diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'en/partitioning/partition/alpha.xml')
| -rw-r--r-- | en/partitioning/partition/alpha.xml | 58 |
1 files changed, 58 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/en/partitioning/partition/alpha.xml b/en/partitioning/partition/alpha.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..54378128a --- /dev/null +++ b/en/partitioning/partition/alpha.xml @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +<!-- retain these comments for translator revision tracking --> +<!-- $Id$ --> + + + <sect2 arch="alpha"><title>Partitioning for &arch-title;</title> +<para> + +Booting Debian from the SRM console (the only disk boot method supported +by &releasename;) requires you to have a BSD disk label, not a DOS +partition table, on your boot disk. (Remember, the SRM boot block is +incompatible with MS-DOS partition tables — see +<xref linkend="alpha-firmware"/>.) As a result, <command>partman</command> +creates BSD disk labels when running on &architecture;, but if your disk +has an existing DOS partition table the existing partitions will need to +be deleted before partman can convert it to use a disk label. + +</para><para> + +If you have chosen to use <command>fdisk</command> to partition your +disk, and the disk that you have selected for partitioning does not +already contain a BSD disk label, you must use the <quote>b</quote> +command to enter disk label mode. + +</para><para> + +Unless you wish to use the disk you are partitioning from Tru64 Unix +or one of the free 4.4BSD-Lite derived operating systems (FreeBSD, +OpenBSD, or NetBSD), it is suggested that you do +<emphasis>not</emphasis> make the third partition contain the whole +disk. This is not required by <command>aboot</command>, and in fact, +it may lead to confusion since the <command>swriteboot</command> +utility used to install <command>aboot</command> in the boot sector +will complain about a partition overlapping with the boot block. + +</para><para> + +Also, because <command>aboot</command> is written to the first few +sectors of the disk (currently it occupies about 70 kilobytes, or 150 +sectors), you <emphasis>must</emphasis> leave enough empty space at +the beginning of the disk for it. In the past, it was suggested that +you make a small partition at the beginning of the disk, to be left +unformatted. For the same reason mentioned above, we now suggest that +you do not do this on disks that will only be used by GNU/Linux. When +using <command>partman</command>, a small partition will still be +created for <command>aboot</command> for convenience reasons. + +</para><para condition="FIXME"> + +For ARC installations, you should make a small FAT partition at the +beginning of the disk to contain <command>MILO</command> and +<command>linload.exe</command> — 5 megabytes should be sufficient, see +<xref linkend="non-debian-partitioning"/>. Unfortunately, making FAT +file systems from the menu is not yet supported, so you'll have to do +it manually from the shell using <command>mkdosfs</command> before +attempting to install the boot loader. + +</para> + </sect2> |