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nixos manual: Adds some examples of how to use fdisk.

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Also unifies the BIOS and UEFI installation instructions.

It's a fairly basic usage, but it makes explicity the fact that
you should at least have a main partition and a swap partition,
and will save some users a bit of internet searching while they
are getting set up.
This commit is contained in:
Dave Laing 2017-11-01 11:07:51 +10:00
parent b51aa7b6d8
commit 0cf74190a9
3 changed files with 115 additions and 57 deletions
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48
nixos/doc/manual/installation/installing-uefi.xml
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@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
version="5.0"
xml:id="sec-uefi-installation">
<title>UEFI Installation</title>
<para>NixOS can also be installed on UEFI systems. The procedure
is by and large the same as a BIOS installation, with the following
changes:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>You should boot the live CD in UEFI mode (consult your
specific hardware's documentation for instructions). You may find
the <link
xlink:href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind">rEFInd
boot manager</link> useful.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Instead of <command>fdisk</command>, you should use
<command>gdisk</command> to partition your disks. You will need to
have a separate partition for <filename>/boot</filename> with
partition code EF00, and it should be formatted as a
<literal>vfat</literal> filesystem.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Instead of <option>boot.loader.grub.device</option>,
you must set <option>boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable</option> to
<literal>true</literal>. <command>nixos-generate-config</command>
should do this automatically for new configurations when booted in
UEFI mode.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>After having mounted your installation partition to
<code>/mnt</code>, you must mount the <code>boot</code> partition
to <code>/mnt/boot</code>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You may want to look at the options starting with
<option>boot.loader.efi</option> and <option>boot.loader.systemd-boot</option>
as well.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>

122
nixos/doc/manual/installation/installing.xml
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@ -6,9 +6,18 @@
<title>Installing NixOS</title>
<para>NixOS can be installed on BIOS or UEFI systems. The procedure
for a UEFI installation is by and large the same as a BIOS installation. The differences are mentioned in the steps that follow.</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem><para>Boot from the CD.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Boot from the CD.</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>UEFI systems</term>
<listitem><para>You should boot the live CD in UEFI mode
(consult your specific hardware's documentation for instructions).
You may find the <link xlink:href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind">rEFInd boot
manager</link> useful.</para></listitem></varlistentry></variablelist></listitem>
<listitem><para>The CD contains a basic NixOS installation. (It
also contains Memtest86+, useful if you want to test new hardware).
@ -50,7 +59,31 @@
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>For partitioning:
<command>fdisk</command>.</para></listitem>
<command>fdisk</command>.
<screen>
# fdisk /dev/sda # <lineannotation>(or whatever device you want to install on)</lineannotation>
-- for UEFI systems only
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /boot)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 3)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +512M # <lineannotation>(the size of the UEFI boot partition)</lineannotation>
> t # <lineannotation>(change the partition type ...)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(... of the boot partition ...)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(... to 'UEFI System')</lineannotation>
-- for BIOS or UEFI systems
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /swap)</lineannotation>
> 2 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 2)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +8G # <lineannotation>(the size of the swap partition, set to whatever you like)</lineannotation>
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 1)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default and use the rest of the remaining space)</lineannotation>
> a # <lineannotation>(make the partition bootable)</lineannotation>
> x # <lineannotation>(enter expert mode)</lineannotation>
> f # <lineannotation>(fix up the partition ordering)</lineannotation>
> r # <lineannotation>(exit expert mode)</lineannotation>
> w # <lineannotation>(write the partition table to disk and exit)</lineannotation></screen></para></listitem>
<listitem><para>For initialising Ext4 partitions:
<command>mkfs.ext4</command>. It is recommended that you assign a
@ -67,7 +100,25 @@
<listitem><para>For creating swap partitions:
<command>mkswap</command>. Again it’s recommended to assign a
label to the swap partition: <option>-L
<replaceable>label</replaceable></option>.</para></listitem>
<replaceable>label</replaceable></option>. For example:
<screen>
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2</screen>
</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>UEFI systems</term>
<listitem><para>For creating boot partitions:
<command>mkfs.fat</command>. Again it’s recommended to assign a
label to the boot partition: <option>-L
<replaceable>label</replaceable></option>. For example:
<screen>
# mkfs.fat -F 32 -L boot /dev/sda3</screen>
</para></listitem></varlistentry></variablelist></listitem>
<listitem><para>For creating LVM volumes, the LVM commands, e.g.,
@ -95,11 +146,27 @@
</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>UEFI systems</term>
<listitem><para>Mount the boot file system on <filename>/mnt/boot</filename>, e.g.
<screen>
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot
</screen>
</para></listitem></varlistentry></variablelist></listitem>
<listitem><para>If your machine has a limited amount of memory, you
may want to activate swap devices now (<command>swapon
<replaceable>device</replaceable></command>). The installer (or
rather, the build actions that it may spawn) may need quite a bit of
RAM, depending on your configuration.</para></listitem>
RAM, depending on your configuration.
<screen>
# swapon /dev/sda2</screen>
</para></listitem>
<listitem>
@ -135,10 +202,25 @@
install Emacs by running <literal>nix-env -i
emacs</literal>.</para>
<para>You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>BIOS systems</term>
<listitem><para>You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<option>boot.loader.grub.device</option> to specify on which disk
the GRUB boot loader is to be installed. Without it, NixOS cannot
boot.</para>
boot.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>UEFI systems</term>
<listitem><para>You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<option>boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable</option> to <literal>true</literal>.
<command>nixos-generate-config</command> should do this automatically for new
configurations when booted in
UEFI mode.</para>
<para>You may want to look at the options starting with
<option>boot.loader.efi</option> and <option>boot.loader.systemd-boot</option>
as well.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>If there are other operating systems running on the machine before
installing NixOS, the
@ -247,10 +329,34 @@ drive (here <filename>/dev/sda</filename>). <xref linkend="ex-config"
<example xml:id='ex-install-sequence'><title>Commands for Installing NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename></title>
<screen>
# fdisk /dev/sda # <lineannotation>(or whatever device you want to install on)</lineannotation>
-- for UEFI systems only
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /boot)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 3)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +512M # <lineannotation>(the size of the UEFI boot partition)</lineannotation>
> t # <lineannotation>(change the partition type ...)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(... of the boot partition ...)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(... to 'UEFI System')</lineannotation>
-- for BIOS or UEFI systems
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /swap)</lineannotation>
> 2 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 2)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +8G # <lineannotation>(the size of the swap partition)</lineannotation>
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 1)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default and use the rest of the remaining space)</lineannotation>
> a # <lineannotation>(make the partition bootable)</lineannotation>
> x # <lineannotation>(enter expert mode)</lineannotation>
> f # <lineannotation>(fix up the partition ordering)</lineannotation>
> r # <lineannotation>(exit expert mode)</lineannotation>
> w # <lineannotation>(write the partition table to disk and exit)</lineannotation>
# mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2
# mkfs.fat -F 32 -L boot /dev/sda3 # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
# nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
# nixos-install
@ -267,7 +373,8 @@ drive (here <filename>/dev/sda</filename>). <xref linkend="ex-config"
./hardware-configuration.nix
];
boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda";
boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda"; # <lineannotation>(for BIOS systems only)</lineannotation>
boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true; # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
# Note: setting fileSystems is generally not
# necessary, since nixos-generate-config figures them out
@ -279,7 +386,6 @@ drive (here <filename>/dev/sda</filename>). <xref linkend="ex-config"
}</screen>
</example>
<xi:include href="installing-uefi.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-usb.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-pxe.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-virtualbox-guest.xml" />

2
nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-1404.xml
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@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ the following highlights:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Installation on UEFI systems is now supported. See
<xref linkend="sec-uefi-installation"/> for
<xref linkend="sec-installation"/> for
details.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Systemd has been updated to version 212, which has