mhbell Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 Why I use GPT instead of MBR I use GPT partitioning instead of MBR because I can have all primary partitions with GPT instead of just 4 primary and the rest Extended partitions with MBR. I can delete any partition on the gpt drive without effecting the other partitions. If I want to delete a partition in the middle of the drive and create or use that partition for a different distro I can without effecting the other distros on that drive. I do a lot of experimenting and playing with different linux distros. I use Linux Mint as my Primary Distro on SSD1 and Multi boot 6 ssd disks with 2 to 3 distros on each disk. Each disk has its own 512MB EFI Boot as partition 1 each distro is set up with a root partition, a swap partition, and a home partition. All partitions are primary. No extended partitions like in MBR. Here is a example. Disk one partition 1 EFI/boot 2 Linux Mint root 3 swap 4 is Mint Home 5 LXLE root 6 swap 7 LXLE Home 8 MX root 9 swap 10 MX Home. All of them are primary partitions no extended partition. I install each distro with its own Root partition, Swap Partition, and Home partition. If I want to delete LXLE’s partitions and install a different distro I can without effecting the other partitions or distro’s. You can’t do that with MBR and a extended partition. Each SSD Disk is setup the same way. Since Mint is my primary distro I use it’s grub to boot all other disks and distro’s The only exception to this is ARCH Linux and it’s derivatives. They are set up so that you can’t boot them with another distro’s grub. There are work arounds but when ever you update grub or get a new kernel you have to install the work around in Your primary Grub or else use Arch’s Grub as the primary boot manager which I do not want to do as Mint is my primary OS and I may remove arch or its derivatives. Why Arch has to do this is beyond me. They should keep grub standard like everyone else distro does. Arch and it’s derivatives is the only one that I can’t boot with Another distros grub. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 8 hours ago, mhbell said: The only exception to this is ARCH Linux and it’s derivatives. They are set up so that you can’t boot them with another distro’s grub. There are work arounds but when ever you update grub or get a new kernel you have to install the work around in Your primary Grub or else use Arch’s Grub as the primary boot manager which I do not want to do as Mint is my primary OS and I may remove arch or its derivatives. Why Arch has to do this is beyond me. They should keep grub standard like everyone else distro does. Arch and it’s derivatives is the only one that I can’t boot with Another distros grub. Where are you getting this information? You can use any distro to boot any other distro. Archlinux doesn't patch their packages so you are getting vanilla upstream sources. This is from 2017: Dual Boot Ubuntu And Arch Linux (ubuntu being primary) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 This may be the case on a derivative as it automatically installs grub but you can easily have it point to your install partition and not the GPT/MBR. Arch doesn't come with a bootloader and you can choose to not install one at all if you are not using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted April 13, 2022 Author Share Posted April 13, 2022 2 hours ago, securitybreach said: Where are you getting this information? You can use any distro to boot any other distro. Archlinux doesn't patch their packages so you are getting vanilla upstream sources. This is from 2017: Dual Boot Ubuntu And Arch Linux (ubuntu being primary) I am getting my information through using several distros and multi booting. If you want to try it just use any distro except Arch and try and boot a Arch derivative such as Manjaro or Endeavour or Arco. after doing grub update. it will find the arch derivatives but won't boot them without modifying grub. I know you use Arch and are a Arch fan. If you take the time to install another distro as primary and try to boot any of the Arch derivatives using the primarys grub you will see that I am right. I rest my case and stand by my post. Mel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 Well, obviously GPT is superior to MBR - no extended partitions, larger disk support, etc. Also you need to use GPT if you want to have UEFI. But with some older hardware you are locked into legacy BIOS so MBR is still an option. Frankly I have decided that I only want one OS per machine and in most cases I have only a / and swap partition. Most modern distros will give you what the hardware supports if you choose to nuke and repave the boot disk during installation. On my old Linux Mint desktop I do have a separate HDD for data and do not reinstall the OS when I upgrade to the next release. I do not even recall how the storage disks are formatted on this machine, but I suspect it's MBR. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 5 minutes ago, mhbell said: I am getting my information through using several distros and multi booting. If you want to try it just use any distro except Arch and try and boot a Arch derivative such as Manjaro or Endeavour or Arco. after doing grub update. it will find the arch derivatives but won't boot them without modifying grub. I know you use Arch and are a Arch fan. If you take the time to install another distro as primary and try to boot any of the Arch derivatives using the primarys grub you will see that I am right. I rest my case and stand by my post. Mel Well that is because you are using derivatives, Archlinux would not do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 Archlinux does not do anything at all automatically. So it would never overwrite your boot loader without you choosing to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted April 13, 2022 Author Share Posted April 13, 2022 2 hours ago, securitybreach said: This is from 2017: Dual Boot Ubuntu And Arch Linux (ubuntu being primary) The source that you quote above is for a BIOS installation process not UEFI. all modern computers and os's use uefi . MBR is old hat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 21 minutes ago, mhbell said: The source that you quote above is for a BIOS installation process not UEFI. all modern computers and os's use uefi . MBR is old hat. The same applies with either MBR or UEFI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 22 minutes ago, mhbell said: MBR is old hat. So is UEFI. Its from the 90s but wasn't widely implements until 2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#History Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted April 13, 2022 Author Share Posted April 13, 2022 and just what is newer than GPT UEFI ? LoL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted April 13, 2022 Share Posted April 13, 2022 Yup GPT is probably one of the best advances in the penguin world. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 i do recall that within the past 5 years I had problems with installing a distro due to GPT/MBR issues but don't remember which distro GPT is quite nice when one is using a disk portioning tool and trying rearrange and segment files. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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