Browsing Inuktitut translation

121.

The IA-64 EFI firmware supports two partition table (or disk label) formats, GPT and MS-DOS. MS-DOS, the format typically used on i386 PCs, is no longer recommended for IA-64 systems. Although the installer also provides <command>cfdisk</command>, you should only use <ulink url="parted.txt"> <command>parted</command></ulink> because only it can manage both GPT and MS-DOS tables correctly.

122.

The automatic partitioning recipes for <command>partman</command> allocate an EFI partition as the first partition on the disk. You can also set up the partition under the <guimenuitem>Guided partitioning</guimenuitem> from the main menu in a manner similar to setting up a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition.

123.

The <command>partman</command> partitioner will handle most disk layouts. For those rare cases where it is necessary to manually set up a disk, you can use the shell as described above and run the <command>parted</command> utility directly using its command line interface. Assuming that you want to erase your whole disk and create a GPT table and some partitions, then something similar to the following command sequence could be used: <informalexample><screen>
mklabel gpt
mkpartfs primary fat 0 50
mkpartfs primary linux-swap 51 1000
mkpartfs primary ext2 1001 3000
set 1 boot on
print
quit
</screen></informalexample> This creates a new partition table, and three partitions to be used as an EFI boot partition, swap space, and a root file system. Finally it sets the boot flag on the EFI partition. Partitions are specified in Megabytes, with start and end offsets from the beginning of the disk. So, for example, above we created a 1999MB ext2 file system starting at offset 1001MB from the start of the disk. Note that formatting swap space with <command>parted</command> can take a few minutes to complete, as it scans the partition for bad blocks.

124.

Boot Loader Partition Requirements

125.

ELILO, the IA-64 boot loader, requires a partition containing a FAT file system with the <userinput>boot</userinput> flag set. The partition must be big enough to hold the boot loader and any kernels or RAMdisks you may wish to boot. A minimum size would be about 20MB, but if you expect to run with multiple kernels, then 128MB might be a better size.

126.

The EFI Boot Manager and the EFI Shell fully support the GPT table so the boot partition does not necessarily have to be the first partition or even on the same disk. This is convenient if you should forget to allocate the partition and only find out after you have formatted the other partitions on your disk(s). The <command>partman</command> partitioner checks for an EFI partition at the same time it checks for a properly set up <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This gives you an opportunity to correct the disk layout before the package install begins. The easiest way to correct this omission is to shrink the last partition of the disk to make enough free space for adding an EFI partition.

127.

It is strongly recommended that you allocate the EFI boot partition on the same disk as the <emphasis>root</emphasis> filesystem.

128.

EFI Diagnostic Partitions

129.

The EFI firmware is significantly more sophisticated than the usual BIOS seen on most x86 PCs. Some system vendors take advantage of the ability of the EFI to access files and run programs from a hard disk filesystem to store diagnostics and EFI based system management utilities on the hard disk. This is a separate FAT format filesystem on the system disk. Consult the system documentation and accessories that come with the system for details. The easiest time to set up a diagnostics partition is at the same time you set up the EFI boot partition.

130.

SGI machines require an SGI disk label in order to make the system bootable from hard disk. It can be created in the fdisk expert menu. The thereby created volume header (partition number 9) should be at least 3MB large. If the volume header created is too small, you can simply delete partition number 9 and re-add it with a different size. Note that the volume header must start at sector 0.