New installation of ubuntu 12.04.2 server edition will not boot from hard disk

[Liam Proven]

On 21 October 2013 21:02, Andrew <andy.allen at virgin.net> wrote:
> /dev/sda5 lvm2 37.01 GiB


That's a possible problem.

You don't need LVM on a desktop, I would argue, but if you do want it,
partition the whole drive with LVM, not just one (logical) partition
inside an extended partition.

Looking at this review (by a former colleague of mine, as it happens):
http://www.zdnet.com/dell-dimension-4300-3010000047/

... The 40GB drive you are using is the machine's original drive. That
is a 12Y old PC, very low-spec by modern standards, and that's a very
small hard disk.

For such a small, low-spec PC, I think full Ubuntu is going to be a
bit too much for it, especially if it only has its original 256MB of
RAM. Ubuntu Server should fit but it will still struggle a little.

I would also advise that you just use a single disk partition - make
the whole drive sda1, formatted ext3 (you don't need ext4 on such a
small drive). After installation, do:

apt-get install swapspace -y

This configures the kernel to create a swap *file* in /var and it will
only use it if it needs the room.

If you don't want to do that, just go for 2 partitions: root and swap.
Make /dev/sda1 the root, and just leave 4x your physical RAM
unallocated at the end and make that your swap partition on /dev/sda5.

Well, that's how I'd do it, anyway. :¬)


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