Ubuntu/Kubuntu on Mac G5.

[Brian Durant]

On 19. jan 2006, at 14.48, Larry Grover wrote:

> Brian Durant wrote:
>> On 18. jan 2006, at 4.55, Larry Grover wrote:
>>>
>>>> I want to install Kubuntu Dapper Flight 3 on a second SATA   
>>>> internal  drive. In the system profile, my Macintosh HD shows  
>>>> up  with "disk0s3"  as the BSD name, whereas the HD I want to  
>>>> install  on has the BSD name  of "disk1s3". Does the command for  
>>>> "sata/ scsi: sudo mount -t hfsplus / dev/sdaX /mount/point"  
>>>> still apply  for Ubuntu/Kubuntu?
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm a little fuzzy on how the BSD partition names map onto the   
>>> linux names (I've only got one dual boot OSX/linux system, and  
>>> it  is in linux 99% of the time), but the second SATA drive in  
>>> the  system (disk1 in BSD) should be sdb (second SCSI/SATA  
>>> drive); s3  should be either partition 3 or 4 in linux, so either  
>>> sdb3 or sdb4.
>>>
>>> If you boot the Dapper live CD you can probably figure it out  
>>> using  the fdisk command:
>>> fdisk -l /dev/sdb
>>> should list the partitions on the second SATA drive, and you  
>>> should  be able to figure out which linux partion is disk1s3 from  
>>> the size.
>> OK, I tried that and it seems to have found it. Gnome seems to  
>> see  both my 152.7 GB Maxtor (Macintosh HD) and the other internal  
>> drive  that appears to be the 74.5 GB /sdb. When I tried to mount  
>> them  however, nothing seemed to happen.
>
> How, exactly, did you try to mount the partitions on the drive?   
> Did you get any error messages?

I went into "disks". The other drive wasn't listed, but in Gparted it  
showed up correctly. The fdisk command:
fdisk -l /dev/sdb also worked.

>
>> /sdb has a 21.53 GB HFS +  partition, and 53 GB of free space.  
>> What I would like to do is to  create some partitions on /sdb,  
>> while running the live-CD, to prepare  for installing Ubuntu. I  
>> was thinking of doing something like this:
>> Partition #1 boot                16 MB    Debian Bootstrap
>> Partition #2 swap                2 GB    Debian swap space
>> Partition #3 ReiserFS            44.5 GB    Debian root file system
>> Partition #4 fat32                8 GB    Shared Fat32 file system
>> Partition #5 HFS + (Journalled) 20GB Mac OS X file system
>> 1) In some ways, I think I might like a home partition as well.
>
> I always make a separate /home partition.  If for some reason you  
> decide you need to do a reinstall, or install a different distro,  
> it makes things easier.

Can /home also be shared between 2 Linux distros on a triple boot?

> You will need a newworld bootblock partition for the bootloader  
> (yaboot).  Mine is 1 MB (I've read recommendations for 800 KB to 1  
> MB).

Can I create these partitions by booting from the live-CD? I know  
Gparted is there, but I am wondering if it is safe doing it from a  
live-CD?

>
> Here are a couple of pages which may help you with partitioning.   
> They are for installing debian on an iBook, but the information on  
> partitioning should apply:
>
> http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/ibook/x139.html
> http://www.miketec.org/ibook/

Thanks. What I was thinking of was how you would propose that I  
divvied up 80 GB on an extra internal HD, where around 10-20 should  
be used for sharing between the booting systems?

>> 2) Does mounting and sharing an HFS + partition between Mac OS X  
>> and  Ubuntu work these days? If not, then the HFS + partition  
>> isn't really  relevant. Then the FAT32 should be made larger and a  
>> home partition  added.
>
> I dual boot an iBook (spend almost all my time in linux, though).   
> The few times I have mounted and copied files to my OSX (HFS+)  
> partion, from inside linux, it worked.  So, from my very limited  
> personal experience, it seems reliable enough.
>
>> OS X (not sure about Tiger) has an issue with FAT32 that I found  
>> on a  debian posting:
>
> - snip -
>
> I haven't had any problems with FAT32 filesystems in OSX (Panther  
> or Tiger), though my experience is limited to using USB memory  
> sticks on a single boot (OSX Tiger) iMac.

Cheers,

Brian