Colin Caughie
2004-12-24 18:10:26 UTC
Hi,
I'm trying to set up a "demo" Linux installation on my wife's Wallstreet
Powerbook, in an attempt to persuade her that she'd be much better off with
Linux/KDE than with MacOS 9. I need to do this without affecting her MacOS 9
setup -- I won't go into what she will do to me if I fail in this regard.
So what I'm thinking (and am hoping someone can tell me how to achieve) is:
1. Boot using BootX (since it's OldWorld)
2. Somehow have a small boot "partition" somewhere on the hard disk,
containing the kernel etc.
3. Mount everything else via NFS. (I have a Gentoo x86 system with several
gigs free).
Oh, and it needs to work over wireless (I have an Orinoco Silver PC Card,
and a 3Com OfficeConnect access point. Both work fine in MacOS 9).
The main stumbling block I have is: How to get the thing booted, and how and
where to store the boot partition. I'd rather not use a RAM disk as the
machine only has 64MB, which I reckon is already kind of pushing it for KDE.
I have a vague memory that there may be a way of storing a kind of virtual
partition within an ordinary disk file, but I may be wrong about this.
I'd definitely prefer not to do any repartitioning, but would consider it
(e.g. to create a swap partition) if there is a way of doing this without
risking anything on the main partition. Would KDE even run in 64MB without a
swap partition?
If anyone has any ideas as to how to go about this, they would be welcome.
Distribution recommendations would be useful too -- I do like Gentoo, but
not so much that I couldn't be swayed by superior wisdom.
Thanks in advance,
Colin Caughie
I'm trying to set up a "demo" Linux installation on my wife's Wallstreet
Powerbook, in an attempt to persuade her that she'd be much better off with
Linux/KDE than with MacOS 9. I need to do this without affecting her MacOS 9
setup -- I won't go into what she will do to me if I fail in this regard.
So what I'm thinking (and am hoping someone can tell me how to achieve) is:
1. Boot using BootX (since it's OldWorld)
2. Somehow have a small boot "partition" somewhere on the hard disk,
containing the kernel etc.
3. Mount everything else via NFS. (I have a Gentoo x86 system with several
gigs free).
Oh, and it needs to work over wireless (I have an Orinoco Silver PC Card,
and a 3Com OfficeConnect access point. Both work fine in MacOS 9).
The main stumbling block I have is: How to get the thing booted, and how and
where to store the boot partition. I'd rather not use a RAM disk as the
machine only has 64MB, which I reckon is already kind of pushing it for KDE.
I have a vague memory that there may be a way of storing a kind of virtual
partition within an ordinary disk file, but I may be wrong about this.
I'd definitely prefer not to do any repartitioning, but would consider it
(e.g. to create a swap partition) if there is a way of doing this without
risking anything on the main partition. Would KDE even run in 64MB without a
swap partition?
If anyone has any ideas as to how to go about this, they would be welcome.
Distribution recommendations would be useful too -- I do like Gentoo, but
not so much that I couldn't be swayed by superior wisdom.
Thanks in advance,
Colin Caughie