Proper partitioning

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Proper partitioning

by Jason Hsu, AA0II :: Rate this Message:

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What are the appropriate partitions for using Debian on a PowerPC?  So far, my partitioning experience has been limited to Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux on a PC.  Does a PowerPC require certain things that a PC does not?

What partitions are you using on your PowerPC?

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Re: Proper partitioning

by Wolfgang Pfeiffer :: Rate this Message:

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On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 10:10:12PM +0800, Jason Hsu wrote:
> What are the appropriate partitions for using Debian on a PowerPC?
> So far, my partitioning experience has been limited to Puppy Linux
> and Damn Small Linux on a PC.  Does a PowerPC require certain things
> that a PC does not?

Don't know what specific model you use, but IIRC, this page - earlier
I think it was hosted somewhere else - helped me a lot on 2 differnet
Powerbooks:

http://neugierig.org/content/tibook/ibook.html

>
> What partitions are you using on your PowerPC?

-----------------------------------------------
# /sbin/mac-fdisk -l /dev/hda
/dev/hda
        #                    type name                  length   base      ( size )  system
/dev/hda1     Apple_partition_map Apple                     63 @ 1         ( 31.5k)  Partition map
/dev/hda2         Apple_Bootstrap untitled                1954 @ 64        (977.0k)  NewWorld bootblock
/dev/hda3         Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root                58593751 @ 2018      ( 27.9G)  Linux native
/dev/hda4         Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap                 4296876 @ 308284932 (  2.0G)  Linux swap
/dev/hda5         Apple_UNIX_SVR2 home               249689163 @ 58595769  (119.1G)  Linux native

Block size=512, Number of Blocks=312581808
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
-----------------------------------------------

HTH

Best Regards
Wolfgang
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Re: Proper partitioning

by Chris "Bigguy" :: Rate this Message:

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Linux on a powerpc machine needs no partitions above and beyond what it needs on the Intel platform you're used to.

If however, your powerpc machine is a New World Apple (almost anything made since 1999) then the Apple platform needs two partitions more.  Fortunately, Debian sets this up for you automatically (and correctly) when the partitioner is run during installation.  They appear as the first two partitions on the disk; you don't even have to ask for them.

It is my practice to leave the first two partitions untouched.  The first is the Apple bit-map of disk use.  The second is the Open Firmware equivalent of the master boot record.  The third one I designate as "/".  

After that, I assign separate partitions as /usr, /var, /tmp, /home, and swap.  This is the classic posix way of doing things.  The installer offers you other options on how to do this.

If you're not yet prepared to set up your own partitioning scheme, the defaults the installer offers will work just fine.

All my best,  - Chris Reich; Rochester, New York
twittername: chrisreich


 
--- On Wed, 8/19/09, Jason Hsu <jhsu802701@...> wrote:

> From: Jason Hsu <jhsu802701@...>
> Subject: Proper partitioning
> To: debian-powerpc@...
> Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 10:10 AM
> What are the appropriate partitions
> for using Debian on a PowerPC?  So far, my partitioning
> experience has been limited to Puppy Linux and Damn Small
> Linux on a PC.  Does a PowerPC require certain things
> that a PC does not?
>
> What partitions are you using on your PowerPC?
>
> --
> Jason Hsu <jhsu802701@...>



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Re: Proper partitioning

by Rogério Brito :: Rate this Message:

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On Aug 19 2009, Jason Hsu wrote:
> What are the appropriate partitions for using Debian on a PowerPC?

What powerpc do you have in mind? The partitioning scheme differs
regarding the bootloader that you are using.

If you are using uBoot, then a simple partition scheme like the old PC
scheme "works for me". I'm not sure if there is any PowerPC that uses a
partitioning scheme like EFI (or, even, if it would make sense for the
platform).

If you are using a Mac based on PowerPC, you would employ essentially,
the route of creating:

* a first partition that describes the other partions (Apple calls this
  the "partition map");

* one (plain) HFS partition where OpenFirmware (the "BIOS" that Macs
  use) can load things from---this partition is usually very small
  (usually just 800KB of size).

* the other partitions that you would like to have (swap, root, usr, var
  etc).

On NewWorld PPC machines, the yaboot boot code is installed in the small
HFS partition (which OF is able to read from), when ybin is run.

IIRC, just using the standard fdisk for Macs gives you a way to erase
everything and create the first partition automatically (perhaps the i
option or something similar). The rest are just regular partitions.

I would be interested to know how other people are using GRUB2 with
NewWorld machines, as when I tried to install it, it complained
something about not knowing how to handle the graphical framebuffer and
I went back to the tried and trusted yaboot route.


Regards, Rogério Brito.

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http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org


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Re: Proper partitioning

by Geoff Levand :: Rate this Message:

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Hi,

On 08/19/2009 07:10 AM, Jason Hsu wrote:
> What are the appropriate partitions for using Debian on a PowerPC?  So far, my partitioning experience has been limited to Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux on a PC.  Does a PowerPC require certain things that a PC does not?
>
> What partitions are you using on your PowerPC?

For the PS3 game console, recent versions of the petitboot
bootloader can read ext2, ext3, and ext4, filesystems and
MSDOS and MAC partition tables, so at minimum you just need
an MSDOS partition table with two partitions, one swap, and
one ext[234].

-Geoff


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Re: Proper partitioning

by Wolfgang Pfeiffer :: Rate this Message:

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On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 01:40:31PM +0200, Wolfgang Pfeiffer wrote:

>
> >
> > What partitions are you using on your PowerPC?
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> # /sbin/mac-fdisk -l /dev/hda
> /dev/hda
>         #                    type name                  length   base      ( size )  system
> /dev/hda1     Apple_partition_map Apple                     63 @ 1         ( 31.5k)  Partition map
> /dev/hda2         Apple_Bootstrap untitled                1954 @ 64        (977.0k)  NewWorld bootblock
> /dev/hda3         Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root                58593751 @ 2018      ( 27.9G)  Linux native
> /dev/hda4         Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap                 4296876 @ 308284932 (  2.0G)  Linux swap
> /dev/hda5         Apple_UNIX_SVR2 home               249689163 @ 58595769  (119.1G)  Linux native
>
> Block size=512, Number of Blocks=312581808
> DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
> -----------------------------------------------
>

Forgot to say that the partitions above are those on a Powerbook5,8
...

Sorry
Wolfgang
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New World GNU/Linux first release

by Chris "Bigguy" :: Rate this Message:

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This is to announce the alpha01 release of New World GNU/Linux for PPC-based Apple Mac computers, based on Debian GNU/Linux.

New World GNU/Linux is characterized by an optimized kernel for the best desktop experience possible on Apple PPC computers built on Apples' New World platform.

The project url is newworldos.sourceforge.net

Testers, developers, and the merely curious are most welcome.

Chris Reich; Rochester, New York
twittername: chrisreich


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