Proper partitioning

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 DeleteThis @jasonhsu.com> wrote:

> From: Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 DeleteThis @jasonhsu.com>
> Subject: Proper partitioning
> To: debian-powerpc DeleteThis @lists.debian.org
> 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 DeleteThis @jasonhsu.com>



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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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Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org


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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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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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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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