How to install Salix on a GPT hard drive

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a new style of partitioning which is part of the UEFI Specification. It is different from the Master Boot Record (the more commonly used partitioning style) in many aspects and has many advantages. If you have a hard drive that uses GPT for partitioning, the Salix 13.37 installer will work, but you will need to do some manual work, as GPT is not supported by the default partitioning tool, cfdisk, which is used in the installer. Here's what you have to do:

1. Start the installer, select your preferred keymap

If you have your partitions already setup the way you want them, skip to the Installation section (Step 11).

Preparing the GPT partitions

2. Exit the installer in the next step when prompted to

3. Run parted on your target hard drive (/dev/sda for example):

parted /dev/sda

4. Change the partition table to gpt, if it's not already set

mklabel gpt

5. Type

print

and check the disk size

6. Create a primary partition. In this example it's 6GB big, leaving the first 1MB free

mkpart primary 1M 6G

7. You can create more partitions like that. Here we create another primary partition that is 2GB big, right after the first one

mkpart primary 6.01G 8G

build up the partition scheme you want to create like that. You can type

help

to view a list of available commands and

help commandname

to receive a description about a specific command

8. Make the partition that will hold /boot, bootable. In this example it is the partition number 1 as listed by parted

set 1 boot on

9. Type

quit

when you're done

10. Get back to the Salix installer by typing

setup

Installation

Proceed through the installation as usual. When offered to run the partition editor, just don't

11. You'll need to install LILO to the boot partition of your hard drive, not the MBR. So you need to format your /boot partition (or the partition that will include /boot) with a filesystem that is compatible with LILO booting from it (don't use XFS)

12. When prompted to install LILO towards the end of the installation process, select the "Expert" installation mode

13. Select "Begin". Provide any additional options for your system if needed. You don't need any specifically for GPT. Select the screen size. When selecting the target for LILO, select the "Root" option instead of the default "MBR" option. Select the default LILO timeout and boot screen in the following dialogs

14. From the main LILO installation menu, select "Linux". The program will not find any partitions, but you can just type in the one that you want to use (for example: /dev/sda1). Select a name for the partition (for example "Salix" or "Linux")

15. From the main LILO installation menu, add any other Linux or Windows partitions in a similar manner (select the "Windows" option for adding a Windows partition). When done, select the "Install" option

16. Finish the installation and reboot