actually find Grub in order to boot it, 
and it might not be able to.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 6:18 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/06/12 02:06, Paul Hartman wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 27/06/12 01:22, Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
>>>>>> ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
>>>>>> tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's
>>>>> the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you
>>>>> need to type commands; I hate that).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
>>>> abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I've no idea whether my mainboard can boot from it.  It *seems* it has
>>> UEFI,
>>> but I'm not really sure.
>>
>>
>> I think it just depends on your bootloader. Gentoo's grub legacy can
>> boot from GPT and of course grub2 can too.
>
>
> I guess I'll just try with a quick Ubuntu install.  I suspect though that
> the BIOS must be able to actually find Grub in order to boot it, and it
> might not be able to.

I seem to recall GPT coexisting with some kind of MBR as well, or at
least enough of an MBR to get it to boot. But partitioning and
installing is not something I do very often. :)

I'm using GPT (created with gdisk) on my laptop which is from 2003 and
it works fine, so I imagine you'll be fine with anything newer as
well.

[gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 27/06/12 01:22, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>
>>> I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
>>> ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
>>> tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?
>>
>> Thanks everyone for the comments.  I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's
>> the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you
>> need to type commands; I hate that).
>
> If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
> abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.

OK, I now have the new disk.  Unfortunately, it turns out that GPT is 
not an option, since Grub can't dual boot an UEFI/GPT installed Windows 
7 (you can't install Windows on a GPT disk if you don't perform a UEFI 
install of Windows.)  And if Grub can do it, then it's much more 
difficult to set up compared to a BIOS boot.  I surely don't have a clue 
as to how to do that.

So using MS-DOS partition tables in 2012 is still needed.  Hooray!

PS:
And don't get me started on the fact that moving my Gentoo install to 
the new disk is as simple as "rsync -a -x / /mnt/targetpartition" and 
only takes 10 minutes, while Windows has to be cloned using partition 
imaging and modifying partition position offsets so installing it from 
scratch is actually easier.  Sigh...

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>OK, I now have the new disk.  Unfortunately, it turns out that GPT is
>not an option, since Grub can't dual boot an UEFI/GPT installed
>Windows 7 (you can't install Windows on a GPT disk if you don't
>perform a UEFI install of Windows.)

You need to boot Windows directly via EFI, and linux via an EFI
elilo or grub-efi or grub2 loader (elilo.efi/grub.efi/grubx64.efi in
the EFI-boot-partition).

See: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/index.html

>And if Grub can do it, then it's much more difficult to set up
>compared to a BIOS boot.  I surely don't have a clue as to how to do
>that.

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/booting.html (Section 
"Booting from GPT on BIOS-Based Computers", esp. subsection "Windows"
and "Hybrid MBR Issues").

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
(titled: "Hybrid MBRs: The Good, the Bad, and the So Ugly You'll Tear
Your Eyes Out" ;)

HTH,
-dnh

-- 
Okay, I hate my brain now.  I'm going to take it out back and
pummel some sense into it.                -- Mark C. Langston

[gentoo-user] Re: Is wrong 4k sector alignment still an issue?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 29/06/12 07:22, David Haller wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> OK, I now have the new disk.  Unfortunately, it turns out that GPT is
>> not an option, since Grub can't dual boot an UEFI/GPT installed
>> Windows 7 (you can't install Windows on a GPT disk if you don't
>> perform a UEFI install of Windows.)
>
> You need to boot Windows directly via EFI, and linux via an EFI
> elilo or grub-efi or grub2 loader (elilo.efi/grub.efi/grubx64.efi in
> the EFI-boot-partition).
>
> See: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/index.html
>
>> And if Grub can do it, then it's much more difficult to set up
>> compared to a BIOS boot.  I surely don't have a clue as to how to do
>> that.
>
> http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/
>
> http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/booting.html (Section
> "Booting from GPT on BIOS-Based Computers", esp. subsection "Windows"
> and "Hybrid MBR Issues").
>
> http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
> (titled: "Hybrid MBRs: The Good, the Bad, and the So Ugly You'll Tear
> Your Eyes Out" ;)

I settled with an MBR-based boot solution and MSDOS partitioning, like 
before.  It's easy to setup.  The whole EFI multiboot setup does not 
seem worth the effort to me.  If it was easier to setup, I'd go for it, 
but as it stands, it's a nightmare to work with.