Re: UEFI

[Thierry de Coulon <tcoulon@decoulon.ch>]

On Wednesday 09 July 2014 19.49:12 Bret Busby wrote:

> It is my understanding (and, once again, I am no expert), that two
> distinct advantages of a UEFI/GPT system ofer what it replaced, are
> that no differentiation exists, between primary and other partitions,
> and, a UEFI/GPT system, can have up to 128 partitions.

I don't know how many partitions I can create without UEFI/GPT, but the only 
limitation I ran into was that of *primary* partitions

> Now, (...) with MS Windows 7 etc, taking up at least 3 primary partitions, 
> on the systems before UEFI/GPT)(...) Then, if a person wanted to instal a  
> version of UNIX, such as a version of BSD, a primary partition was required  

Well, that's anything but a standard situation. I've only used GPT for 
Hackintoshes, I stopped using Windows in 1992 (yep, windows 3.0) and I can't 
figure out why I would install another *nix-like system (except for fun and 
discovery, but I have enough older computers around to dedicate one to this 
sort of trial. Any OS that *requires* a primary partition to install is badly 
coded, or old (or both...).

So this for me sums up the question: if your computer is to run linux only (as 
was the OP's), there is no reason to use UEFI/GPT but for the need for 
partitions over 2 TB.

For complex setups, it may be of interrest.

Thierry