I really had no idea GPT was such an anomaly still. Everything I read was like "just do it!". Not. First time I dealt with GPT was a laptop my work had gotten me, which was an asus that had good resolution and dual ssd I could raid. It was otherwise a basketcase, acpi bugs galore, no legacy boot, and forced into EFI booting otherwise quite annoying - I'm now pretty much F-Asus for anything. I stayed using my old HP Folio that I thought was bad until that, but somewhat worked until I quit. I really developed quite the aversion to EFI there as yet another microsoft abortion. GPT I figured was an evolution of MBR, but seems more of another unwanted upsell forced upon people during EFI/Windoze migrations too. I think I'll stay with mbr until we have 3tb and higher SSD's to deal with at a price point that makes them rational, and hopefully bios vendors make not-difficult by then. Mine are only 512gb, and GPT seems just another unnecessary (microsoft) evil until I'm forced to boot off 3tb disks or higher. -mb On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 6:44 PM, Stephen Partington wrote: > Good information, however "GPT as far as I can tell simply doesn't work > outside EFI" this is kind of the norm. > > On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 6:30 PM, Michael Butash > wrote: > >> I figured if I'm going to anything, I'd prefer to go to something I can >> control more, which always seems to bring me back to Arch, and more than a >> few of you seem to use it too. I attempted before and failed, but this >> weekend I got there, got stable, and then found more or less all the same >> desktop bugs and more, particularly with KDE, with far more pain than I'm >> used to with Ubuntu or other debian derivatives. Figured I would share >> some of the experiences for better and worse even if TL:DR, but HTH someone >> too. >> >> I like certain things about Arch, but found getting it working to be a >> dismal process, and one that kept teaching me just how different (or >> broken) every distribution's process can be. I simply can't imagine most >> people using Arch that aren't simply diehard sysadmins, primarily even >> getting it to work outside of the most basic installations. >> >> Biggest things that totally screwed me up were my want to use GPT, these >> new-fangled nvme disks that aren't still fully baked into linux, adapting >> my disk/volume setup to all of this, and finding it really didn't like me >> making /usr a separate partition. >> >> GPT as far as I can tell simply doesn't work outside EFI, especially as a >> legacy bios thing that has been MBR-based for eons. Usage of GPT seems to >> ass-u-me/implies it is being paired with EFI which knows these things. >> Trying everything with this intel board, it simply would never boot off it, >> and apparently most legacy bios are cranky about booting gpt, particularly >> intel boards. I wasted thanksgiving long weekend attempting last time, >> even without raid or anything else on a standard non-nvme ssd, and never >> worked. I give up as I didn't really need GPT, but more curiosity to keep >> alignment proper for ssd geometry. >> >> I got a pair of Samsung NVME-based 950 Pro M.2 disks as my end-goal, as >> their attachment to the pci-bus direct seems to be the future. >> Unfortunately the tech is still new, most tools like udev still aren't >> baked to detect them, and even when rigging it with rules to do so, fails >> because of other things around udev not baked in either. This includes >> thins like hdparm, smart tools, any monitoring apps looking for drives at >> only sd[a-z]*, zfs libs (because udev won't build /dev/disk/by-* links off >> them), and most anything else looking for disks !=sd*. Even samsung's own >> firmware utility "magician" doesn't know what they are under linux. >> >> Adapting my disk formula was actually fairly easy giving up on GPT and >> ZFS already, combining MBR+ traditional linux fs tools, mdadm, >> luks/cryptsetup, and lvm2 didn't so much care. What last broke my booting >> linux was combinations of mdadm and luks, and my typical habit of building >> /usr as a separate partition. I found out the hard way mdraid builds >> different from initrd or a fully-booted kernel, and arch didn't seem to >> want to work via UUID with grub, as it unlocks luks volumes differently in >> initrd than ubuntu does (poorly in arch, imho). Once I created a static >> mdadm.conf for it, pointed grub to unlock it, it would work. Then die on >> not finding /usr to init systemd. >> >> The usr problem was far more annoying, and took some digging, where all >> recommendations I found simply didn't work. Arch devs just never presumed >> anyone would want to do that, and really have no good method of supporting >> it. Quick fix was relenting and keeping /usr on root anyways, though >> annoying it wasn't so obvious with boot dying because of not getting >> /sbin/init to work (really a symlink to /usr/lib/systemd/systemd or like). >> >> After everything, I have mdraided nvme disks, luks encryption, lvm, and >> ext4 atop that, so I'm at least no worse off. ZFS was my first choice, but >> linux tools not understanding nvme drives broke that as viable. BTRFS >> didn't seem to get me much with chicken and egg issues around encryption >> that it would be simpler, but would have at least offered lzo compression, >> if not brokenness like ZFS+udev with nvme. >> >> Once at a desktop again, KDE with latest packages ala neon are still a >> clusterfsck though, still getting my taskbar flipping around with displays >> coming/going, but not Arch's fault, and at least I'm stable off of Ubuntu >> so far otherwise. I probably need to try cinnamon or mate again, something >> the developers have tested more than a single monitor and video card with. >> >> I cannot say it's been terribly worth it so far moving to Arch, but this >> is only really my second full day of just simply "using it". The fact it >> really is so minimal has been a bit painful, as it requires literally >> anything you might actually need to be installed, even with full desktop >> meta packages. Actually need a terminal app with kde - need to add >> konsole. Want screenshots with spectacle or music with banshee? Need to >> figure out AUR, or yaourt as I did. >> >> Thankfully I've already learned their stupid app names for linux software >> to even begin to find most (like baobab, my favorite disk space utility >> with the most horrid name), but I don't expect most would/could but the >> most diehard linux users to get a moderately complete desktop back. At >> least versus kubuntu giving you an adequate base to start with that I'm >> more used to. >> >> Any windoze person would have run away screaming long ago, and I think >> even most moderately skilled linux folks - it really shouldn't be this >> hard, yet here I am too. Neither debian or ubuntu are good long-term with >> upgrades obliterating my system, so here's to hoping change is worth it in >> the long run for rolling releases and adding a new distribution to >> achievements earned. >> >> -mb >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> > > > > -- > A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from > rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. > > Stephen > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >