Re: [9fans] non-standard installs

Re: [9fans] non-standard installs

[forsyth]

>>I found (repeatedly) that trying to put Plan 9 into a clean
>>secondary partition corrupted the size of the enclosing primary
>>partition. I was able to put it back, but thankfully the whole 40Gb

i don't understand how it got that far.  it normally refuses to
install into anything other than unused space not claimed by anything else,
that is space not in any partition, and
certainly not space inside another partition.  (i didn't know it was
even possible to set such a configuration on a PC using Windows fdisk
or partdisk [or is it diskpart?].)

Re: [9fans] non-standard installs

[Martin C.Atkins]

On Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:36:35 0000 forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> >>I found (repeatedly) that trying to put Plan 9 into a clean
> >>secondary partition corrupted the size of the enclosing primary
> >>partition. I was able to put it back, but thankfully the whole 40Gb
> 
> i don't understand how it got that far.  it normally refuses to
> install into anything other than unused space not claimed by anything else,
> that is space not in any partition, and
> certainly not space inside another partition.  (i didn't know it was
> even possible to set such a configuration on a PC using Windows fdisk
> or partdisk [or is it diskpart?].)
> 

Oh dear, it's a couple of weeks ago now, and I'm not sure I can remember
very reliably. I *think* what I did was to chose a suitable, existing, empty,
secondary partition, and delete it to make the space to be found by
the installer. I had Linux installed in another partition, so I wasn't
limited to dos/windows fdisk (that's how I was able to put the partition
table back together again... Well beyond dos's fdisk! :-)

Your (Vita Nuova's) instructions, and what I saw in the output from partdisk (i.e.
partitions called "pN", and "sN"), suggested to me that partdisk should
understand secondary partitions. But re-reading the installation instructions
as I write this note, I see that at the beginning (under system requirements)
it says that a "free primary partition slot" is needed, so obviously my "big
mistake" was to miss this when I did the install!

Martin
-- 
Martin C. Atkins	martin@mca-ltd.com
Mission Critical Applications Ltd, U.K.

Re: [9fans] non-standard installs

[Richard Miller]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 241 bytes --]

> ... As someone else mentioned, Plan 9 has to be in a 
> primary partition, so that bootstrap loaders can find it

No longer true - as of the 26 April 2001 update, 9load can find
plan 9 in an extended partition.

-- Richard Miller


[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2472 bytes --]

From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] non-standard installs
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 11:33:08 -0500
Message-ID: <d80755a8eef4aa1f2bebc11b3c4dfe34@plan9.bell-labs.com>

> 	I'm sure I'm just unlucky, but given my (recent) experience
> of installing Plan 9 for the first time, I'd stay well away from your
> "production" machine, even if it did have a clean partition.
> 
> I found (repeatedly) that trying to put Plan 9 into a clean
> secondary partition corrupted the size of the enclosing primary
> partition. I was able to put it back, but thankfully the whole 40Gb
> was brand new at the time, and so this wasn't necessary (except as a
> vain attempt to keep the other partitions as the shop had left them).
> Thus, I eventually scrapped the whole partition table, and put Plan 9
> into a primary partition.
> Since then it's all gone fine.....

There were some serious bugs in the handling of secondary
partitions.  They're fixed in the fdisk on the current boot disk,
as of January 13, 2002.  As someone else mentioned, Plan 9 has to be in a 
primary partition, so that bootstrap loaders can find it
(unlike, say, Linux swap, which has no right to be in a 
valuable primary partition, but I digress).

Russ

Re: [9fans] non-standard installs

[Russ Cox]

> 	I'm sure I'm just unlucky, but given my (recent) experience
> of installing Plan 9 for the first time, I'd stay well away from your
> "production" machine, even if it did have a clean partition.
> 
> I found (repeatedly) that trying to put Plan 9 into a clean
> secondary partition corrupted the size of the enclosing primary
> partition. I was able to put it back, but thankfully the whole 40Gb
> was brand new at the time, and so this wasn't necessary (except as a
> vain attempt to keep the other partitions as the shop had left them).
> Thus, I eventually scrapped the whole partition table, and put Plan 9
> into a primary partition.
> Since then it's all gone fine.....

There were some serious bugs in the handling of secondary
partitions.  They're fixed in the fdisk on the current boot disk,
as of January 13, 2002.  As someone else mentioned, Plan 9 has to be in a 
primary partition, so that bootstrap loaders can find it
(unlike, say, Linux swap, which has no right to be in a 
valuable primary partition, but I digress).

Russ

Re: [9fans] non-standard installs

[Martin C.Atkins]

Hi,

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 09:43:14 GMT Andrew <akm76@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> I'd really like to get some hands-on experience with Plan9,
> the thing that stops me is some hardware resource shortage...
> I got a linux box with some spare disk space, but no "unpartitioned" and
> it's not to be played with as it's used for everyday routine work.

	I'm sure I'm just unlucky, but given my (recent) experience
of installing Plan 9 for the first time, I'd stay well away from your
"production" machine, even if it did have a clean partition.

I found (repeatedly) that trying to put Plan 9 into a clean
secondary partition corrupted the size of the enclosing primary
partition. I was able to put it back, but thankfully the whole 40Gb
was brand new at the time, and so this wasn't necessary (except as a
vain attempt to keep the other partitions as the shop had left them).
Thus, I eventually scrapped the whole partition table, and put Plan 9
into a primary partition.
Since then it's all gone fine.....

I'm sorry, I wish it weren't true, since I'd like to have nothing
but good to say, but that's what happened.... and I thought I really
should warn you, incase you suddenly think "Oh - it should be safe,
I'll give it a try!".

Now if Plan 9 booted in VMware... Sigh.... (But many thanks to those
who tried to get it to work for me!)

Martin
PS
	as for the ancient machines... these look pretty big to me :-)

> I also got a pretty ancient 486sx with 40Mb ram, but <sigh> 150Mb disk. 
> (don't laugh please)
> If I read install instructions correctly I have to have 300Mb minimum to be 
> able to install.
> ...

-- 
Martin C. Atkins	martin@mca-ltd.com
Mission Critical Applications Ltd, U.K.

[9fans] non-standard installs

[Andrew]

Hi everybody,
I'd really like to get some hands-on experience with Plan9,
the thing that stops me is some hardware resource shortage...
I got a linux box with some spare disk space, but no "unpartitioned" and
it's not to be played with as it's used for everyday routine work.
I also got a pretty ancient 486sx with 40Mb ram, but <sigh> 150Mb disk. 
(don't laugh please)
If I read install instructions correctly I have to have 300Mb minimum to be 
able to install.

My real question: is there a way around, so that I can install plan9 on 486 
with so little disk but use nfs(or something else) to share storage with 
linux box? (oh yes, I'm free to run any service I want on that linux box,
but cannot spare any partitions)

Thank you!
-- 
DISCLAIMER: <DEFAULT DISCLAIMER>