[solved] I want to install MX-18.3 to partition #19 on my HDD, but...

[jbMacAZ]

With the minstall GUI installer, I only see up to partition 15. I found this topic https://mxlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 7&start=10 about setting /home beyond partition #9. Is there a .conf I can edit or some trick to install MX-linux on sda19? I have a swap partition below partition 15 that I could sacrifice, but I have a larger partition reserved for MX...

My (other) system is a skylake (i5-6400) Dell desktop (inspiron 3250) with a 1TB HDD w/16GB RAM. The HDD already has windows, several data partitions and a few other Linux (various former #1's) I've remastered the liveUSB (18.3 final ISO) with the latest updates, toram and persistence. So I am able to run (and it seems to run very well). Video, wifi, USB keyboard/mouse and HDMI w/sound all seem to work fine on the liveUSB.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
-John

Update: This old drive does not list the HDD partitions contiguously with lsblk. Temporary workaround: edit /usr/share/gazelle-installer-data/installer.conf so that "INSTALL_FROM_ROOT_DEVICE=true". A permanent fix is pending for this unlikely scenario.

Update2: Fixed in antiX19b3

[fehlix]

With the minstall GUI installer, I only see up to partition 15.

On scsi[sata] connected drives you have max of 15 partitions, e.g. sda1 ... sda15 for MBR/DOS -partition table scheme.
On GPT partition table scheme you can have up 128 partitions.
So I guess, the limiting factor is your chosen partition table scheme of that drive.
HTH

[jbMacAZ]

Thanks for the help. There is something odd about the partitions after sda15, namely "sda19 259:3". The target drive is GPT, but MX-Linux is running live from an MBR USB. FWIW, Devuan installed on sda18, Arcolinux is on sda17 and sda16 is an old ext4 data partition.

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$$ lsblk
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0     7:0    0   2.2G  1 loop /live/linux
loop1     7:1    0     1G  0 loop /home
sda       8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1    8:1    0   500M  0 part 
├─sda2    8:2    0   128M  0 part 
├─sda3    8:3    0  98.5G  0 part 
├─sda4    8:4    0  30.3G  0 part 
├─sda5    8:5    0   450M  0 part 
├─sda6    8:6    0  11.6G  0 part 
├─sda7    8:7    0  44.2G  0 part 
├─sda8    8:8    0  16.6G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda9    8:9    0  16.1G  0 part 
├─sda10   8:10   0  25.4G  0 part 
├─sda11   8:11   0 152.4G  0 part 
├─sda12   8:12   0  97.7G  0 part 
├─sda13   8:13   0  39.4G  0 part 
├─sda14   8:14   0  17.6G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda15   8:15   0  40.4G  0 part 
├─sda16 259:0    0 195.4G  0 part 
├─sda17 259:1    0  30.8G  0 part 
├─sda18 259:2    0  27.2G  0 part 
└─sda19 259:3    0  27.5G  0 part 
sdb       8:16   1  28.7G  0 disk 
└─sdb1    8:17   1  28.7G  0 part 
sdc       8:32   1  29.9G  0 disk 
└─sdc1    8:33   1  29.9G  0 part /live/boot-dev
sr0      11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

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$ inxi -Fxxxz
System:    Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.19.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 tk: Gtk 2.24.31 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.18.3 
           Distro: MX-18.3_x64 Continuum Dec 20  2018 base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: Dell product: Inspiron 3250 v: X00 serial: <filter> Chassis: 
           type: 3 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Dell model: 0DNMV1 v: A01 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 3.3.6 date: 09/30/2016 
Battery:   Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech M510 serial: <filter> charge: Normal 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-6400 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Skylake-S 
           rev: 3 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 21696 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/3300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 897 2: 896 3: 898 4: 890 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:1912 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.6 
           compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-H HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a170 
           Device-2: N/A type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus ID: 1-7:5 
           chip ID: 2875:0001 serial: <filter> 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-1-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Dell 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Dell 
           driver: ath9k v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 168c:0036 
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-3: Atheros type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 1-3:7 chip ID: 0cf3:e005 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 990.04 GiB used: 6.5 MiB (0.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: DT01ACA100 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
           rotation: 7200 rpm serial: <filter> rev: A7S0 scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra Fit size: 28.64 GiB 
           serial: <filter> rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Samsung model: Flash Drive size: 29.88 GiB 
           serial: <filter> rev: 1100 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 10.60 GiB used: 6.5 MiB (0.1%) fs: overlay dev: ERR-102 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 16.60 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda8 
           ID-3: swap-2 size: 17.58 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda14 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 26.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1454 fan-2: 1076 
Info:      Processes: 194 Uptime: 9m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 710.1 MiB (4.5%) Init: SysVinit 
           v: 2.88 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 6.3.0 alt: 6 Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 
           running in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.0.25 

[old_guy]

I was told about that limit, but some time ago I set up my drive:

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 sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for earl: 
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0004f16f

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *          2048    8390655    8388608    4G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2          8390656  113248255  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3        113248256  218105855  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda4        218107902 3907029167 3688921266  1.7T  5 Extended
/dev/sda5        218107904  322965325  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda6        322967552  427824973  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7        427827200  532684621  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8        532686848  637544269  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda9        637546496  742403917  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda10       742406144  847263565  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda11       847265792  952123391  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda12       952125440 1056982861  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda13      1056985088 1161842509  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda14      1161844736 1266702335  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda15      1266704384 1371561983  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda16      1371564032 1476421453  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda17      1476423680 1581281101  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda18      1581283328 1686140927  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda19      1686142976 1791000397  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda20      1791002624 1895860045  104857422   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda21      1895862272 2000719871  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda22      2000721920 2105579519  104857600   50G 83 Linux
/dev/sda23      2105581568 3907029167 1801447600  859G 83 Linux

and it seems to be working.

PS your odd looking partitions:

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lsblk
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda       8:0    0   1.8T  0 disk 
├─sda1    8:1    0     4G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2    8:2    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda3    8:3    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda5    8:5    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda6    8:6    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda7    8:7    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda8    8:8    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda9    8:9    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda10   8:10   0    50G  0 part 
├─sda11   8:11   0    50G  0 part 
├─sda12   8:12   0    50G  0 part 
├─sda13   8:13   0    50G  0 part 
├─sda14   8:14   0    50G  0 part 
├─sda15   8:15   0    50G  0 part 
├─sda16 259:0    0    50G  0 part /
├─sda17 259:1    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda18 259:2    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda19 259:3    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda20 259:4    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda21 259:5    0    50G  0 part 
├─sda22 259:6    0    50G  0 part 
└─sda23 259:7    0   859G  0 part /mnt/data2
sdb       8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sdb1    8:17   0   100M  0 part 
└─sdb2    8:18   0 931.4G  0 part 
sdc       8:32   0   1.8T  0 disk 
└─sdc1    8:33   0   1.8T  0 part /mnt/data
sr0      11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

Earl

[JayM]

It doesn't make sense to me that changing the partition table type on the USB would help, but you could try it. If you have a second USB stick you can boot from the first one, open MX Live USB Maker, click the Advanced Options button and choose gpt, then up above instead of selecting an ISO choose clone existing system. I haven't tried it, but it should copy your existing, updated and remastered live USB to the second one but using a gpt partition table. That way you don't have to start all over again tweaking the USB the way you want it.

[jbMacAZ]

Thanks,
Thunar sees the expected root directory on sda18. The partition >15 access issue seems specific to the installer.

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$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: <snip>

Device          Start        End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1        2048    1026047   1024000   500M EFI System
/dev/sda2     1026048    1288191    262144   128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3     1288192  207917055 206628864  98.5G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4   207917056  271405055  63488000  30.3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5  1928237056 1929158655    921600   450M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6  1929158656 1953523711  24365056  11.6G Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda7   271405056  364187647  92782592  44.2G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda8   364187648  399003647  34816000  16.6G Linux swap
/dev/sda9   399003648  432795647  33792000  16.1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda10  432795648  486043647  53248000  25.4G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda11  486043648  805531647 319488000 152.4G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda12  805531648 1010331647 204800000  97.7G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda13 1010331648 1092943871  82612224  39.4G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda14 1092943872 1129807871  36864000  17.6G Linux swap
/dev/sda15 1129807872 1214441471  84633600  40.4G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda16 1214441472 1624160255 409718784 195.4G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda17 1624160256 1688621055  64460800  30.8G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda18 1688621056 1745649663  57028608  27.2G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda19 1745649664 1803347967  57698304  27.5G Linux filesystem

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

[JayM]

Like I said it doesn't make much sense to me, but it's possible that the partition table types on the USB and the hard drive have to match for it to work on your machine and with your partitioning scheme. Stranger things have happened. Either it will work or it won't make any difference, but then we've at least eliminated that possibility.

If you don't have an extra USB stick you could download the latest monthly snapshot ISO that includes updates up to mid-July from Sourceforge and burn it to your USB after creating a gpt partition table on it with gparted in one of your other Linuxes. Then you'll only have a few updates remaining.

[jbMacAZ]

Thanks. I'm trying those experiments. I'll report back when I get this sorted out. The md5 checked on the ISO downloads, so...

[JayM]

If it still doesn't work, you could boot with persistence and install the latest installer that's still being tested, using gdebi on the .deb file, and see if it works with that one. The current installer is 19.7.4 and the testing one is 19.8.
https://github.com/MX-Linux/gazelle-ins ... -folder-mx
If you could run it in a teminal with

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sudo minsiall -E

then copy and paste the terminal's text (within code tags) that might help in troubleshooting and/or debugging the new installer, even if it works for you. (I had that happen to me once: MX installed fine, but my terminal output showed a bug that was affecting others and provided the clue that allowed the developer to fix it.)

[jbMacAZ]

OK, I got frustrated with making unbootable USB sticks, so I installed MX on an old swap partition (sda14) and gave Manjaro a new swap partition. The install went pretty much as expected although my user 1000 has the name demo. I can fix that later.

I still have sda19 open, so I will try the installer launched from a terminal as shown. I'll be back a bit later.