Re: Drive Setup (was Multi-boot)

Re: Drive Setup (was Multi-boot)

[Iain Sandoe]

On Fri, 07 Jul 2000 Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> Iain Sandoe wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 7, 2000 Ethan Benson  wrote:
> [snip]
>> >
>> > every time i tested it the following occured:
>> >
>> > * drive setup crashed
>> > * the partition tables were corrupt.
>> >
>> > its just good policy to use the native fdisk to create an OS'es
>> > partitions, on intel we must use DOS fdisk to create DOS/Win*
>> > partitions and linux fdisk for linux partitions, same with OpenBSD,
>> > FreeBSD etc.  powerpc is no different.
>
> [snip]
>
>>
>> Someone should tell Apple if there's a problem - they seem to be willing to
>> support (at least) the existence of Linux & other OSs - unlike certain other
>> companie$
>
> I have never had Drive Setup crash on me, not even once. To try to
> settle this question (not about stability, but about whether it produces
> Linux-acceptable partition maps), I've just used Drive Setup's
> unmodified "Preferred LinuxPPC" setting to partition a disk. The Mac OS
> is currently installing, and I expect no problems when I install Linux
> in 5 minutes.

I'm also going to try it when I get round to the G4 multi-boot install ;-)
Still doing dmasound backport...

will report back.

> The only complaint I have with Drive Setup is that it insists on erasing
> all partitions on the drive any time you want to make partition changes.
> Even newbies wondrously appreciating the beautiful Mac OS widgets in
> their partitioning utility will not want to reformat their entire hard
> disk.

Yes, we really need a MacOS "Partition Magic" or equivalent.  I wonder if
anyone on the list knows how to do it ;-)

Iain.

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Multi-boot advice.

[Iain Sandoe]

On Fri, Jul 7, 2000 Ethan Benson  wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 07, 2000 at 07:52:10AM +0100, Iain Sandoe wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 7, 2000 Ethan Benson wrote:
>> > On Thu, Jul 06, 2000 at 09:38:38AM +0100, Iain Sandoe wrote:
>> >> Yea Hey first to Apple Drive setup (which at least these days will allow
>> >> most stuff to be set up) - and then to pdisk - to check it out.
>> >
>> > just don't create any linux partitions with apples drive setup, it
>> > won't work.  instead add up the sizes of all the planned linux
>> > parittions and create a placeholder HFS partition with apple drive
>> > setup, then delete it with pdisk and populate the freed space with the
>> > linux and bootstrap partitions.
>>
>> This is interesting.  I've seen (several times) the comment that the Apple
>> Drive Setup tool doesn't work for Linux.
>>
>> However, it certainly did for me (on the Lombard & on a 9600/233)... under
>> what circumstances does it fail?
>
> every time i tested it the following occured:
>
> * drive setup crashed
> * the partition tables were corrupt.
>
> its just good policy to use the native fdisk to create an OS'es
> partitions, on intel we must use DOS fdisk to create DOS/Win*
> partitions and linux fdisk for linux partitions, same with OpenBSD,
> FreeBSD etc.  powerpc is no different.

This is OK for the people on this list.  We are happy with text-only command
line interfaces (hell, I once wrote an entire app in assembler... but I
wouldn't want to do that ever again.)

However, if we want Linux to be extended to a wider audience the kind of
intuitive set up tool (like drive set-up) is going to be essential.

Someone should tell Apple if there's a problem - they seem to be willing to
support (at least) the existence of Linux & other OSs - unlike certain other
companie$

Iain.

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Drive Setup (was Multi-boot)

[Hollis Blanchard]

Iain Sandoe wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 7, 2000 Ethan Benson  wrote:
[snip]
> >
> > every time i tested it the following occured:
> >
> > * drive setup crashed
> > * the partition tables were corrupt.
> >
> > its just good policy to use the native fdisk to create an OS'es
> > partitions, on intel we must use DOS fdisk to create DOS/Win*
> > partitions and linux fdisk for linux partitions, same with OpenBSD,
> > FreeBSD etc.  powerpc is no different.

[snip]

>
> Someone should tell Apple if there's a problem - they seem to be willing to
> support (at least) the existence of Linux & other OSs - unlike certain other
> companie$

I have never had Drive Setup crash on me, not even once. To try to
settle this question (not about stability, but about whether it produces
Linux-acceptable partition maps), I've just used Drive Setup's
unmodified "Preferred LinuxPPC" setting to partition a disk. The Mac OS
is currently installing, and I expect no problems when I install Linux
in 5 minutes.

The only complaint I have with Drive Setup is that it insists on erasing
all partitions on the drive any time you want to make partition changes.
Even newbies wondrously appreciating the beautiful Mac OS widgets in
their partitioning utility will not want to reformat their entire hard
disk.

-Hollis

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/