Hi Folks,
I've just acquired a 2nd-hand laptop which has Win98 installed in a single 6GB partition (the entire HDD).
Since this software is not entirely useless (rumours to the contrary notwithstanding) I intend to keep this on say 2GB, making the remaining 4GB over to something really useful (Linux of course). So I shall be fips-ing the partition down to 2GB and then setting up Linux partitions on the remainder. This, as far as it goes, I know how to do.
However, a couple of issues concern me and I'd welcome informed advice from people who've been there before.
1. At present, it seems that the Win98 is set up to look after Virtual Memory (aka swap space) in its own way ("Dear user, please don't get involved in anything as difficult as this ... just leave it to us"). I seem to recall that Windows uses some sort of "hidden file" for swapping out.
Qs: Will I be treading on any toes on this front by cutting back the disk space to the first 2GB in this way? Or will Win98, next time it starts up, simply do its usual swap thing in the space it then finds available? If there would be problems, what should be done to avoid them?
2. I want to keep the power-management ("go to sleep" on inactivity timeout or on pressing the "snooze" button on the machine) available in both Win98 and Linux.
Q: I believe that one of the options is "hibernate to disk", where the system state is saved somewhere on the HDD. This is a similar issue to number 1: what toes would I be treading on?
Q: There is also a converse issue: If I fail to set up the Linux partitions properly, and the laptop writes its system state out to disk when it wants to sleep, could this overwrite something that shouldn't be overwritten? Again, if there could be problems, what should be done to avoid them?
With thanks, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 13-Sep-03 Time: 10:16:59 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
I've just acquired a 2nd-hand laptop which has Win98 installed in a single 6GB partition (the entire HDD).
THe make and model would help answer a few of these questions
- At present, it seems that the Win98 is set up to look after Virtual
Memory (aka swap space) in its own way ("Dear user, please don't get involved in anything as difficult as this ... just leave it to us"). I seem to recall that Windows uses some sort of "hidden file" for swapping out.
Qs: Will I be treading on any toes on this front by cutting back the disk space to the first 2GB in this way? Or will Win98, next time it starts up, simply do its usual swap thing in the space it then finds available? If there would be problems, what should be done to avoid them?
No, Win9x swaps to a file called c:\windows\win386.swp and will size that to the avaliable disk space, I would also recommend a full wide and reinstall so as to remove any "fetures" that windows devoled under the previous owner
- I want to keep the power-management ("go to sleep" on inactivity
timeout or on pressing the "snooze" button on the machine) available in both Win98 and Linux.
Q: I believe that one of the options is "hibernate to disk", where the system state is saved somewhere on the HDD. This is a similar issue to number 1: what toes would I be treading on?
We much depends on the make of the laptop. IBM's (which I have used for a while) just use a hidden file in a fat32 partition to supend too, where as Toshs suspend to a hidden partition.
Q: There is also a converse issue: If I fail to set up the Linux partitions properly, and the laptop writes its system state out to disk when it wants to sleep, could this overwrite something that shouldn't be overwritten? Again, if there could be problems, what should be done to avoid them?
Yes they can do this, the place to look is google and or linux on laptops (http://www.linux-laptop.net/)
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 10:16:59 +0100 (BST) (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Qs: Will I be treading on any toes on this front by cutting back the disk space to the first 2GB in this way? Or will Win98, next time it starts up, simply do its usual swap thing in the space it then finds available? If there would be problems, what should be done to avoid them?
A few years ago I found that repartitioning windows led to no nasty surprises though this was a desktop installation. I did it with partition magic though think you should look at parted as I have heard that its a good tool, although do NOT resize a partition when its mounted.
from man
parted is a disk partitioning and partition resizing program. It allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy ext2, ext3, linux- swap, FAT and FAT32 partitions. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks.
Q: I believe that one of the options is "hibernate to disk", where the system state is saved somewhere on the HDD. This is a similar issue to number 1: what toes would I be treading on?
You may find a swap to hibernate partition, this is what I found on Windows 2000 on a work laptop. Fdisk was a little misleading in this area. I cant remember the details.
Q: There is also a converse issue: If I fail to set up the Linux partitions properly, and the laptop writes its system state out to disk when it wants to sleep, could this overwrite something that shouldn't be overwritten? Again, if there could be problems, what should be done to avoid them?
I didnt find this a problem, I just broke Windows.
I strongly recommend getting 6GB of disk space somewhere and using dd to copy the original disk.
I have used
ssh remote.machine dd if=/dev/hda | dd of=backupfile.image
for similar purposes in the past. I use a knoppix CD as a rescue system. (it has ssh unlike toms root and boot)
regards
Owen
Qs: Will I be treading on any toes on this front by cutting back the disk space to the first 2GB in this way? Or will Win98, next time it starts up, simply do its usual swap thing in the space it then finds available? If there would be problems, what should be done to avoid them? <<<<
Far as I know, both swap and hibernate use regular files and shouldn't be affected. It's possible the system was set up to have a separate hibernate partition, but then you'll see that during the resize process.
-- GT
On Saturday 13 September 2003 09:29, Graham Trott wrote:
Qs: Will I be treading on any toes on this front by cutting back the disk space to the first 2GB in this way? Or will Win98, next time it starts up, simply do its usual swap thing in the space it then finds available? If there would be problems, what should be done to avoid them? <<<<
Far as I know, both swap and hibernate use regular files and shouldn't be affected. It's possible the system was set up to have a separate hibernate partition, but then you'll see that during the resize process.
Has anyone tried the software suspend kernel patch on a desktop (http://sourceforge.net/projects/swsusp/). I've been meaning to tinker with it for a while but haven't gotten round to it yet.
(BTW, this should help with the laptop if it can't go into suspend mode any other way)
BenE
On 2003-09-14 00:02:36 +0100 BenEBoy mail@psychoferret.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
Has anyone tried the software suspend kernel patch on a desktop
Yes. It worked well for a time, but then I upgraded to ext3 and it corrupted a disk. This was some time ago and I believe they have fixed it, but I've not recompiled recently. It will probably be a patch I try again next time I compile a kernel. Probably not too long to wait, as I need to build a working 2.4 kernel for the laptop (still using 2.2 on there).
-
BenEBoy -
Graham Trott -
MJ Ray -
owen.churchcowley -
Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk -
Tim Fletcher