LMDE 201403 Installation on two hard disks

[mirola]

I am trying to install LDME 201403 on a computer with TWO physical hard drives. An old version of Linux Mint is installed and should be replaced by LDME. Also a version of windows is still installed and should remain.

There are the following partitions on the hard drives:
/dev/sda1 = Windows Boot
/dev/sda2 = Windows System
/dev/sda5 = Linux /boot
/dev/sda6 = Linux /

/dev/sdb1 = Linux swap
/dev/sdb2 = Linux /home
/dev/sdb2 = Windows Data

So i want to reuse the existing linux partitions. No problem with any other installer i know (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint Cinnamon, ...). But not with LDME installer. With LDME installer i have to choose which hdd i want to use. And i can not tell the installer which partition to use for swap.

So how to do that installation?
Any help would be greatly appreciated

mirola

[gtsfer]

Do you want to keep it this way or do you feel that you have to for some reason? Just asking. It just looks "different" having your root partition on one disk and swap and /home (a Windows data I can understand) on the second drive. This is perfectly ok mind you.

Why not install LMDE on the second hard disk? Then you could just get rid of those extra partitions on sda. (you probably don't need that /boot partition for one thing). How big are those drives? Can you do these in Terminal and post the results back here (just copy and paste it)?

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz
sudo fdisk -l

And what version of Windows are you running there?

[apemanx]

I had the exact same installation. 2 hard drives.
I installed sda Linux and sdb Windows.

I solved my installation problems (took me the weekend) by starting LMDE in UEFI from the dvd. Then followed all installation instructions. Partitioned it as I wanted it.
My Mistake no 1: I installed the bootloader to /dev/sda and NOT /dev/sda1 - which was the newly created /boot/efi FAT32 Partition.
Correct it by installing it in /dev/sda1 - or whatever your boot partition is for windows.

This will overwrite so that it will auto start into LMDE then add Windows to grub with those grub-update and config commands.

This meant that I can unplug any hard drive and still have an OS! Windows and Linux.

I believe you need to specify where the bootloader installs - 'cause the default option gave me problems.

[Distro-Don]

I also use 2 disks:

sda1 LM13 MATE
sda2 LM14 MATE
sda3 LM15 MATE
sda5 LM16 MATE
sda6 LM17 MATE
sda7 LMDE MATE
sdb1 Data
sdb2 Backup

I have it setup this way so that I can link all my data files to each distribution's /home/don.

LMDE MATE is ,by far, my most used distribution but I think that the LMDE installer needs some work on it to make it more user friendly like all the other Linux Mint installers. I wonder if Clem could just use the same installer on LMDE MATE?

[magicvince]

same problem with LMDE installer, impossible to choose different disk for / and /home.
My computer is using a SSD drive and a HDD.
I would use the ssd for / to accelerate the behaviour of the software.

+1 for a better installer

[Distro-Don]

I also have an SSD drive (sda) and a HDD drive (sdb). I do this in order to make my SSD last as long as possible and also for the speed increase.

I copy this from /etc/fstab on sda1,2,3, 5 or 6 and paste it to the end of LMDE's fstab:

# /archives was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx /data ext4 defaults 0 2
# /backup was on /dev/sdb2 during installation
UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx /backup ext4 defaults 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sdb3 during installation
UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx none swap sw 0 0
# tmpfs for (some) temp and logs
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
# tmpfs /var/spool tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=0755 0 0

I then link the data from sdb1 to /home/don on all versions of LinuxMint. In that way if I change any data on any version of LinuxMint it is the same for all of them.