Installed Linux on an SSD

I have it up and running for some weeks now, I took the most simple approach possible described here: just create one partition on the SSD (I still have Grub on my HD) using

sudo fdisk -H 32 -S 32 /dev/sdg (choose first cylinder as 2, end cylinder as the default one)
sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -E stripe-width=128 /dev/sdg1

when booting Kubuntu 10.10 from installation CD, then install from there.

No need to do any aligning calculations whatsoever. I even have /home, /tmp and /var on the SSD. There is quite some write activity in those directories, but then SSDs get cheaper and cheaper …

All that is left to do after installation is:

• sudo apt-get install sysfsutils
• sudo nano /etc/sysfs.conf
• add the line block/sdf/queue/scheduler = noop at the end
• sudo nano /etc/fstab
• change the options for / to noatime,discard,data=ordered,errors=remount-ro

System performing abolutely great now!

Installing Linux on an SSD

I've got myself an OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB for Christmas :-)

I'll document the process of how to configure, format and install Kubuntu 10.10 here. I've waited until this release, as starting from 2.6.33 Linux Kernel has built in TRIM support making best use of SSDs. I'll try to come up with the best setup for

• installing Linux as single OS, so no dual booting
• no RAID or LVM setup
• keeping /home and /var on my existing HDD as these will be written to rather frequently

I'll make use of knowledge gained by filesystem developer Ted Ts'o and some other blogger regarding alignment considerations, the excellent Ubunti Wiki SSD checklist and the detailed blog entry on Aligning an SSD on Linux by Markus Ewald.

Now the fun can start …