[Back to contents] [Motivation] [Libretto 110CT] [Windows 95] [OS/2 Warp 3.0] [Linux: RedHat 5.2 & Mandrake 6.0] [Epilogue]  

Last update 13 June 2001

 

INSTALLATION ISSUES

  • My wishes in technical detail
  • General considerations
  • My disk partitioning scheme
  • How to boot it all
  • Installation order
  • Top of page

    MY WISHES IN TECHNICAL DETAIL

    Having purchased the Libretto, I wanted to end up with the following:

    It was highly desirable that the various operating systems should not be able to "see" each other while booting. For Linux this is no problem. Windows cannot see HPFS. OS/2 Warp cannot see FAT32. There are boot managers around which can shield primary partitions from each other.

    All in all, the common FAT16 data partition should be in an extended partition; OS/2 and Linux could also be accomodated in an extended partition; both Windows versions had best be installed completely in their own primary partitions (but should each at least boot from them).

     

    [My wishes in technical detail] My disk partitioning scheme [How to boot it all] [Installation order] [Top of page]

    GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

    Installation of the various operating systems on the Libretto harddisk is not without problems:

    1. OS/2's boot manager takes up one primary partition, leaving only two primary partition slots in the Master Boot record (MBR) in case of an extended partition. Luckily, both OS/2 and Linux can also boot from a logical partition in an extended partition.
    2. However, although OS/2 and Linux can boot from a primary or a logical partition, that partition must lie entirely within the first 1024 physical cylinders of the harddisk. In the case of the Libretto 110CT harddisk, this probably boils down to the first 1 Gb of the hard disk. Experimentally I found out that at least the second 2 Gb were outside this reach. Although the Libretto harddisk probably features some translation, an exact location of that 1024th cylinder might be obtained from OS/2's IBM1S506 driver report:
    3. Table 1: Report by OS/2 Warp 3 IBMS506 IDE device driver

      IBM Corp. Bus Master IDE Driver for OS/2 version 4.20

      Contr.:0 Port: 01F0 IRQ:000E Status:OK

      Unit:0 Status:OK PIO4 BPB

      Model:TOSHIBA MK4310MAT G2.02 B

      Drive has valid BIOS extensions version 3.3

       

      log

      phys

      BIOS:log

      BPB:log

      IDE:log

      phys

      Total sectors

      C

      526

      8944

      516

       

      526

      8944

      avail

      8452080

      H

      255

      15

      255

      255

      255

      15

      OS2

      8450190

      S

      63

      63

      63

      63

      63

      63

      % used

      99.98

    4. When the OS/2 boot manager boots any operating system, it hides all primary FAT16 partitions but one. It does so by setting the type of the partitions to be hidden to 81. This can be used to hide both Windoze partitions for each other. Alas, the OS/2 boot manager does not hide FAT32 partitions.....
    5. OS/2 Warp 3.0 featured a bug with regard to FDISK - the original version could not cope with harddisks larger than 2 Gb. Luckily, a fix from IBM is readily available (after clicking to agree with download license, go to OS/2 component updates -> Installation diskette updates -> Greater than 8.4 Gb IDE Hardfile Support).
    6. OS/2 Warp 3.0 FDISK is extremely sensitive for "small flaws", especially those which the Windows 95 FDISK program portrays: the latter often sets Windows partition sizes in the MBR entries larger than the actual size of the physical partitions. The surplus is indicated by FORMAT as bad sectors. (BTW: I found that Win95 FORMAT also puts similar, thus false, CHS & physical disk info in the boot sectors!) If OS/2 Warp's FDISK encounters such errors, it will only allow one to delete ALL partitions. Luckily, Linux's FDISK program is more robust - it reports such errors and can easily be used to solve them.
    7. Toshiba informs one that OS/2 is not supported on Librettos. Nevertheless, OS/2 installations on Librettos are reported (e.g. http://www.neumann-edv.de/libretto.html and Notebook/2 Site ).
    8. OS/2 needs installation floppies. However, the Libretto's PCMCIA floppy drive is not recognized by OS/2 after booting its kernel (i.e. half-way setup floppy # 1). As a result, installation of OS/2 fails because the second diskette cannot be read.
    9. OS/2 can also be installed through a "CID" procedure (i.e. a sort of network install). However, an OS/2 prompt is needed for this. Another option is a temporary transplantation of the harddisk to one's desktop.
    10. Linux also needs floppies for installation. The Libretto cannot boot from PCMCIA cards. However, various ways to circumvent this problem have been invented. See the Linux on Laptops pages for details or check my Linux page.

     

    [My wishes in technical detail] [General considerations] [How to boot it all] [Installation order] [Top of page]

    MY DISK PARTITIONING SCHEME

    I devised a disk partitioning scheme as follows (cylinder nos. by Linux FDISK):

    Partition no.

    Linux (/dev/....)

    First cylinder

    Last cylinder

    Size (Mb) (cf. OS/2)

    Type (hex)

    Type

    Contents

    1 p

    hda2

    1

    1

    7

    a

    OS/2 boot manager

    2 p

    hda1

    2

    259

    (2022)

    5

    Extended

    3 p

    hda3

    260

    317

    455

    6

    FAT16

    Windows 95 #1 ( employer) (C: )

    4 p

    hda4

    318

    517

    1568

    c

    FAT32

    Windows 95 #2 (personal) (C:)

    Extended partition:

    5 L

    hda5

    2

    84

    651

    6

    FAT16

    common data (D:)

    6 L

    hda6

    85

    85

    7

    83

    EXT2

    Linux boot

    7 L

    hda7

    86

    117

    251

    7

    HPFS

    OS/2 Warp (E:)

    8 L

    hda8

    118

    127

    78

    82

    Linux swap

    9 L

    hda9

    128

    259

    1035

    83

    EXT2

    Linux 5.2

    -

    -

    518

    526

    70

    -

    Hibernation space

    where "p" indicates a primary partition and "L" a logical one, and 1 Linux block equals about 7.8 Mb.

    An important issue is that the last 70 Mb of the harddisk should be kept free as this is the place where the Toshiba dumps its memory (including video memory + ?BIOS?) during hibernation.

    Being warned for OS/2 FDISK's hypersensitivity by Mike Harlan in his Linux+Windows95+DOS+OS/2 mini-HOWTO, I implemented this partitioning lay-out initially with OS/2's FDISK. Later I found that Linux FDISK does the job just as well.

     

    [My wishes in technical detail] [General considerations] [My disk partitioning scheme] [Installation order] [Top of page]

    HOW TO BOOT IT ALL

    OS/2's boot manager is an obvious candidate. However, it cannot shield (errr...does not shield) primary FAT32 partitions. Booting Windows # 1, which cannot see FAT32, does not pose any problems. Booting Windows # 2 (an OSR-2 which DOES use FAT32) does: first a message about "a compression driver not set up correctly" flashes. After some more complaints, Windows (or actually, still DOS) simply dies; the last sigh before the end is that it can't find COMMAND.COM. The cause turned out to be that OS/2 sets all partition flags in the extended partition to "active". Using Linux FDISK these flags can be toggled, and when partition # 4 is also set as active partition (thus bypassing OS?2's boot manager) Windows # 2 does boot flawlessly (it properly recognizes the other primary FAT partition (Windows # 1) and assigns it drive letter E:).

    Linux's LILO is the next obvious candidate. However, it requires one to type the name of the operating system. Ofcourse you can code them at your discretion (e.g., "1", "2", ..) but it is better to give them a mnemonic name (one which helps you recall what it is, like W95).
    Another issue is that Mandrake Linux 6.0 seems to have a flaw: there are several reports that installing LILO in the MBR screws up the MBR.

    I found a solution in Gertjan Klein's freeware Boot Control program. It can only be used to boot from primary partitions, but as OS/2's boot manager lives in a primary partition, one might "boot" the OS/2 boot manager and then use this to boot anything in extended (or for that matter, also primary) partitons. Another candidate, not tried out by me, might be MasterBooter or Boot It.

    Installation details can be found in the Boot Control distribution. I installed MBR type 5, and designated partition # 4 (my FAT32 Windows #2 partition) as OS/2 partition (yep! read BC.txt or BC.htm and you know why....) I removed partition # 1 from the BC's boot menu, as this is the extended partition. So I now can boot partitions 2-4 (OS/2 boot manager, Windows # 1 and Windows # 2, respectively).

     

    [My wishes in technical detail] [General considerations] [My disk partitioning scheme] [How to boot it all] [Top of page]

    INSTALLATION ORDER

    I first implemented the partitioning scheme during the first attempts to install OS/2. Next I added Windows # 1, then OS/2 for the first times and finally Windows # 2. Somewhere in between I installed Linux for the first times.

    I think that altogether I've installed Linux five times, OS/2 three times and Windows #1 and #2 each twice - clearly a number of iterations were needed to get me satisfied with the results. Regarding Linux installation, other people report more or less the same number of tries!

    Morale: don't be afraid or ashamed of making mistakes. Experimentation is obviously needed. It's just a computer, so mistakes only cost time. (Sometimes very much time. My girlfriend often groaned during late evenings and during weekends when the sun was shining outside, and admittedly with good reason.)

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