Linux It feels good now... PC is quad booting 3 Kubuntu installations and one Arch

vishalrao

vishalrao

Global Moral Police
Level J
Since Win7 RC is going to start nagging and shutting down soon, I just wiped it off this Friday evening. Don't want to bother paying thousands of rupees for a mediocre OS (that too for multiple copies for multiple machines) and don't want to risk trojans by using pirated copies.

Now my PC is quad booting 3 Kubuntu installations (one primary/stable 9.10 and two test/alpha 10.04) and for linux coding/developing/messing around: one Arch (soon). Got rid of Fedora too. Updated my siggy to reflect this.

Check out my simple grub2 boot menu theme:



The pic is ironically from the Win7 user "photo library" folder :) It also has a pic of a (karmic) koala in there!

Oh by the way, I should brag that I am now getting UNDER TEN SECONDS boot from grub menu to KDM theme for both 9.10 and 10.04 - sometimes even touching close to just FIVE SECONDS - I think my SSD's "GC" has kicked in and I'm getting fully advertised 230 MBps read speeds it looks like :ohyeah:

My partition scheme (I really should try LVM some day) on my 128GB SSD:

Code: 
/dev/sda1 -  4 GB - linux swap
/dev/sda2 - 20 GB - kubuntu 9.10
/dev/sda5 - 20 GB - kubuntu 10.04
/dev/sda6 - 20 GB - arch
/dev/sda7 - 10 GB - kubuntu 10.04
/dev/sda8 - 47 GB - data storage

Note sda1 and sda2 are primary partitions of course. sda5/6/7/8 are logical partitions inside an extended so I can delete/repartition them a little easier should I need to do that. LVM is a good option to try in the future. All are ext4 with the "noatime" option added to reduce SSD flash writes and wear-n-tear.

I initially booted off latest gparted 0.5.1 usb stick to create all the partitions which "rounds to cylinders" which is good for SSDs and during installation I just needed to select and format.

One word of caution to other multi booters, latest linux looks at disks based on their "UUID" which changes if you reformat. So if your booting/mounting is failing check the "/etc/fstab" to see if the UUIDs match based on output of "ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid"

Plan to do the same for my tablet shortly :D Lets see if I have the will power to avoid Windows from now on...
 
Good to know, you finally blew Winblow$:P

I still have windows installed(too lazy to remove that) but It has been ages since I used it.

Even I was wonder, if I should try LVM or not. I heard lvm can be little slower.

does LVM suit my partition structure

Here is mine partitioning scheme:

Code: 
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320071851520 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x087f1d56                          

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sda1   *           1        6225    50002281    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda2            6226        8092    14996677+  83  Linux

/dev/sda3            8093        8216      996030   82  Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda4            8217       38913   246573652+   5  Extended

/dev/sda5            8217       38913   246573621   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x000b6854

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sdc1               1       60801   488384001   83  Linux
 
Wow the boot times are reallly sleek :D

I am going retro :P

Plagued with kernel bugs in 2.6.31 in Karmic I got fed up with the hanging issues and went back to Jaunty. Heck Jaunty feels win98ish and my wireless wouldnt work either in this kernel. Tweaked it a bit and it feels home now :P

Running Jaunty with 2.6.32 kernel and all works :D so far so good :D I hope I can see 3 digit uptime numbers in a week :P karmic would barely hang on for a day.

Was so pissed with the hanging that was thinking of trying Mandriva One 2010 and had even downloaded it....lol Didnt feel confident as it also had the same 2.6.31 series kernel.

Also tried out Arch Linux the other day and gnome is plain vanialla gnome :( and I dont want KDE for main rig
 
archish said:
Also tried out Arch Linux the other day and gnome is plain vanialla gnome :( and I dont want KDE for main rig
Click to expand...

Yes, Arch does not patch its packages, except security and bug fixes.

so using arch, you are more close to the upstream projects:ohyeah:
 
Gaurish said:
Yes, Arch does not patch its packages, except security and bug fixes.
so using arch, you are more close to the upstream projects:ohyeah:
Click to expand...

I would say its good for KDE but for GNOME its plain too boring :rofl:
 
I got not much idea about LVM, just realised you need ubuntu alternate ISOs if you want to set it up so dropped the idea for now. Fedora I think supports it with standard live ISOs.

btw, i'm thinking about installing debian testing bare system instead of arch :P stick to apt/deb goodness! already checked out KDE and Qt sources, ready to modify and build.

note: all this stuff made possible by my switch to BSNL 8 mbps plan with 50GB limit for Rs 2799/- per month (costly yes) - oops - was that another showoff??? :ohyeah: i've downloaded and installed so many times i lost count. and this is just the 3rd weekend with the connection...
 
vishalrao said:
I got not much idea about LVM, just realised you need ubuntu alternate ISOs if you want to set it up so dropped the idea for now. Fedora I think supports it with standard live ISOs.

btw, i'm thinking about installing debian testing bare system instead of arch :P stick to apt/deb goodness! already checked out KDE and Qt sources, ready to modify and build.

note: all this stuff made possible by my switch to BSNL 8 mbps plan with 50GB limit for Rs 2799/- per month (costly yes) - oops - was that another showoff??? :ohyeah: i've downloaded and installed so many times i lost count. and this is just the 3rd weekend with the connection...
Click to expand...

Ah yes, I was thinking how Arch could be a main OS without fast internet.
I tried it once, liked the concept & philosophy but then the 24 Kbps effective MTNL download speed was too slow to bear with. Lucky you !
 
Congrats to you too...Just installed Linux Mint on my system today though still have Windows which I use for gaming. I am using the main edition. I'm really liking it over Ubuntu for the fact that it comes with all the codecs.

But,the only problem I'm facing is that the font on TE is looking really small.
 
@h2o: yea i also face the small-font problem in ALL browsers on linux for some reason! workaround is to manually adjust the font sizes in the browser settings, it helps a little :)

oh and by the way, those who say "ubuntu is too dumbed down" and opensuse/fedora are more "sophisticated" simply are a little inexperienced themselves :P i have learnt and picked up and made so many modifications/patches/settings you cant imagine (grub2/burg/plymouth/kde/qt etc) in the last few weeks, especially after attending that "ubuntu developer week" online classroom sessions...

those who want an "arch-like" experience can simply download and install bare "net install" ubuntu image and start "from scratch" like arch.... or try debian like i am doing...

archish said:
hehe just make sure ur data usage is in check :P
Click to expand...

yea :D now that the first week of feb is over... my 50 gb quota means i get about 12.5 gb per week and i have finished just 7 gb this week. that means, say about 30gb done by the end of the month... THAT MEANS you know... about 20 gb extra left over for you know *ahem* entertainment downloads at 8 mbps :D
 
harmandeep said:
Very nice

Maybe someday i would be able to learn linux :D
Click to expand...

Well,if you want to try, then download Linux Mint and experience yourself. Even there is no need to install.

vishalrao said:
those who want an "arch-like" experience can simply download and install bare "net install" ubuntu image and start "from scratch" like arch.... or try debian like i am doing...
Click to expand...
Still you would miss many awesome arch features like AUR:P
 
My system is also triple booting now. I had started thread to configure triple boot along with ubuntu and Arch.
http://www.techenclave.com/open-source-and-linux/triple-boot-system-need-help-158035.html

but unable to succeed :'(. I had tried everything to configure system and system but failed. So lastly succeed to triple boot with vista, Karmic and Opensuse 11.2. i hardly use vista but needs it for MS excel. My current system partition table is as below:-

sudo df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 15G 3.8G 9.7G 28% / (Ubuntu 9.10)
udev 470M 264K 470M 1% /dev
none 470M 328K 470M 1% /dev/shm
none 470M 92K 470M 1% /var/run
none 470M 4.0K 470M 1% /var/lock
none 470M 0 470M 0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sda1 96G 30G 66G 31% /media/C: (Vista)
/dev/sda3 24G 23G 1.4G 95% /media/D:
/dev/sda4 15G 3.0G 11G 22% /media/ (Opensuse)
Click to expand...
 
Gaurish said:
Well,if you want to try, then download Linux Mint and experience yourself. Even there is no need to install.
Still you would miss many awesome arch features like AUR:P
Click to expand...

I would compare AUR to PPA :P
 
Code: 
shashwat@shashwat-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009e36e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        4514    36258673+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            4515        8473    31800667+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *        8474       11802    26740192+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4           11803       77825   530329747+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           11803       18800    56211403+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6           18801       48903   241802316   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           48904       63885   120342883+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8           63886       77518   109507041   83  Linux
/dev/sda9           77519       77825     2465946   82  Linux swap / Solaris
shashwat@shashwat-desktop:~$

WHats the fuss about it :P I am on Quad boot Ubuntu 65bt, MDV dormant :P, Win 7 and Cent OS :P
 
archish said:
I would compare AUR to PPA :P
Click to expand...

Its not the same. I can give many reasons

1) AUR allows *any* type of package to be easily installed. which includes packages which can't be included in repos due to license problems like cdrtools,Nero Linux etc.

2) making a AUR package is many times easier than adding the same package to PPA or any debian system. one can do that in five minutes which means normal users like us can also add new packages.

3) AUR will almost have all of the packages you might want, ready to install. so no more wasting time on compiling from source; every time you find that package you want is not in the repos. At this monument it has ~20k packages:hap2:
 
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