experimenting with my 2014 macbook pro and several linux distros (xubuntu, mint, fedora)
So far I have 8 partitions:
- 1 EFI for grub,
- 1 hfs+ (Linux HFS+ ESP) for OCLP, I think,
- 1 apfs for the macOS 14 I cannot boot,
- 2 ext4 for xubuntu and mint
- 1 brfs for fedora (so it cannot be ext4?)
- 2 unallocated ones, because I deleted systems I don’t want.
I use gparted: the 2 unallocated sections are separated. Is this a problem?
How many partitions are too many for this machine? 247 GiB storage and 7.66 GiB memory.
After I’m done experimenting and keep the 2 to 3 operative systems I like, should I wipe the notebook, create the 2 to 3 partitions I’m going to need and reinstall? Or would it be better to simply delete the partitions I don’t want?
Don’t get me wrong, but please start using LVM volumes, ZFS volumes or BTRFS subvolumes instead of partitions. We’re not in 1995 anymore.
I know a lot of you come from a Windows background so you’re used to juggling partitions with all the hassle that entails, but if you put a bit of time towards learning LVM you’ll find that you can stretch and shrink volumes to your heart’s content.
You can do neat tricks with mirroring, stripping and other RAID levels, mix and match disks and more.
Thats not really possible here. All they do is install multiple distros in parallel.
The only 2 scenarios where I can see problems are: old distros that must have a boot partition or outdated installers that will not recognize LVM volumes.
Lvm could be the way to go. Start with the minimum amount of partitions (i.e. / and /boot and swap as lv, maybe efi as a real partition). Add additional lv later if/ when you need them. You can always re-size a partition and the wrapping lv when you want to re- distribute storage-space.
I never needed more than these partitions. But that is just my use case.
Edit: oh. Missed the Multi boot point. Forget what I wrote. :)
