On Tuesday, April 24, 2012 05:40:50 PM Gé Weijers wrote:
> Any way you'd like. CentOS can't BOOT from a GPT partitioned device if
> the BIOS does not support it, but you can certainly use GPT on
> non-boot devices.
While I can't confirm for a drive larger than 2TB, it is not true that you can't boot a Linux kernel close to the one in CentOS using a GRUB similar to the one in CentOS from a GPT partitioned disk. People are doing this all the time using bootloaders like Chameleon and PCEFI (used typically to build a 'hackintosh'), dual-booting with Mac OS X on semi-generic PC hardware.
Here's what the GPT looks like for such a system, dual-booting Fedora 14 and Mac OS X (using gdisk):
[root@localhost ~]# gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.1
Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 1BE631E1-4E0C-4D33-9108-9F7E5EBB411A
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 525717 sectors (256.7 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition
2 409640 386210423 184.0 GiB AF00 Flopdinger
3 386473984 402104319 7.5 GiB 8200 LinuxSwap
4 402104320 484024319 39.1 GiB 0700 F14
5 484024320 861511679 180.0 GiB 0700 LinuxHome
6 861511680 976510983 54.8 GiB AF00 Interchange
[root@localhost ~]#
Using parted -l:
[root@localhost ~]# parted -l
Model: ATA ST9500420AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 20.5kB 210MB 210MB fat32 EFI System Partition boot, hidden
2 210MB 198GB 198GB hfs+ Flopdinger hidden
3 198GB 206GB 8003MB linux-swap(v1) LinuxSwap
4 206GB 248GB 41.9GB ext3 F14
5 248GB 441GB 193GB ext3 LinuxHome hidden
6 441GB 500GB 58.9GB hfsx Interchange hidden
[root@localhost ~]#
Installation of the GRUB bootloader is simple; it's installed to /dev/sda4 instead of /dev/sda (since Chameleon is sitting in the MBR and in the EFI system partition):
[root@localhost ~]# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,3)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda4
# initrd /boot/initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda4
default=0
timeout=9
splashimage=(hd0,3)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.35.14-106.fc14.x86_64)
root (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35.14-106.fc14.x86_64 ro root=UUID=8cda63bd-9eed-4a65-a834-138df5dca1a2 rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet nouveau.modeset=0 rdblacklist=nouveau
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.35.14-106.fc14.x86_64.img
Booting a generic BIOS PC from GPT is a solved problem, just not in the 'usual' Linux space.
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