Partitioning problem.

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Partitioning problem.
started by: Zucca

Posted by Zucca on April 05 2006,22:18

Ok. A friend on mine wanted a computer. I managed to get 3 HDs, one CD-drive a 200Mhz P2 processor, 64Mb RAM and a 17" Compaq monitor.
Well. DSL was obvious choice.

Ok. I used cfdisk to partition all the HDs. I installed DSL (booted with 'install'). It asked if I wanted to use ext3 format (yes) and so on. System installed nicely... BUT! DSL changed (or used) all the other space that I had formatted (with cfdisk) to swap.
So I tried following:
$ swapoff -a
and then tried to mount any of the partitions. None worked. :angry:

Only solution I found working was to 'install' dsl to each partition I wanted to use as space. leaving only swap partitions untouched.
After that I formatted ($ rm -fr *) all the partitions I wanted to use. Somehow then... DSL doesn't use those partitions as swap. Istaller seems to format those partitions 'by the better way'...

Is it me who is stupid or did any of you have problems like this with old hardware?

Posted by axel on April 05 2006,23:58

What i have done is to install dsl on the hd and then create a swap space on /tmp with the following commands:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/swap bs=1024k count=64
mkswap /tmp/swap
swapon /tmp/swap

This creates a 64MB swap file in the /tmp directory. The last command has to be run at every boot so add it at /opt/bootsplash.sh.

Posted by lovdsl on April 06 2006,02:06

Maby it has something to do with ext3 file systems? I used ext2 and it used the swap file I set to swap with swap on and my other partition was mountable and dsl installed to the boot partition..I do not think you should have to install dsl to all the partitions..if swap was not on maby it searched for available swap on all the partitions..Sorry not much help.

Posted by Zucca on April 06 2006,07:49

I'll have to try all the methods sometime...

Now my problem is to change hda1's size without losing any data on it.
Any easy way to do that with DSL?

Posted by Zucca on April 06 2006,07:54

Quote

The last command has to be run at every boot so add it at /opt/bootsplash.sh

You meant /opt/bootlocal.sh?

Posted by axel on April 06 2006,09:35

Quote (Zucca @ April 06 2006,03:54)

Quote

The last command has to be run at every boot so add it at /opt/bootsplash.sh

You meant /opt/bootlocal.sh?

Oups, yes. Sorry.

Posted by teri on April 08 2006,19:22

hi ! I've noticed the same problem on my fresh installed dsl box - pentium/233 mhz - set the swap: no swap ..(although I've created a swap partition ) that means the desktop app show: swap used 0/0-% ... so I wonder what is the best way to set swap working on DSL ? would # mkfs.swap help ?

Posted by sheldonisaac on April 09 2006,00:13

Quote (teri @ April 08 2006,15:22)

Here's the relevant part of my bootlocal.sh (frugal, with Windows 98 on hda1)

Code Sample

mount -t vfat /dev/hdb5 /mnt/hdb5
mkswap /mnt/hdb5/win386.swp
swapon /mnt/hdb5/win386.swp

If you use a swap partition, rather than a swap file, it still needs mkswap and swapon, somewhere in the startup files?? Or maybe once it's set up in fstab, it's automatic?

Posted by Zucca on July 23 2006,19:36

I have to bring this topic up again...
When I create a swap partition with cfdisk DSL wont accept it.
Even after reboot. No.
I even tried mkswap and swapon -a. No again.

I managed to format my HD with Ubuntu Live CD. But It was behind hard work because I have only 700MHz machine with about 400 megs of ram...

So is it because of cfdisk or is it between keyboard and seat?

Posted by kerry on July 23 2006,20:21

Hey zucca, Grab a copy of gparted live cd, it's the best tool to setup/resize partions. I always bring a copy with me when working on a computer.-> < http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php >

Posted by Zucca on July 24 2006,14:41

How much I requires ram? Because to format all the HDs, you need to disable swap... ;)

Posted by brianw on July 25 2006,15:33

Quote (Zucca @ July 24 2006,10:41)

How much I requires ram? Because to format all the HDs, you need to disable swap... ;)

Why would you have to disable swap to format?

When you boot from livecd you would run cfdisk to set your partitions
Partitions with 83 are linux and partitions with 82 are swap
once the partitions are setup (here is an example of a setup):
/dev/hda1 type 83 size 1gig
/dev/hda2 type 83 size 2 gig
/dev/hda3 type 82 size 400M

you would run:
sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda1
sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda2
sudo mkswap /dev/hda3

dslinstall
(perform whatever install type you want on the partition you want)

if you install frugal you would need to edit /opt/bootlocal.sh or type the following command after restarting to the HD. (regular HD install finds the swap automatically and I think the livecd does as well so I am not sure why the frugal would not find the swap and use it)

sudo echo "swapon /dev/hda3" >> /opt/bootlocal.sh

You would then need to do the backup procedure and the restore boot option (not exactly sure of these procedures because I have a regular HD install) to keep your bootlocal.sh changes.

This should do it. Remember that you would need to replace all the /dev/hd?? with your setup and the -t ext3 with ext2 if you want ext2 partitions.

Posted by Zucca on July 25 2006,16:40

Well...
Try to fromat hd that has swap partition in use...
If you succeed and there is (was) some swap used... system would go nuts when trying to access those memory addresses that were on swap partition..

Posted by brianw on July 25 2006,22:03

Quote (Zucca @ July 25 2006,12:40)

But you said you could not get swap to work.

And if you are using swap while partitioning and formatting then your ram is defective so you are in trouble anyway, just install DOS and run in 640K.

Boot the livecd with noswap.

Posted by Zucca on July 26 2006,14:36

Just because if it happens that I have already made swap partition.

If I recall right qparted live-CD has gnome WM. It may 'eat' some RAM indeed.

Posted by brianw on July 26 2006,23:52

In the documentation for gparted there is a deactivate button when changing the swap partition. So this functionality is already built in.

You could also open a terminal and run:

sudo swapoff -a

This would only be required if you are going to use another liveCD (i.e DSL) to do the partitioning. You can also do this with the gparted liveCD or just use the interface to turn swap off.

Once you bring the liveCD up you will have a better picture of what is going on with your system. Also the online docs for gparted liveCD are pretty descriptive.

Also the gparted liveCD is only 30Mb and I think you said you have 400M ram so you should have no problem with swap. Just use the deactivate when you do it.

Posted by Zucca on July 27 2006,06:50

Ok.

Quote

you would run:
sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda1
sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda2
sudo mkswap /dev/hda3

First I'll try those with DSL.
If that won't work then I'll burn Qparted LiveCD. =)

Posted by Zucca on Aug. 03 2006,06:12

I was wondering if there's any partitioning utilities in DSL extensions?

Posted by brianw on Aug. 04 2006,00:07

There is a parted.dsl in the Applications section. It seems to be similar in look to cfdisk or fdisk but with more capabilities.