Hey kernel hackers, My main Windows desktop at home finally reached the point where its 6.4GB HD was filling up faster than I could purge, God bless Windows Bloat. Yes, this system is old, but considering that funds are tight, I decided just to add a new HD-- 160 GB. While doing so, I decided to go the multi-boot path. I figured that giving my wife and the rest of the family some exposure to the open source world would be beneficial to both them and my wallet.
After re-installing XP, I installed DragonFly. While I was successful in getting the OS onto said system, it wasn't as nice as I would have hoped. I'm hoping that this message will get my frustrations onto the radar of people that can make a difference into it. Initially, I wanted to have DragonFly installed on its own slice which I would carve out of the remaining free space (~130GB). This is a fine and dandy idea, but the current installer doesn't support creating new slices, and gives a notice to use `fdisk` for that purpose. That's fine, I can live with that. Back to the shell I went and started said application. Has anyone used fdisk for such purpose lately? Has anyone *SUCCESSFULLY* gotten it to do this task? I tried and tried with all all my might and could figure out this thing. I got the size down with little trouble, but getting it to use a set of cylinders, heads, tracks, etc. that didn't overlap the already existing parition was an exercise in futility. I tried all sorts of settings but they would all overlap the existing one. Maybe I don't completely understand disc geometry, but when I see end cylinders/heads/etc. with lower values than the start ones, I believe something isn't right. I even tried plugging in start values by hand. The best I could get was it to ignore my settings and use 0, 0, 0 for everything. Rather than screw things up, I decided to install ubuntu and use their fdisk. After carving this out, DragonFly installed with no problem. However, the thing I've neglected to mention is that this computer's only network connection is through a D-Link 520. The GENERIC kernel couldn't find the device. No biggie I think, I'll just build LINT. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE start including the src tree on installation disks. Compiling a kernel to support your only network card is SO much more difficult when there isn't a tree to build from. I was able to download the source using ubuntu. However, I encounter another problem. Linux can't r/w ufs drives, and DragonFly can't mount ext3 filesystems. No biggie I think, I'll format some of the unused part with a format both can use. First, I tried the old FAT filesystem because I figured that was the Lowest Common Demoniator. However, I forgot how low FAT filesystems go. Word of warning to those in my shoes, our source tree uses files with different cases, these will clash on a case-less filesystem (of which fat is one). Also, some of the files have a colon (:) in there name which causes FAT to freak. Needless to say, it didn't work... However, after repeating the same procedure with a filesystem both can use (ext2), I finally got my source tree copied over and successfully rebuilt world and a new LINT kernel. Then, I reboot... Only to have LINT print out a solitary '' after the Fred Menu. ACPI on/off, safe mode, doesn't make a difference. The best I can do is drop to the loader prompt and boot the old kernel. Ideas? I'm at the point now where all I can do is laugh. However, I'm also at a point now where I *will* get to the top of the mountain. I no longer care how bad the snowstorm or how long the distance is, I WILL GET THERE!!!! Also, You can see the generic DMESG and the list of source files that can't copy to a DOS parition at: http://www.labthug.com/DragonFly/InstallLog/ Thanks, Adrian
