Best place to control partition layout (leave extra space for a Windows 11 install)

[appleguy]

This is a beautiful project, and I am very grateful it exists! Thank you for the care and attention to detail you've invested in it.

Perhaps surprisingly, after browsing both the docs and the implementation for a bit, it wasn't obvious to me where to edit to control the partition layout. It seems like this could be used with only minimal adaptations to create an Ubuntu install that is ready for Windows 11 dual-boot to be installed afterwards.

I'm happy to make local changes for my use case, but if you would be so kind to direct me to the correct place, that would be great! A brief callout in the docs would seem to be helpful too.

[appleguy]

I was ultimately able to find the correct line, so apologies if this is noise! I'll leave this discussion open for now so you can decide if adding a config variable or a documentation note about this is worthwhile. Cheers!

ZFS-root/ZFS-root.sh

Line 756 in 4330dde

sgdisk -n ${PARTITION_DATA}:0:0 -c ${PARTITION_DATA}:"ZFS_${disk}" -t ${PARTITION_DATA}:BF00 /dev/disk/by-id/${zfsdisks[${disk}]}

[Halfwalker]

Thanks for the kind words, makes all the more worthwhile :)

The main partitions are created here
https://github.com/Halfwalker/ZFS-root/blob/master/ZFS-root.sh#L716-L758

with an example of the layout here
https://github.com/Halfwalker/ZFS-root/blob/master/ZFS-root.sh#L68-L72

For example, a local system here with a 60G boot disk looks like

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         2050047   1000.0 MiB  EF00  BOOT_EFI_0
   3         2050048       117231374   54.9 GiB    BF00  ZFS_0

I'll add a pointer in the README.md to a tag in the script

Adding an extra partition for Windows should be easy, and I think rEFInd should see and pick it up cleanly. Though be aware that Windows can do some weird things to the boot partitions when it updates.

[appleguy]

Awesome, thanks!!

BTW, there is a missing space before the " on this line that I think might break things, at least in some cases. I'm technically working right now so apologies for not just sending a PR, but this fixed the script for me! It has been a blast, definitely going to hold onto this one.

ZFS-root/ZFS-root.sh

Line 489 in 4330dde

noble"24.04 noble" ON \

[Halfwalker]

Good catch :) I use a .conf file all the time, so didn't see that one. Will push a commit up soon.

If you've played with packer and qemu have a look at the docs and configs. While it works fine, it feels really cumbersome, both the config setup and the wording in the docs.

[appleguy]

I may as well ask, since my goal has remained elusive - do you think most of the script would still work if it were changed to use existing partitions, created manually, with Windows 11 already installed?

I heard that in principal leaving the unallocated space at the end of the desk would work and windows would install afterwards, but it seems the installer is not cooperating with that installation order.

[Halfwalker]

Honestly I don't know - I haven't done a Winders install is So. Many. Years.

Possibly you could install Win11 and leave space, then adjust the script to use that space. You would have to adjust the partition numbers (PARTITION_xxxx variables). Maybe if you point PARTITION_BOOT at the boot partition that Windows creates so it can overwrite it, maybe ?

So Windows might create

• 1 - EFI
• 2 - Windows
• 3 - Recovery

You would have to be sure Windows didn't use the whole disk, so control the partition sizes. If possible make the EFI one larger, like 1G or so.

Then you point

• PARTITION_BOOT = 1
• PARTITION_DATA = 4

and let 'er rip ...

I don't know (and don't think) the Window loader can load Linux. But I'm almost positive that rEFInd can load Windows, so letting it install that to the Windows-created EFI partition 1 might work ?

[appleguy]

I will give it a try, thanks for your time offering this advice and sanity check! Yes, the bootloader can definitely handle windows, I’ve tried that successfully as it was able to find the windows install I have on a removable drive.