On Thursday 06 February 2003 06:04, you wrote:

Dear Michael, the only time I did not get to a partitioning option was when the BIOS anti-viral option was set to prevent to MBR being over written.

I'm sure I *WOULD* have eventually reached a partitioning option (I did on my main machine), but the process was intercepted by the "you need to activate swap space" before I got there. -- Satterwhite's Observation #2: In any situation in which theory conflicts with reality, reality wins every time.

On Thursday 06 March 2003 05:31, Emcek wrote:

you should have on the CD the folder /dosutils/... where you can find some tools (e.g.fips) to partition disk BEFORE you start installation. Also you can ask you friend for bootable DOS floppy disk with fdisk installed and just run Bill Gates's product.

It can't be done by Linux? Interesting. I guess we *DO* need Windows. <g> What about the need to run swapon? That can't be done by Dos. -- Satterwhite's Observation #2: In any situation in which theory conflicts with reality, reality wins every time.

On Thursday 06 March 2003 12:53, Dave Smith wrote:

I would be surprised if you can't get to some stage where you can partition the disk. Perhaps this is a missing feature in the installation process. Have you tried the 'manual' or 'text-only' version of the installation?

this is true when you try to install on very old computer eg. with SIMM RAM less than 96MB and this kind of memory chips is now difficult to increase. I've got the same problem installing SuSE on 40MB RAM router. -- Emcek emcek@poczta.onet.pl --------------r-e-k-l-a-m-a----------------- Szukasz banku bez prowizji ? mBank - zaloz konto http://epieniadze.onet.pl/mbank

On Thursday 06 March 2003 12:41, Michael Satterwhite wrote:

It can't be done by Linux? Interesting. I guess we *DO* need Windows. <g>

You will eventually use DOS not Windows. There are some freeware DOS versions available.

What about the need to run swapon? That can't be done by Dos.

I personally use Partition Magic (rescue mode on 2 floppies) to create Linux partitions (incl. swap) if I could not use that that comes with distro. The limit is the RAM and it should be minimum 96MB. You can install temporary extra memory chips to increase capacity during installation. Also the third option is to use mini (or rather) micro distribution of Linux where fdisk is available. -- Emcek emcek@poczta.onet.pl --------------r-e-k-l-a-m-a----------------- Szukasz banku bez prowizji ? mBank - zaloz konto http://epieniadze.onet.pl/mbank

On Thursday 06 March 2003 06:04, Linux World 999 wrote:

If you have windows and fat32 installed, defragment the hard disk. Obtain a utility called "Ranish" (availbale from www.download.com). Boot from a floppy disk and start up Ranish. The front end menu can be used to partition and format the hard disk easily.

On a fat32 file system, the parition can be split to install Linux. Any important files should be backed up in case this operation causes boot failure and software has to be reinstalled again.

The utility is good and is freeware. Cannot do without it.

I'll certainly download it. This laptop is going to be Linux only.

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-- Satterwhite's Observation #2: In any situation in which theory conflicts with reality, reality wins every time.

Pardon my ignorance (haven't been following the thread too closely) but why can't you partition the disk with the Linux fdisk? You can make the necessary partitions and change the type. To make the swap space, you can use mkswap. I do not know the particulars but I have used the above without issues. Just a thought. Maybe some kind soul will tell me why the original poster cannot do this? -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, We just do not have all the anwsers to make the impossible, possible."

On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 08:42, Dave Smith wrote:

On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 08:40:44AM -0500, heartley@earthlink.net wrote:

...

Pardon my ignorance (haven't been following the thread too closely) but why can't you partition the disk with the Linux fdisk? You can make the necessary partitions and change the type. To make the swap space, you can use mkswap. I do not know the particulars but I have used the above without issues. Just a thought. Maybe some kind soul will tell me why the original poster cannot do this?

The problem was that they couldn't get to a prompt from the installation disk menu.

I think that just switching to another VC should allow you to fdisk it manually.

-- David Smith Work Email: Dave.Smith@st.com STMicroelectronics Home Email: David.Smith@ds-electronics.co.uk Bristol, England GPG Key: 0xF13192F2

This is one of the reasons that the "rescue mode" on the boot media is there. This gives you a prompt that you can work from (after loading any required modules for your hardware). Ken Schneider

On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 08:58, Michael Satterwhite wrote:

On Thursday 06 March 2003 07:40, Marshall Heartley wrote:

...

Pardon my ignorance (haven't been following the thread too closely) but why can't you partition the disk with the Linux fdisk?

Actually, that's what I want to do. The problem is that the SUSE boot disks won't let me get to a prompt where I can do it. Have you tried to use a rescue disk? Or the rescue option from the CD's? -- Marshall

"Nothing is impossible, We just do not have all the anwsers to make the impossible, possible."

Yes and yes. Can't get to fdisk What if any are the errors that you are getting? -- Marshall

"Nothing is impossible, We just do not have all the anwsers to make the impossible, possible."

"Michael Satterwhite" [6 Mar 2003 14:30:24]:

the load that it's at, I can't really do *ANYTHING*. fdisk simply wasn't available in any share that I looked at.

If it's an 8.1, try to use parted, that's available. Philipp -- Philipp Thomas work: pthomas@suse.de Development SuSE Linux AG private: pth@t-link.de

Marshall Heartley wrote:

...

There aren't any errors. It simply stops telling me that I need to activate swap space. I tried switching to another virtual console (it was a good suggestion, BTW), but at the point in the load that it's at, I can't really do *ANYTHING*. fdisk simply wasn't available in any share that I looked at.

Ouch! I cannot believe that you are having such issues. You must have a very small amount of RAM. That is why you do not have fdisk when you look. The ramdisk did not load. There is a distro that will fit on a floppy called tomsrtbt and you can read about it and download it here http://www.toms.net/rb/ Maybe this one will start and allow you to partition your disk. If you cannot use this, then unfortunatly, I have run out of ideas :(

And, being fair, the machine I'm trying to install on does not meet SUSE's minimum hardware. I finally did manage to partition last night using PartitionMagic. I *DO* think SUSE (and for that matter all distros) should have some means of having some minimum Linux just to run disk utilities - we all know that's possible. I can't call the absense of it a bug, just a deficiency. It bothers me when the fix is to "use Dos" as that is a basic statement that there is a limitation in Linux. And, of course, M$ is making it harder and harder to create a Dos disk - at least from their systems. Thanks to all for your help and suggestions! ---Michael

Michael Satterwhite [Fri, 07 Mar 2003 06:27:15]:

I *DO* think SUSE (and for that matter all distros) should have some means of having some minimum Linux just to run disk utilities - we all know that's possible.

Pray tell me what you think the rescue system on the CDs is there for. Philipp -- Philipp Thomas work: pthomas@suse.de Development SuSE Linux AG private: pth@t-link.de

i'm doing exactly that as we speak...p2-350, 64 meg, 6.4 gig... booting from a floppy do f2 (text mode)> "inert modules 1"> kernel boots... "make sure cd1 is in"> enter> "could not find cd, activating manual setup..."> enter> language> enter> keyboard map> enter> start installation/system> enter> start rescue system> enter> floppy> enter> insert (rescue) disc> enter> remove disc> enter> Please press enter to activate this console> enter> # caveats: this is the only way i can find to get to fdisk to create a swap partiiton when installing 8.1 on a machine via ftp with not much ram (last night was a p133 w/ 32 meg, tonight it's a p2-350 w/ 64 meg)...you must run mkswap /dev/xxx after you create the partition (from the same prompt), then when you reboot to do the ftp install you can then activate that swap...cool! sorry, kinda went off on a tangent there... cliff -----Original Message----- From: Michael Satterwhite [mailto:satterwh@weblore.com] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 6:16 PM To: SUSE Subject: Re: [SLE] Partitioning Philipp Thomas wrote:

Michael Satterwhite [Fri, 07 Mar 2003 06:27:15]:

...

I *DO* think SUSE (and for that matter all distros) should have some means of having some minimum Linux just to run disk utilities - we all know that's possible.

Pray tell me what you think the rescue system on the CDs is there for.

Actually, I know it's there for this, but the disk as released by SUSE wouldn't let me get to that point. It doesn't just load the kernel and give a console prompt. FWIW: I downloaded and worked with the Debian disks and was able to do what I get to the fdisk program. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

----- Original Message ----- From: "Carlos E. R." To: "SUSE" Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 8:01 AM Subject: Re: [SLE] Partitioning

The 03.03.06 at 04:44, Michael Satterwhite wrote:

...

How do I get a prompt where I can do as it asks?

Go to "start rescue system". You can not boot from the CD, you said, but I assume you can read from it, once booted from the install floppy.

I tried that. It stops short of letting me get to a prompt where I could do anything with it