[CentOS] disk partitioning: 6.0 install to harddrive using liveCD

Fri Sep 23 15:26:39 UTC 2011
Craig White <craig.white at ttiltd.com>

On Sep 22, 2011, at 7:14 AM, centos at trodman.com wrote:

> Greetings:
> 
> I'm planning to set up a test Centos 6.0 box (has CDROM, but no
> DVD) with these partions:
> 
>  /             10GB     ( no separate mount for /usr )
>  /tmp           1GB
>  /var          10GB
>  /boot        500MB
> 
> The centos mirrors I have seen do not provide the full distro on
> CD (this box has no DVD).  I'm used to having about 6 CD isos to work with.
> 
> The livecd install to hard drive works, but apparently does not
> support custom partitioning (correct me if I'm wrong). 
> 
> What do you suggest I do to get the partitioning I want?
> 
> I'm leaning towards: booting into single user mode, back up /var
> to tar file, delete /var, create a new partion for /var and /tmp,
> update /etc/fstab, mount /var and /tmp, restore /var from tar
> backup.  Is the best way?  I have no investment in the current
> install, so I can start from scratch.
----
I believe you are correct about live cd - it probably just does a wholesale copy from the CD onto the already partitioned hard drive so that provides no opportunity to partition.

Previous versions of CentOS used to offer CD series for installation but even if this is not the case (I'm too lazy to look) then you still have the option of doing the 'netinstall' version where you boot from a cd but anaconda & the packages are installed from a mirror or you can use the DVD image to burn to a 4Gb USB Flash drive (if your system can boot from USB disk).

Craig