Re: allocating disk space (was: Upgrade Problem)
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.
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