D. McGarrett wrote:
This is a 64 Gig flash drive, which is supposed to work on Linux 2.6+, as well as most modern versions of Windows. Two questions:
I have a RAID 2 system on the Windows XP machine, with quite a bit of partition to spare, and a pretty fast CPU and a couple of MB of memory. If I could double boot Suse 11 without losing XP, how would I do that, in slow, plain English. (I didn't set up the RAID, but I know the fellow who did, (my son) and he would help.
Doug, Here is my attempt at a plain english answer. First, these are *suggestions* as I have never used large flash drives or RAID2 (whatever hamming code is.) What I would attempt to do is look at the disk with windows disk manager and determine if the disk size can be reduced to leave at least 10 gig of unpartitioned space. You may get by with less, but at a minimum for 11.0, I would want a 4 gig /, 500M swap, and 2 gig /home. (obviously you won't have room for storing video, etc..) If you can resize to create unpartitioned space, then attempt an install by loading the 11.0 DVD. I do NOT know how the installer will handle the flash disc versus a regular hard disk, but presuming it is recognized, and it recognizes your unpartitioned space as available for the install, then attempt the install. Just confirm in the partitioning menu that your windows partition will be preserved and that you are installing into the unpartitioned space. I don't know what the hell happens to the boot record or what that looks like in flash, but I presume it is just a boot record at the beginning of the flash drive. That is where what I would do next runs out. If the install works and grub is happy with a flash disc, then all should work. If your installing to empty space, then the worst that could happen is you have to clean up the unpartitioned space after a failed install. (that is qualified by -- if partition boundaries are respected on flash) Last thought, if you just want to be able to run linux on the machine, or if for some reason, the 64G flash drive presents problems for repartitioning the RAID2, then I would go to http://damnsmalllinux.org/ and download the 50M install version and run it from within windows. It's not openSuSE, but it is pretty damn cool for a 50M linux install.
Second Q: I have an older FRY's machine with SuSE 9.3, which, frankly, I would keep, if it wasn't unfriendly to my HP 22D0d printer, which also has a fairly large unused partition. If I want to keep the old partition and double-boot to SuSE 11, how? Same need for very simple instructions.
This one is easier. This isn't step by step, but it will point you in the right direction. (personally, as I have done on a number of 9.3 boxes, I would just move the whole box to 11.0 - But I sure did like 9.3) With 9.3, you probably have a /, /home, and /boot partitions. What you will want to do to maximize the space for the 11.0 install is to BACKUP your /home directory somewhere so that you can reinstall the data after you re-partition the /home partition to create room for the 11.0 install while preserving your 9.3 install. MAKE SURE YOU PRESERVE YOUR FILE PERMISSIONS when you backup /home. Use cp -a or rsync -a. Also save other useful info: In 9.3 as root do: fdisk -l > savedPartitionInfo df -h > savedDFinfo mount > savedMountInfo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst savedmenulst cp /etc/grub.conf savedgrubconf Save this to a floppy or another box so you have your partition, mount point and boot information for 9.3 to refer to. With /home safely backed up, throw the 11.0 install disk in and select 'new install', get to the partition screen, and select "Custom Partition Scheme". Yast will probably have proposed wiping out your 9.3 install completely. Erase Yast's proposed partition scheme, and then in "Other" (bottom right) I believe, choose re-read partition table. You should see all your partitions for 9.3 (If you don't, and can't find an option to have them shown -- ABORT YOUR INSTALL) and make note that Rankin's approach failed -- need to find someone smarter with better memory. If your 9.3 partitions are shown (since it is backed up) you will delete your /home partition and then repartition the space creating 3 partitions. For this example: AVAILABLE = Total disk space less the space for 9.3 / and /boot Out of the available space create 1 partition for 11.0 / (4g min [can be 2 if you're not loading much]). Then create 2 more partitions out of the remaining space for 9.3 /home and 11.0 /home (These will probably be /dev/sda7 /dev/sda8, and /dev/sda9 (or something like that depending on your original install Next for the 11.0 install, assign the space you just allocated to the appropriate mount points for 11.0 as follows: / - for the 11.0 root /home - for 11.0 home (you will be leaving the space allocated for 9.3 /home unassigned) Then CONFIRM that you are only formatting the space for 11.0 / and /home and 9.3 /home (MAKE SURE YOU ARE FORMATTING THE 9.3 /home AS Reiserfs). Nothing should be messing with 9.3 / or /boot. Then just proceed to install 11.0 as normal. Then to get your 9.3 home back when you boot 9.3 the next time, I would just mount the 9.3 / partition in 11.0 and edit the 9.3 /etc/fstab to mount the new 9.3 /home partition you created during the 11.0 install. To do this from 11.0 just do (as root): (replace the ? below with the number) md /mnt/root93 mount /dev/sda? /mnt/root93 Then use your favorite editor to edit /mnt/root93/etc/fstab and change the /home mount line. Also, if you have your 9.3 home data handy just install that back into the new 9.3 /home: md /mnt/home93 mount /dev/sda? /mnt/home93 Then restore the data - PRESERVING FILE PERMISSIONS Now (aside from the potential grub goof-ups) you should be able to simply boot 9.3 and have your data restored to home. Let this post circulate for a day or so to see if we can get more information to fill in the gaps or point out where I have messed something up. Good luck.
Finally, one more Q: If I format the flash with the XP file system, will Linux 9.3 be able to read and write it? I have a bunch of SuSE email on the Linux machine that I would like to save, if possible. The CD on that machine doesn't seem to work, at the moment, so I would save the files on the flash, and copy them to the XP. The Linux machine is formated in Reiser, which I have had no trouble with, but I would go to what I think is CDE3, if everybody thinks I should.
Doug, If I write stuff to my Kinston data traveler in XP, I can read it from linux without any problems. I don't know what CDE3 is though. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org