On Fri 04 Jan 2019 at 19:36:42 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote: > David Wright composed on 2019-01-04 14:27 (UTC-0600): > > On Fri 04 Jan 2019 at 13:41:33 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote: > >> David Wright composed on 2019-01-04 10:19 (UTC-0600): > >> > On Fri 04 Jan 2019 at 04:30:00 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote: > > >> >>> This partitioning scheme seems really odd and unwieldy. > > >> >> Indeed. Considering the absence of a sysadmin, > > >> > What's so unusual about that? > > >> Standing alone, absolutely nothing, but it wasn't standing alone.... > > > (The OP is standing alone, leaving us aside.) > > > By snipping the rhetorical question that introduces my paragraph, it > > now appears that "unusual" refers to the partitioning scheme. It > > doesn't. > > It wasn't intended to. > > > It refers to the absence of a sysadmin. > > Intended. > > >> >> absence of 2 possible primary partitions on sda, > >> > >> > If the OP partitioned an MBR disk intending to subdivide the > >> > filesystem, then it might be expected that they create an extended > >> > partition. Why bother with holding off until you've got two > >> > primary partitions set up first? > > >> Off the top of my head: > > >> 1-trivial I know, but avoiding seeing fdisk report "Partition table > >> entries are not in disk order" > > >> 2-less trivial: partitions not being in disk order > > > I don't understand. The time sequence would be > > > sda1=primary [ free > > ] > > > sda1=primary [ "sda2"=extended > > ] > > > sda1=primary [ sda5=logical free > > ] > > > sda1=primary [ sda5=logical sda6=logical free > > ] > > > sda1=primary [ sda5=logical sda6=logical sda7=logical free > > ] > > > sda1=primary [ sda5=logical sda6=logical sda7=logical sda8=logical > > possibly-free ] > > > What's out of order? > > This looks like it's assuming reference to the OP's disk state, which is not > what I was writing > about. AFAIK, when entries /are/ out of order, far more steps had to have > been involved than those > you listed. > > >> 3-potential to have a primary partition added following a logical, thereby > >> making following > >> freespace unavailable for one or more added logicals (disappearing > >> freespace). > > > With the scenario above, it would be usual to fill the disk with the > > extended partition, so there's no possibility of adding another primary. > > Yes, when filling the disk at the outset. With the escalation of disk sizes > over the years, it's > become more common not to allocate 100% at the outset. In non-ancient memory > I only ever fully > allocated with my own disks at the outset with data disks, until small SDDs > became cheap.
I don't understand the reasoning. > Some partitioning tools are better than others at allowing oneself to shoot > oneself in the foot. > > > Here's the partition table of this laptop. Care to guess it's > > evolution? > > > Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size > > 1 2048 2050047 1000.0 MiB > > 2 2050048 2582527 260.0 MiB > > 3 2582528 4630527 1000.0 MiB > > 4 4630528 4892671 128.0 MiB > > 5 4892672 347348991 163.3 GiB > > 6 347348992 429268991 39.1 GiB / > > 7 429268992 511188991 39.1 GiB > > 8 511188992 883275775 177.4 GiB /home > > 9 883275776 883292159 8.0 MiB > > 10 883292160 892084223 4.2 GiB swap > > 11 892086272 892803071 350.0 MiB > > 12 892803072 894900223 1024.0 MiB > > 13 894900224 947329023 25.0 GiB > > 14 947329024 976773119 14.0 GiB > > > Constrained by an inability to repartition the disk, how would > > you distribute a Debian system across it while wasting the > > least space? > > That's a bit sketchy. Worse then that: I don't have a clue what most of the original partitions were for, and still don't. I just don't touch them. Here's what I inherited: /dev/sda1 2048 2050047 2048000 1000M Windows recovery environment /dev/sda2 2050048 2582527 532480 260M EFI System /dev/sda3 2582528 4630527 2048000 1000M Lenovo boot partition /dev/sda4 4630528 4892671 262144 128M Microsoft reserved /dev/sda5 4892672 892086271 887193600 423G Microsoft basic data /dev/sda6 892086272 892803071 716800 350M Windows recovery environment /dev/sda7 892803072 894900223 2097152 1G Microsoft basic data /dev/sda8 894900224 947329023 52428800 25G Microsoft basic data /dev/sda9 947329024 976773119 29444096 14G Windows recovery environment I have no idea why there are three recovery partitions of vastly differing sizes, a manufacturer's boot partition, a reserved partition and two extra basic data partitions. Anyway, by shrinking the windows partition sda5, I was able to carve out five linux partitions for me: 6 347348992 429268991 39.1 GiB 8300 Linux-A 7 429268992 511188991 39.1 GiB 8300 Linux-B 8 511188992 883275775 177.4 GiB 8300 Linux-Home 9 883275776 883292159 8.0 MiB EF02 Linux-BIOS-Boot 10 883292160 892084223 4.2 GiB 8200 Linux-Swap Given all 14 partitions to play with, it would be difficult to install a system that didn't look unusual in its layout. > How about you do one of mine? > Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size > 1 63 80324 39.2 MiB > 2 80325 578339 243.2 MiB > 3 578340 1397654 400.1 MiB > 5 1397718 3502169 1.0 GiB swap > 6 3502233 17848214 6.8 GiB WinSYS > 7 17848278 30137939 5.9 GiB / > 8 30138003 35053829 2.3 GiB /home > 9 35053893 44451854 4.5 GiB > 10 44451918 46540304 1019.7 MiB /usr/local > 11 46540368 58010714 5.5 GiB / > 12 58010778 69481124 5.5 GiB / > 13 69481188 80951534 5.5 GiB / > 14 80951598 92421944 5.5 GiB / > 15 92422008 103892354 5.5 GiB / > 16 103892418 115362764 5.5 GiB / > 17 115362828 126833174 5.5 GiB / > 18 126833238 138303584 5.5 GiB / > 19 138303648 149773994 5.5 GiB / > 20 149774058 161244404 5.5 GiB / > 21 161244468 172714814 5.5 GiB / > 22 172714878 184185224 5.5 GiB / > 23 184185288 195655634 5.5 GiB / > 24 195655698 207126044 5.5 GiB / > 25 207126108 218596454 5.5 GiB / > 26 218596518 230066864 5.5 GiB / > 27 230066928 241537274 5.5 GiB / > 28 241537338 253007684 5.5 GiB > 29 253007748 264478094 5.5 GiB / > 30 264478158 275948504 5.5 GiB / > 31 275948568 287418914 5.5 GiB / > 32 287418978 298889324 5.5 GiB / > > 33 937312488 961361729 11.5 GiB Win data > 34 961361793 975707774 6.8 GiB > 35 975707838 976751999 509.8 MiB > 36 976752063 976768064 7.8 MiB > > Note the relative vastness of unused space. You're not the guy who boots >>100 systems off one disk, are you? > Can't tell the players without a program: > http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/gx62b.txt > > BTW, 36 is near an average count here. I have one with 57, more than one with > >40, and probably >8 > with >30. My newest PC has 50, though spread across 3 disks, with 20 > comprising 10 RAID1 devices, > and zero freespace remaining for partition creation. Oh, perhaps you're a rival. :) I assume you foresee adding a lot more versions of linux; only three Debian so far? And I would miss a real DOS like the old favourite 6.22. But seriously, take a drive, stick on (or inherit) a root partition (1), decide you're going to divide up the (MBR-based) system, hence create (or inherit) an extended partition. Hive off /var (5), remember your swap (6), /tmp (7) might be a good idea, the rest for /home (8). Nothing unusual there, and that's what the OP showed. In fact, that's similar to what I was doing in 1997, except that sda1 was MSDOS and / was in the extended partition with all the rest. OTOH your disk, and mine listed above, are the atypical ones. On a typical disk in a PC I consider my own, the layout is much simpler: Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 2048 8191 3.0 MiB EF02 BIOS boot partition 2 8192 1023999 496.0 MiB EF00 EFI System 3 1024000 2047999 500.0 MiB 8200 Linux swap 4 2048000 63487999 29.3 GiB 8300 Ezra-A 5 63488000 124927999 29.3 GiB 8300 Ezra-B 6 124928000 976773119 406.2 GiB 8300 Ezra-Home Odd to have 1 and 2: currently BIOS boots it on a GPT disk, but it's prepared for use if I get my hands on an old newer machine (or is that new older?). Cheers, David.
