Setting up disks manually

This material is work-in-progress ...

Do not follow instructions here until this notice is removed.
(Last edited by Ncopa on 5 Mar 2012.)

You may have complex needs that aren't handled automatically by the Alpine Setup Scripts. In those cases, you'll need to prepare your disks manually.

RAID

setup-disk will automatically build a RAID array if you supply the -r switch, or if you specify more than one device.

If you instead want to build your RAID array manually, see Setting up a software raid1 array. Then you can add additional layers of encryption and/or LVM, or just assemble the RAID array, and supply the /dev/mdi device directly to setup-disk. When you're finished, be sure to disassemble the RAID array before rebooting.

Encryption

See Setting up encrypted volumes with LUKS. Then you can add an additional layer of LVM, or just unlock the volume you've created (using cryptsetup luksOpen ...), and supply the /dev/mapper/something device directly to setup-disk. When you're finished, be sure to relock the volume (using cryptsetup luksClose ...) before rebooting.

LVM

setup-disk will automatically build and use volumes in a LVM group if you supply the -L switch.

If you instead want to build your LVM system manually, see Setting up Logical Volumes with LVM. Then vgchange -ay, format and mount your volumes, and supply the root mountpoint to setup-disk. When you're finished, be sure to

umount ... vgchange -an

before rebooting.

Dual-booting

See Install to HDD with dual-boot

Other needs

Setting up swap

create partition with type "linux swap" (82)
mkswap /dev/sda2
echo -e "/dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0" >> /mnt/etc/fstab
swapon /dev/sda2

Then

free

will show how much swap space is available.

If you prefer maximum speed, you don't need configure any raid devices for swap. Just add 2 swap partitions on different disks and linux will stripe them automatically. The downside is that at the moment one disk fails, the system will go down. For better reliability, put swap on raid1.