Subject: Best way to partition a drive?

From: Mark Seaborn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 19:28:49 +0100 (BST)

I've just got a new hard disc plus ICS IDE interface, mainly so that I would
have enough space to install Linux (although the ICS interface doesn't seem
like such a good idea right now!).  What would be the best way to partition
it?

 1. Several Filecore partitions plus Linux partitions.  I'd like to have
    several smallish Filecore partitions to avoid LFAU wastage (I'll still
    be using about 2/3rds for RISC OS).  But this means playing the waiting
    game for PartMan to support the ICS partitioning scheme fully.

 2. One Filecore partition plus Linux partitions.  I've tried setting up the
    drive with just one partition and free space after that, but PartMan
    appears to still recognise it as an ICS-partitioned drive and won't add
    the Linux partitions properly (same for both 1.11 and alphas).  I tried
    formatting it with HForm instead, but it is still recognised as
    ICS-scheme (presumably HForm doesn't overwrite those identifying
    sectors).  I could use PartMan 1.11 if I had the source to recompile it
    to not recognise the disc as ICS-scheme.

 3. A Linux partition inside a Filecore partition (as in Matthew Wilcox's
    posting).  This would be my preference, but is it usable yet, and would
    it be much slower?  I don't mind helping to test it, anyway.  [As an
    aside, if Linux's Filecore support is read-only, how can it write to the
    ext2 file on the ADFS disc?  Or can it write to files as long as they
    don't change length?]

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-- 
         Mark Seaborn
  - [email-masked] - http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/mseaborn/ -
 
       ``Red squirrels... you don't see many of them since they
              became extinct'' -- Michael Aspel

unsubscribe: body of `unsubscribe linux-arm' to [email-masked]

---

From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 20:51:20 +0100 (BST)

>     game for PartMan to support the ICS partitioning scheme fully.

Try out the latest alpha PartMan - partition the disc using ICS's manager
for RiscOS partitions first (and leave some free space at the end).
Then try this version of PartMan.
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King       [email-masked]      --- ---
  | | | |  http://www.arm.uk.linux.org/~rmk/armlinux.html    /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |

---

From: Mark Seaborn <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 16:43:48 +0100 (BST)

In <URL:news:local.armlinux> on Fri 05 Jun, Russell King - ARM Linux Admin

> Mark Seaborn writes:
[snip]
> >     several smallish Filecore partitions to avoid LFAU wastage (I'll
> >     still be using about 2/3rds for RISC OS).  But this means playing
> >     the waiting game for PartMan to support the ICS partitioning scheme
> >     fully.
> 
> for RiscOS partitions first (and leave some free space at the end). Then
> try this version of PartMan.

Yes, I've tried this, with PartMan alpha 7.  I can create the Linux
partitions and save the partition table, but it won't initialise the
newly-created partitions.  That part isn't implemented, is it?

When I then boot Linux from floppy, it can't install anything to the new
partitions because they aren't initialised (I forget whether their partition
type numbers are set).  I get the option to run fdisk, but that can't
initialise the partitions (ICS ones, at least), because it's set to
no-write.

BTW, in PartMan's disc geometry window, the buffer size of the icon for the
number of cylinders isn't large enough to fit the number of cylinders this
hard disc has (which is ~13000).  (Although since PartMan manages to read
the disc's shape anyway, that's not affecting what I'm trying to do.)

            ``Oh I just can't wait to be king,'' said Macbeth.