Linux distributions

If you have used a LIVE image to install, you can boot from your DVD once again, select "Try Fedora" (you have to click twice because of a bug).

If you have a non-qwerty keyboard, you have to find the settings and change the keyboard.

Then you can open a terminal (from the menu hidden by "Activities", or ALT-F2 and type "gnome-terminal"), and type this command and see what it reveals:

sudo parted -l

With the disk configuration on automatic, I had something like this, note the boot partition in 1. It needs at least 512 MB for the boot, here it chose 1 GB although it was not necessary.

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1075MB 1074MB primary ext4 boot
2 1075MB 42.9GB 41.9GB primary btrfs

That's where I realize that by default, it uses btrfs too

If you don't have this boot partition, you can still reduce your main partition's size and create it since it's just been installed, but it's probably easier to restart the installation at this point.

PS: booting from an USB requires to authorize it in the BIOS. And if you are creating the USB from Windows, you can try Rufus, which works with simple images like Fedora's (won't work with Manjaro and some others).

EDIT: If you selected an automatic setup, it's strange that you have a problem. We probably need to investigate that first.

Generally speaking, creating the partitions manually isn't a bad idea, and it's easy with the installer.

I've tried it a few days ago. Without messing with LVM, it's really straightforward,
in Installation Destination,

• you can choose from Automatic / Custom / Advanced custom. Either of the two custom is fine
• click "Done" (the buttons are really badly positioned, they're all over the place)
• delete your partitions with the cross (select each non-free partition, and click on the delete icon, just on the right of the + button)
• add one 512-MB boot partition (select the SSD, click on free space, then +, then fill in the panel)
• add the other partitions you need (*)
• click "Done", it should tell if you if something's missing or wrong

(*) I usually create a swap partition, you only have 4 GB of memory so it depends what you do with it, but 4 or 8 GB of swap should be fine. And I usually create a separate partition for the users' home directory. You could use your SSD for the OS and your HD for the users, so

• 512 MB on your SSD, filesystem = BIOS Boot
• 4 or 8 GB on your SSD, filesystem = SWAP
• the rest of the SSD, filesystem = ext4, mount point = /
• the HD, filesystem = ext4, mount point = /home

I'm a firm believer that creating swap on a SSD is a mistake if that disk is also your boot disk. Also I'm not sure if LVM supports trim; but even if it does if your system unexpectedly swaps a lot you could add a lot of wear to your ssd. I would either use a scratch ssd for swap (and use a file system that suppor trim).

It's nice to see interest in Linux growing around here. It used to be mostly tumbleweeds or snark when it was mentioned.

Originally Posted by notdart
I'm a firm believer that creating swap on a SSD is a mistake if that disk is also your boot disk. Also I'm not sure if LVM supports trim; but even if it does if your system unexpectedly swaps a lot you could add a lot of wear to your ssd. I would either use a scratch ssd for swap (and use a file system that suppor trim).

Maybe, maybe not.

My thoughts were that the boot doesn't contain valuable data, nor the OS, so I'd rather see that going down than the user's data, even if the cost of an SSD is still a bit higher than an HD. So the idea was using components for what they're good at, keeping the OS on a faster support with no random access penalty, and which can be much smaller than the HD and yet contain all the OS files, and keeping a good-sized but slower HD for the user's data.

Besides, I may be wrong but I think that swapping on an HD can be much more damaging than on an SSD, which automatically distributes the wear on its content and has no mechanical parts. If there is so much swap as to be a real issue though, it means there's another problem and the user would notice the slowdown.

It could depend on how the PC is used, of course.

Originally Posted by pibbuR
It is said that many of us just read the first and last letters of a word before interpreting it. Which in this case might l..d to s..e … misunderstandings.'

pibbuR who didn't (he thinks) misinterprete this one, but who regularly makes similar mistakes when reading keywords in crossword puzzles. ><which, no surprise, makes them harder to solve than intended.

PS. One trivial example, not worth mentioning, but of course I do it anyway. Keyword: "figur" ("figure"), which I read as "fugler" ("birds"). Took me some time to get around this one. DS

PPS: @Redglyph: Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't got around to working on it yet. DS.

It was really only about the hard disk, since size matters in this case.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
It was really only about the hard disk, since size matters in this case.

Stupid post (my post), so I deleted it.

But thanks for the advice (the sole part of my post that was not stupid).