en/handbook/hb-install-ppc-disk.xml

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<!DOCTYPE sections SYSTEM "/dtd/book.dtd">

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<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/handbook/hb-install-ppc-disk.xml,v 1.17 2004/10/02 16:35:23 sejo Exp $ -->

<sections>
<section>
<title>Introduction to Block Devices</title>
<subsection>
<title>Block Devices</title>
<body>

<p>
We'll take a good look at disk-oriented aspects of Gentoo Linux
and Linux in general, including Linux filesystems, partitions and block devices.
Then, once you're familiar with the ins and outs of disks and filesystems,
you'll be guided through the process of setting up partitions and filesystems
for your Gentoo Linux installation.
</p>

<p>
To begin, we'll introduce <e>block devices</e>. The most famous block device is
probably the one that represents the first IDE drive in a Linux system, namely
<path>/dev/hda</path>. If your system uses SCSI drives, then your first hard
drive would be <path>/dev/sda</path>.
</p>

<p>
The block devices above represent an abstract interface to the disk. User
programs can use these block devices to interact with your disk without worrying
about whether your drives are IDE, SCSI or something else. The program can
simply address the storage on the disk as a bunch of contiguous,
randomly-accessible 512-byte blocks.
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
<subsection>
<title>Partitions and Slices</title>
<body>

<p>
Although it is theoretically possible to use a full disk to house your Linux
system, this is almost never done in practice. Instead, full disk block devices
are split up in smaller, more manageable block devices. On most systems,
these are called <e>partitions</e>. Other architectures use a similar technique,
called <e>slices</e>.
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
</section>
<section>
<title>Designing a Partitioning Scheme</title>
<subsection>
<title>Default Partitioning Scheme</title>
<body>

<p>
If you are not interested in drawing up a partitioning scheme for your system,
you can use the partitioning scheme we use throughout this book:
</p>

<table>
<tr>
  <th>Partition NewWorld</th>
  <th>Partition OldWorld</th>
  <th>Partition Pegasos</th>
  <th>Filesystem</th>
  <th>Size</th>
  <th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda1</path></ti>
  <ti>/dev/hda1</ti>
  <ti>(Not applicable)</ti>
  <ti>(Partition Map)</ti>
  <ti>32k</ti>
  <ti>Apple_partition_map</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda2</path></ti>
  <ti>(Not needed)</ti>
  <ti>(Not applicable)</ti>
  <ti>(bootstrap)</ti>
  <ti>800k</ti>
  <ti>Apple_Bootstrap</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda3</path></ti>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda2</path></ti>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda1</path></ti>
  <ti>(swap)</ti>
  <ti>512M</ti>
  <ti>Swap partition</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda4</path></ti>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda3</path></ti>
  <ti><path>/dev/hda2</path></ti>
  <ti>ext3</ti>
  <ti>Rest of the disk</ti>
  <ti>Root partition</ti>
</tr>
</table>

<p>
If you are interested in knowing how big a partition should be, or even how 
many partitions you need, read on. Otherwise continue now with
<uri link="#fdisk">Default: Using mac-fdisk (Apple/IBM) to Partition your 
Disk</uri> or <uri link="#parted">Alternative: Using parted (especially Pegasos) to 
Partition your Disk</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
<subsection>
<title>How Many and How Big?</title>
<body>

<p>
The number of partitions is highly dependent on your environment. For instance,
if you have lots of users, you will most likely want to have your
<path>/home</path> separate as it increases security and makes backups easier.
If you are installing Gentoo to perform as a mailserver, your 
<path>/var</path> should be separate as all mails are stored inside 
<path>/var</path>. A good choice of filesystem will then maximise your 
performance. Gameservers will have a separate <path>/opt</path> as most gaming 
servers are installed there. The reason is similar for <path>/home</path>: 
security and backups.
</p>

<p>
As you can see, it very much depends on what you want to achieve. Separate
partitions or volumes have the following advantages:
</p>

<ul>
<li>
  You can choose the best performing filesystem for each partition or volume
</li>
<li>
  Your entire system cannot run out of free space if one defunct tool is
  continuously writing files to a partition or volume
</li>
<li>
  If necessary, file system checks are reduced in time, as multiple checks can
  be done in parallel (although this advantage is more with multiple disks than
  it is with multiple partitions)
</li>
<li>
  Security can be enhanced by mounting some partitions or volumes read-only, 
  nosuid (setuid bits are ignored), noexec (executable bits are ignored) etc.
</li>
</ul>

<p>
However, multiple partitions have one big disadvantage: if not configured 
properly, you might result in having a system with lots
of free space on one partition and none on another. There is also a 15-partition
limit for SCSI and SATA.
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
</section>
<section id="fdisk">
<title>Default: Using mac-fdisk (Apple/IBM) Partition your Disk</title>
<body>

<p>
At this point, create your partitions using <c>mac-fdisk</c>:
</p>

<pre caption="Starting mac-fdisk">
# <i>mac-fdisk /dev/hda</i>
</pre>

<p>
First delete the partitions you have cleared previously to make room for your
Linux partitions. Use <c>d</c> in <c>mac-fdisk</c> to delete those partition(s).
It will ask for the partition number to delete.
</p>

<p>
Second, create an <e>Apple_Bootstrap</e> partition by using <c>b</c>. It will
ask for what block you want to start. Enter the number of your first free
partition, followed by a <c>p</c>. For instance this is <c>1p</c>.
</p>

<note>
This partition is <e>not</e> a "boot" partition. It is not used by Linux at all;
you don't have to place any filesystem on it and you should never mount it. PPC
users don't need a an extra partition for <path>/boot</path>.
</note>

<p>
Now create a swap partition by pressing <c>c</c>. Again <c>mac-fdisk</c> will
ask for what block you want to start this partition from. As we used <c>1</c>
before to create the Apple_Bootstrap partition, you now have to enter
<c>2p</c>. When you're asked for the size, enter <c>512M</c> (or whatever size
you want -- 512MB is recommended though). When asked for a name, enter <c>swap</c>
(mandatory).
</p>

<p>
To create the root partition, enter <c>c</c>, followed by <c>3p</c> to select
from what block the root partition should start. When asked for the size, enter
<c>3p</c> again. <c>mac-fdisk</c> will interpret this as "Use all available
space". When asked for the name, enter <c>root</c> (mandatory).
</p>

<p>
To finish up, write the partition to the disk using <c>w</c> and <c>q</c> to
quit <c>mac-fdisk</c>.
</p>

<p>
Now that your partitions are created, you can now continue with <uri
link="#filesystems">Creating Filesystems</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section id="parted">
<title>Using parted (especially Pegasos) to Partition your Disk</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>parted</c>, the Partition Editor, can now handle HFS+ partitions used by
Mac OS and Mac OS X.  With this tool you can shrink your Mac-partitions and
create space for your Linux partitions.  Nevertheless, the example below
describes partitioning for Pegasos machines only.
</p>

<p>
To begin let's fire up <c>parted</c>:
</p>

<pre caption="Starting parted">
# <i>parted /dev/hda</i>
</pre>

<p>
If the drive is unpartitioned, run <c>mklabel amiga</c> to create a new
disklabel for the drive.
</p>

<p>
You can type <c>print</c> at any time in parted to display the current partition
table. Your changes aren't saved until you quit the application; if at any time
you change your mind or made a mistake you can press <c>Ctrl-c</c> to abort
parted.
</p>

<p>
If you intend to also install MorphOS on your Pegasos create an affs1 filesystem
named "BI0" (BI zero) at the start of the drive. 50MB should be more than enough
to store the MorphOS kernel. If you have a Pegasos I or intend to use reiserfs or
xfs, you will also have to store your Linux kernel on this partition (the
Pegasos II can boot from ext2/ext3 drives). To create the partition run
<c>mkpart primary affs1 START END</c> where <c>START</c> and <c>END</c> should
be replaced with the megabyte range (f.i. <c>5 55</c> creates a 50 MB partition
starting at 5MB and ending at 55MB.
</p>

<p>
You need to create two partitions for Linux, one root filesystem for all your
program files etc, and one swap partition. To create the root filesystem you
must first decide which filesystem to use. Possible options are ext2, ext3,
reiserfs and xfs. Unless you know what you are doing, use ext3. Run
<c>mkpart primary ext3 START END</c> to create an ext3 partition. Again, replace
<c>START</c> and <c>END</c> with the megabyte start and stop marks for the
partition.
</p>

<p>
It is generally recommended that you create a swap partition the same size as
the amount of RAM in your computer times two. You will probably get away with a
smaller swap partition unless you intend to run a lot of applications at the
same time (although at least 512MB is recommended). To create the swap
partition, run <c>mkpart primary linux-swap START END</c>.
</p>

<p>
Write down the partition minor numbers as they are required during the
installation process. To dislay the minor numbers run <c>print</c>. Your drives
are accessed as <path>/dev/hdaX</path> where X is replaced with the minor number
of the partition.
</p>

<p>
When you are done in parted simply run <c>quit</c>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section id="filesystems">
<title>Creating Filesystems</title>
<subsection>
<title>Introduction</title>
<body>

<p>
Now that your partitions are created, it is time to place a filesystem on them. 
If you don't care about what filesystem to choose and are happy with what we use
as default in this handbook, continue with <uri 
link="#filesystems-apply">Applying a Filesystem to a Partition</uri>.
Otherwise read on to learn about the available filesystems...
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
<subsection>
<title>Filesystems?</title>
<body>

<p>
Several filesystems are available. ext2, ext3, reiserfs and xfs are found stable
on the PPC architecture. jfs is unsupported.
</p>

<p>
<b>ext2</b> is the tried and true Linux filesystem but doesn't have metadata
journaling, which means that routine ext2 filesystem checks at startup time can
be quite time-consuming. There is now quite a selection of newer-generation
journaled filesystems that can be checked for consistency very quickly and are
thus generally preferred over their non-journaled counterparts. Journaled
filesystems prevent long delays when you boot your system and your filesystem
happens to be in an inconsistent state.
</p>

<p>
<b>ext3</b> is the journaled version of the ext2 filesystem, providing metadata
journaling for fast recovery in addition to other enhanced journaling modes like
full data and ordered data journaling. ext3 is a very good and reliable
filesystem. It has an additional hashed b-tree indexing option that enables 
high performance in almost all situations. In short, ext3 is an excellent 
filesystem.
</p>

<p>
<b>ReiserFS</b> is a B*-tree based filesystem that has very good overall 
performance and greatly outperforms both ext2 and ext3 when dealing with small 
files (files less than 4k), often by a factor of 10x-15x. ReiserFS also scales 
extremely well and has metadata journaling. As of kernel 2.4.18+, ReiserFS is 
solid and usable as both general-purpose filesystem and for extreme cases such 
as the creation of large filesystems, the use of many small files, very large 
files and directories containing tens of thousands of files. 
</p>

<p>
<b>XFS</b> is a filesystem with metadata journaling which comes with a robust
feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this
filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and
an uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data
in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions
when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good
deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly.
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
<subsection id="filesystems-apply">
<title>Applying a Filesystem to a Partition</title>
<body>

<p>
To create a filesystem on a partition or volume, there are tools available for 
each possible filesystem:
</p>

<table>
<tr>
  <th>Filesystem</th>
  <th>Creation Command</th>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>ext2</ti>
  <ti><c>mke2fs</c></ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>ext3</ti>
  <ti><c>mke2fs -j</c></ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>reiserfs</ti>
  <ti><c>mkreiserfs</c></ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>xfs</ti>
  <ti><c>mkfs.xfs</c></ti>
</tr>
</table>

<p>
For instance, to have the root partition (<path>/dev/hda3</path> in our example)
in ext3 (as in our example), you would use:
</p>

<pre caption="Applying a filesystem on a partition">
# <i>mke2fs -j /dev/hda3</i>
</pre>

<p>
Now create the filesystems on your newly created partitions (or logical
volumes).
</p>

<note>
Be sure that the partition which will host your kernel (the
<path>/boot</path>-path) must be ext2 or ext3.  The bootloader can only handle
this filesystem.
</note>

</body>
</subsection>
<subsection>
<title>Activating the Swap Partition</title>
<body>

<p>
<c>mkswap</c> is the command that is used to initialize swap partitions:
</p>

<pre caption="Creating a Swap signature">
# <i>mkswap /dev/hda2</i>
</pre>

<p>
To activate the swap partition, use <c>swapon</c>:
</p>

<pre caption="Activating the swap partition">
# <i>swapon /dev/hda2</i>
</pre>

<p>
Create and activate the swap now.
</p>

</body>
</subsection>
</section>
<section>
<title>Mounting</title>
<body>

<p>
Now that your partitions are initialized and are housing a filesystem, it is
time to mount those partitions. Use the <c>mount</c> command. Don't forget to
create the necessary mount directories for every partition you created. As an
example we create a mount-point and mount the root and boot partition:
</p>

<pre caption="Mounting partitions">
# <i>mkdir /mnt/gentoo</i>
# <i>mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo</i>
</pre>

<note>
If you want your <path>/tmp</path> to reside on a separate partition, be sure to
change its permissions after mounting: <c>chmod 1777 /mnt/gentoo/tmp</c>. This
also holds for <path>/var/tmp</path>.
</note>

<p>
Finally we have to create the <path>/dev</path> files in our new home, which is
needed during the bootloader installation.  This could be done by "bind"-mapping
the <path>/dev</path>-filesystem from the LiveCD:
</p>

<pre caption="Bind-mounting the /dev-filesystem">
# <i>mkdir /mnt/gentoo/dev</i>
# <i>mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev</i>
</pre>

<p>
We will also have to mount the proc filesystem (a virtual interface with the 
kernel) on <path>/proc</path>. But first we will need to place our files on the partitions.
</p>

<p>
Continue with <uri link="?part=1&amp;chap=5">Installing the Gentoo
Installation Files</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</sections>
1	<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
2	<!DOCTYPE sections SYSTEM "/dtd/book.dtd">
3
4	<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
5	<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 -->
6
7	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/handbook/hb-install-ppc-disk.xml,v 1.17 2004/10/02 16:35:23 sejo Exp $ -->
8
9	<sections>
10	<section>
11	<title>Introduction to Block Devices</title>
12	<subsection>
13	<title>Block Devices</title>
14	<body>
15
16	<p>
17	We'll take a good look at disk-oriented aspects of Gentoo Linux
18	and Linux in general, including Linux filesystems, partitions and block devices.
19	Then, once you're familiar with the ins and outs of disks and filesystems,
20	you'll be guided through the process of setting up partitions and filesystems
21	for your Gentoo Linux installation.
22	</p>
23
24	<p>
25	To begin, we'll introduce <e>block devices</e>. The most famous block device is
26	probably the one that represents the first IDE drive in a Linux system, namely
27	<path>/dev/hda</path>. If your system uses SCSI drives, then your first hard
28	drive would be <path>/dev/sda</path>.
29	</p>
30
31	<p>
32	The block devices above represent an abstract interface to the disk. User
33	programs can use these block devices to interact with your disk without worrying
34	about whether your drives are IDE, SCSI or something else. The program can
35	simply address the storage on the disk as a bunch of contiguous,
36	randomly-accessible 512-byte blocks.
37	</p>
38
39	</body>
40	</subsection>
41	<subsection>
42	<title>Partitions and Slices</title>
43	<body>
44
45	<p>
46	Although it is theoretically possible to use a full disk to house your Linux
47	system, this is almost never done in practice. Instead, full disk block devices
48	are split up in smaller, more manageable block devices. On most systems,
49	these are called <e>partitions</e>. Other architectures use a similar technique,
50	called <e>slices</e>.
51	</p>
52
53	</body>
54	</subsection>
55	</section>
56	<section>
57	<title>Designing a Partitioning Scheme</title>
58	<subsection>
59	<title>Default Partitioning Scheme</title>
60	<body>
61
62	<p>
63	If you are not interested in drawing up a partitioning scheme for your system,
64	you can use the partitioning scheme we use throughout this book:
65	</p>
66
67	<table>
68	<tr>
69	<th>Partition NewWorld</th>
70	<th>Partition OldWorld</th>
71	<th>Partition Pegasos</th>
72	<th>Filesystem</th>
73	<th>Size</th>
74	<th>Description</th>
75	</tr>
76	<tr>
77	<ti><path>/dev/hda1</path></ti>
78	<ti>/dev/hda1</ti>
79	<ti>(Not applicable)</ti>
80	<ti>(Partition Map)</ti>
81	<ti>32k</ti>
82	<ti>Apple_partition_map</ti>
83	</tr>
84	<tr>
85	<ti><path>/dev/hda2</path></ti>
86	<ti>(Not needed)</ti>
87	<ti>(Not applicable)</ti>
88	<ti>(bootstrap)</ti>
89	<ti>800k</ti>
90	<ti>Apple_Bootstrap</ti>
91	</tr>
92	<tr>
93	<ti><path>/dev/hda3</path></ti>
94	<ti><path>/dev/hda2</path></ti>
95	<ti><path>/dev/hda1</path></ti>
96	<ti>(swap)</ti>
97	<ti>512M</ti>
98	<ti>Swap partition</ti>
99	</tr>
100	<tr>
101	<ti><path>/dev/hda4</path></ti>
102	<ti><path>/dev/hda3</path></ti>
103	<ti><path>/dev/hda2</path></ti>
104	<ti>ext3</ti>
105	<ti>Rest of the disk</ti>
106	<ti>Root partition</ti>
107	</tr>
108	</table>
109
110	<p>
111	If you are interested in knowing how big a partition should be, or even how
112	many partitions you need, read on. Otherwise continue now with
113	<uri link="#fdisk">Default: Using mac-fdisk (Apple/IBM) to Partition your
114	Disk</uri> or <uri link="#parted">Alternative: Using parted (especially Pegasos) to
115	Partition your Disk</uri>.
116	</p>
117
118	</body>
119	</subsection>
120	<subsection>
121	<title>How Many and How Big?</title>
122	<body>
123
124	<p>
125	The number of partitions is highly dependent on your environment. For instance,
126	if you have lots of users, you will most likely want to have your
127	<path>/home</path> separate as it increases security and makes backups easier.
128	If you are installing Gentoo to perform as a mailserver, your
129	<path>/var</path> should be separate as all mails are stored inside
130	<path>/var</path>. A good choice of filesystem will then maximise your
131	performance. Gameservers will have a separate <path>/opt</path> as most gaming
132	servers are installed there. The reason is similar for <path>/home</path>:
133	security and backups.
134	</p>
135
136	<p>
137	As you can see, it very much depends on what you want to achieve. Separate
138	partitions or volumes have the following advantages:
139	</p>
140
141	<ul>
142	<li>
143	You can choose the best performing filesystem for each partition or volume
144	</li>
145	<li>
146	Your entire system cannot run out of free space if one defunct tool is
147	continuously writing files to a partition or volume
148	</li>
149	<li>
150	If necessary, file system checks are reduced in time, as multiple checks can
151	be done in parallel (although this advantage is more with multiple disks than
152	it is with multiple partitions)
153	</li>
154	<li>
155	Security can be enhanced by mounting some partitions or volumes read-only,
156	nosuid (setuid bits are ignored), noexec (executable bits are ignored) etc.
157	</li>
158	</ul>
159
160	<p>
161	However, multiple partitions have one big disadvantage: if not configured
162	properly, you might result in having a system with lots
163	of free space on one partition and none on another. There is also a 15-partition
164	limit for SCSI and SATA.
165	</p>
166
167	</body>
168	</subsection>
169	</section>
170	<section id="fdisk">
171	<title>Default: Using mac-fdisk (Apple/IBM) Partition your Disk</title>
172	<body>
173
174	<p>
175	At this point, create your partitions using <c>mac-fdisk</c>:
176	</p>
177
178	<pre caption="Starting mac-fdisk">
179	# <i>mac-fdisk /dev/hda</i>
180	</pre>
181
182	<p>
183	First delete the partitions you have cleared previously to make room for your
184	Linux partitions. Use <c>d</c> in <c>mac-fdisk</c> to delete those partition(s).
185	It will ask for the partition number to delete.
186	</p>
187
188	<p>
189	Second, create an <e>Apple_Bootstrap</e> partition by using <c>b</c>. It will
190	ask for what block you want to start. Enter the number of your first free
191	partition, followed by a <c>p</c>. For instance this is <c>1p</c>.
192	</p>
193
194	<note>
195	This partition is <e>not</e> a "boot" partition. It is not used by Linux at all;
196	you don't have to place any filesystem on it and you should never mount it. PPC
197	users don't need a an extra partition for <path>/boot</path>.
198	</note>
199
200	<p>
201	Now create a swap partition by pressing <c>c</c>. Again <c>mac-fdisk</c> will
202	ask for what block you want to start this partition from. As we used <c>1</c>
203	before to create the Apple_Bootstrap partition, you now have to enter
204	<c>2p</c>. When you're asked for the size, enter <c>512M</c> (or whatever size
205	you want -- 512MB is recommended though). When asked for a name, enter <c>swap</c>
206	(mandatory).
207	</p>
208
209	<p>
210	To create the root partition, enter <c>c</c>, followed by <c>3p</c> to select
211	from what block the root partition should start. When asked for the size, enter
212	<c>3p</c> again. <c>mac-fdisk</c> will interpret this as "Use all available
213	space". When asked for the name, enter <c>root</c> (mandatory).
214	</p>
215
216	<p>
217	To finish up, write the partition to the disk using <c>w</c> and <c>q</c> to
218	quit <c>mac-fdisk</c>.
219	</p>
220
221	<p>
222	Now that your partitions are created, you can now continue with <uri
223	link="#filesystems">Creating Filesystems</uri>.
224	</p>
225
226	</body>
227	</section>
228	<section id="parted">
229	<title>Using parted (especially Pegasos) to Partition your Disk</title>
230	<body>
231
232	<p>
233	<c>parted</c>, the Partition Editor, can now handle HFS+ partitions used by
234	Mac OS and Mac OS X. With this tool you can shrink your Mac-partitions and
235	create space for your Linux partitions. Nevertheless, the example below
236	describes partitioning for Pegasos machines only.
237	</p>
238
239	<p>
240	To begin let's fire up <c>parted</c>:
241	</p>
242
243	<pre caption="Starting parted">
244	# <i>parted /dev/hda</i>
245	</pre>
246
247	<p>
248	If the drive is unpartitioned, run <c>mklabel amiga</c> to create a new
249	disklabel for the drive.
250	</p>
251
252	<p>
253	You can type <c>print</c> at any time in parted to display the current partition
254	table. Your changes aren't saved until you quit the application; if at any time
255	you change your mind or made a mistake you can press <c>Ctrl-c</c> to abort
256	parted.
257	</p>
258
259	<p>
260	If you intend to also install MorphOS on your Pegasos create an affs1 filesystem
261	named "BI0" (BI zero) at the start of the drive. 50MB should be more than enough
262	to store the MorphOS kernel. If you have a Pegasos I or intend to use reiserfs or
263	xfs, you will also have to store your Linux kernel on this partition (the
264	Pegasos II can boot from ext2/ext3 drives). To create the partition run
265	<c>mkpart primary affs1 START END</c> where <c>START</c> and <c>END</c> should
266	be replaced with the megabyte range (f.i. <c>5 55</c> creates a 50 MB partition
267	starting at 5MB and ending at 55MB.
268	</p>
269
270	<p>
271	You need to create two partitions for Linux, one root filesystem for all your
272	program files etc, and one swap partition. To create the root filesystem you
273	must first decide which filesystem to use. Possible options are ext2, ext3,
274	reiserfs and xfs. Unless you know what you are doing, use ext3. Run
275	<c>mkpart primary ext3 START END</c> to create an ext3 partition. Again, replace
276	<c>START</c> and <c>END</c> with the megabyte start and stop marks for the
277	partition.
278	</p>
279
280	<p>
281	It is generally recommended that you create a swap partition the same size as
282	the amount of RAM in your computer times two. You will probably get away with a
283	smaller swap partition unless you intend to run a lot of applications at the
284	same time (although at least 512MB is recommended). To create the swap
285	partition, run <c>mkpart primary linux-swap START END</c>.
286	</p>
287
288	<p>
289	Write down the partition minor numbers as they are required during the
290	installation process. To dislay the minor numbers run <c>print</c>. Your drives
291	are accessed as <path>/dev/hdaX</path> where X is replaced with the minor number
292	of the partition.
293	</p>
294
295	<p>
296	When you are done in parted simply run <c>quit</c>.
297	</p>
298
299	</body>
300	</section>
301	<section id="filesystems">
302	<title>Creating Filesystems</title>
303	<subsection>
304	<title>Introduction</title>
305	<body>
306
307	<p>
308	Now that your partitions are created, it is time to place a filesystem on them.
309	If you don't care about what filesystem to choose and are happy with what we use
310	as default in this handbook, continue with <uri
311	link="#filesystems-apply">Applying a Filesystem to a Partition</uri>.
312	Otherwise read on to learn about the available filesystems...
313	</p>
314
315	</body>
316	</subsection>
317	<subsection>
318	<title>Filesystems?</title>
319	<body>
320
321	<p>
322	Several filesystems are available. ext2, ext3, reiserfs and xfs are found stable
323	on the PPC architecture. jfs is unsupported.
324	</p>
325
326	<p>
327	<b>ext2</b> is the tried and true Linux filesystem but doesn't have metadata
328	journaling, which means that routine ext2 filesystem checks at startup time can
329	be quite time-consuming. There is now quite a selection of newer-generation
330	journaled filesystems that can be checked for consistency very quickly and are
331	thus generally preferred over their non-journaled counterparts. Journaled
332	filesystems prevent long delays when you boot your system and your filesystem
333	happens to be in an inconsistent state.
334	</p>
335
336	<p>
337	<b>ext3</b> is the journaled version of the ext2 filesystem, providing metadata
338	journaling for fast recovery in addition to other enhanced journaling modes like
339	full data and ordered data journaling. ext3 is a very good and reliable
340	filesystem. It has an additional hashed b-tree indexing option that enables
341	high performance in almost all situations. In short, ext3 is an excellent
342	filesystem.
343	</p>
344
345	<p>
346	<b>ReiserFS</b> is a B*-tree based filesystem that has very good overall
347	performance and greatly outperforms both ext2 and ext3 when dealing with small
348	files (files less than 4k), often by a factor of 10x-15x. ReiserFS also scales
349	extremely well and has metadata journaling. As of kernel 2.4.18+, ReiserFS is
350	solid and usable as both general-purpose filesystem and for extreme cases such
351	as the creation of large filesystems, the use of many small files, very large
352	files and directories containing tens of thousands of files.
353	</p>
354
355	<p>
356	<b>XFS</b> is a filesystem with metadata journaling which comes with a robust
357	feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this
358	filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and
359	an uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data
360	in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions
361	when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good
362	deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly.
363	</p>
364
365	</body>
366	</subsection>
367	<subsection id="filesystems-apply">
368	<title>Applying a Filesystem to a Partition</title>
369	<body>
370
371	<p>
372	To create a filesystem on a partition or volume, there are tools available for
373	each possible filesystem:
374	</p>
375
376	<table>
377	<tr>
378	<th>Filesystem</th>
379	<th>Creation Command</th>
380	</tr>
381	<tr>
382	<ti>ext2</ti>
383	<ti><c>mke2fs</c></ti>
384	</tr>
385	<tr>
386	<ti>ext3</ti>
387	<ti><c>mke2fs -j</c></ti>
388	</tr>
389	<tr>
390	<ti>reiserfs</ti>
391	<ti><c>mkreiserfs</c></ti>
392	</tr>
393	<tr>
394	<ti>xfs</ti>
395	<ti><c>mkfs.xfs</c></ti>
396	</tr>
397	</table>
398
399	<p>
400	For instance, to have the root partition (<path>/dev/hda3</path> in our example)
401	in ext3 (as in our example), you would use:
402	</p>
403
404	<pre caption="Applying a filesystem on a partition">
405	# <i>mke2fs -j /dev/hda3</i>
406	</pre>
407
408	<p>
409	Now create the filesystems on your newly created partitions (or logical
410	volumes).
411	</p>
412
413	<note>
414	Be sure that the partition which will host your kernel (the
415	<path>/boot</path>-path) must be ext2 or ext3. The bootloader can only handle
416	this filesystem.
417	</note>
418
419	</body>
420	</subsection>
421	<subsection>
422	<title>Activating the Swap Partition</title>
423	<body>
424
425	<p>
426	<c>mkswap</c> is the command that is used to initialize swap partitions:
427	</p>
428
429	<pre caption="Creating a Swap signature">
430	# <i>mkswap /dev/hda2</i>
431	</pre>
432
433	<p>
434	To activate the swap partition, use <c>swapon</c>:
435	</p>
436
437	<pre caption="Activating the swap partition">
438	# <i>swapon /dev/hda2</i>
439	</pre>
440
441	<p>
442	Create and activate the swap now.
443	</p>
444
445	</body>
446	</subsection>
447	</section>
448	<section>
449	<title>Mounting</title>
450	<body>
451
452	<p>
453	Now that your partitions are initialized and are housing a filesystem, it is
454	time to mount those partitions. Use the <c>mount</c> command. Don't forget to
455	create the necessary mount directories for every partition you created. As an
456	example we create a mount-point and mount the root and boot partition:
457	</p>
458
459	<pre caption="Mounting partitions">
460	# <i>mkdir /mnt/gentoo</i>
461	# <i>mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo</i>
462	</pre>
463
464	<note>
465	If you want your <path>/tmp</path> to reside on a separate partition, be sure to
466	change its permissions after mounting: <c>chmod 1777 /mnt/gentoo/tmp</c>. This
467	also holds for <path>/var/tmp</path>.
468	</note>
469
470	<p>
471	Finally we have to create the <path>/dev</path> files in our new home, which is
472	needed during the bootloader installation. This could be done by "bind"-mapping
473	the <path>/dev</path>-filesystem from the LiveCD:
474	</p>
475
476	<pre caption="Bind-mounting the /dev-filesystem">
477	# <i>mkdir /mnt/gentoo/dev</i>
478	# <i>mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev</i>
479	</pre>
480
481	<p>
482	We will also have to mount the proc filesystem (a virtual interface with the
483	kernel) on <path>/proc</path>. But first we will need to place our files on the partitions.
484	</p>
485
486	<p>
487	Continue with <uri link="?part=1&chap=5">Installing the Gentoo
488	Installation Files</uri>.
489	</p>
490
491	</body>
492	</section>
493	</sections>