New laptop disk. Desired 4 standard partitions: 1: /dev/sda1 / 2: /dev/sda2 /sda2 3: /dev/sda3 swap 4: /dev/sda4 /home Almost got it after struggling a bit, but could not avoid partition 4 becoming an extended partition, and making /home in /dev/sda5. Where is the make this a standard partition button?? So, went back and used fdisk in a console window to create partitions as desired. Then tried graphical disk partition tool again. Was able to get / in /dev/sda1 just fine. However, the tool would not let me edit and/or assign mount points to any of the other partitions on the disk. I had to proceed with the install to /dev/sda1, and then modify and add the other partitions after installation.
Created attachment 696256 [details] screenshot showing four primary partitions in Manual Partitioning AFAICT, the installer does not have a way to create four primary partitions. However, after pre-partitioning with gparted, I was able to complete a minimal install to four primary partitions: # lsblk /dev/sdb NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sdb 8:16 0 12G 0 disk ├─sdb1 8:17 0 4.9G 0 part / ├─sdb2 8:18 0 1000M 0 part /spare1 ├─sdb3 8:19 0 500M 0 part [SWAP] └─sdb4 8:20 0 5.7G 0 part /home
Tested with: $ qemu-kvm -m 2048 -hda f18-test-1.img -hdb f18-test-4.img -cdrom ~/xfr/fedora/F18/Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso -vga qxl -boot menu=on -usbdevice mouse hda has F18 Gnome desktop and gparted installed. hdb is the install target.
Created attachment 696697 [details] screenshot showing that the F17 installer can create four primary partitions The F17 installer has a "Force to be a primary partition" checkbox that allows users to create four primary partitions. Tested with: $ qemu-img create f18-test-3.img 12G $ qemu-kvm -m 2048 -hda f18-test-3.img -cdrom ~/xfr/fedora/F17/Fedora-17-x86_64-DVD.iso -vga qxl -boot menu=on -usbdevice mouse
If you want to create partitions on your own, you should probably do that and then reboot into anaconda. We don't really do on-the-fly detection as disk layout changes. anaconda assumes it is in control the entire time it's running. For primary vs. extended partitions - yes perhaps the old UI let you do that, but that's not a compelling reason to put it into the new UI. While we do present you with a fair amount of power in the custom partitioning interface, we are never going to have a checkbox or button for everything that everyone might ever want to do. It's simply too many options. Is there a reason you need to be able to make things primary partitions? Especially now with GPT becoming more prevalent, there's less and less reason to care about this level of detail.
Wouldn't logical volumes work as well? If you let the installer do storage configuration, it creates logical volumes for everything but /boot: # lsblk /dev/sda NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 80G 0 disk ├─sda1 8:1 0 500M 0 part /boot └─sda2 8:2 0 79.5G 0 part ├─fedora-swap (dm-0) 253:0 0 4G 0 lvm [SWAP] ├─fedora-root (dm-1) 253:1 0 50G 0 lvm / └─fedora-home (dm-2) 253:2 0 25.6G 0 lvm /home Tested with: $ qemu-img create f18-test-4.img 80G $ qemu-kvm -m 2048 -hda f18-test-4.img -cdrom ~/xfr/fedora/F18/Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso -vga qxl -boot menu=on -usbdevice mouse
Sorry for the delayed response. Over the weekend, I did some more F18 installs... I sometimes install multiple operating systems on the same disk. So life is sometimes better when only simple primary partitions are used. wrt comment 4: I don't want to create partitions on my own. F17 had a fine disk partition management mechanism as part of the install. Note also that F17 would very conveniently allow me to edit and assign mount points for existing partitions on the disk in which I had existing data. wrt comment 5: Sure, if I wanted to use LVM, LVM might work, but I want standard, primary partitions that other operating systems and tools can deal with directly. wrt comment 4: Understandably you can't support every disk configuration option, but this is a clear regression in useful functionality. The new UI should be fixed to use only primary partitions, if 4 or fewer partitions are needed. Here is what I get when a default "use standard partitions" install is done. Would obviously be cleaner using only 4 primary partitions: [user@localhost ~]$ df -BG Filesystem 1G-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on devtmpfs 2G 0G 2G 0% /dev tmpfs 2G 1G 2G 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 2G 1G 2G 1% /run tmpfs 2G 0G 2G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/sda3 37G 5G 31G 13% / tmpfs 2G 1G 2G 1% /tmp /dev/sda5 18G 1G 17G 1% /home /dev/sda1 1G 1G 1G 23% /boot [user@localhost ~]$ cat /proc/partitions major minor #blocks name 8 0 62522712 sda 8 1 512000 sda1 8 2 3981312 sda2 8 3 38990848 sda3 8 4 1 sda4 8 5 19036160 sda5 [user@localhost ~]$
(In reply to comment #6) Thanks for your follow-up comments. ... > I sometimes install multiple operating systems on the same disk. So life is > sometimes better when only simple primary partitions are used. ... Now I'm confused about your use cases. In Comment 0, you described a configuration with four partitions on a laptop. Do you install multiple operating systems on that disk? ... > wrt comment 5: Sure, if I wanted to use LVM, LVM might work, but I want > standard, primary partitions that other operating systems and tools can deal > with directly. ... What other operating systems and tools are you using with primary partitions? Can they deal with logical partitions? > Here is what I get when a default "use standard partitions" install is done. ... Have you tried the "lsblk" command for listing partitions?
Defaulting to all primary partitions on a 4 partition layout prevents partitions from added after the fact, making the configuration less useful. For a 4-partition all-primary MSDOS disk label, create the configuration outside of anaconda.
Or use kickstart. Or partition the disk using the F17 installer. Or use gparted. Or get over the one extra partition anaconda creates.