Using mol on a migrated powerbook

[Nathanael Hasbrouck]

On Friday 16 April 2004 0746, somebody named Joost Kremers inscribed this 
message:
> phogg@patmedia.net wrote:
> > I have been cloning my drive out to a usb disk, which I have
> > verified I can boot from, and was wondering whether I need
> > to actually install OS X after I migrate, or if I can just
> > clone the disk back in again to a partition I set aside for
> > mol.
> >
> > My desired configuration would be:
> >
> > /dev/hda1 - linux root (etc.)
> > /dev/hda2 - linux swap
> > /dev/hda3 - linux home directory
> > /dev/hda4 - os x partition
>
> i should say that my understanding of Apple hardware is limited, even
> more so than of x86 hardware, but i'm not sure if it works that way. i
> used Apple's partitioner to divide my /dev/hda (ibook) into two
> partitions. before the operation, mac-fdisk reported (i think) four
> partitions on the drive, three of which were very small (and of unknown
> type). the fourth had the OS X install. after splitting the disk,
> mac-fdisk actually reported something like eight partitions, so it seems
> that each partition requires three smaller ones to go with it. i don't
> know if it's OS X that requires this or the Open Firmware or whatever,

Driver partitions.  If you ever want to boot MacOS directly (dual boot), 
you need them, linux should boot fine without them and I don't believe MOL 
needs them. 

>
> > If I could just clone the existing install back into hda4
> > and then access it from mol, I would not have to mess around
> > with re-installing all the apps and data I've been accumulating.
>
> i would suggest a slightly different strategy. use Apple's disk
> partitioner to create two partitions on the hard disk. (in OS X they
> will show up as two partitions, but like i said, mac-fdisk will reveal
> more). then reinstall OS X on the first one from the usb disk, which i
> assume you have the tools for. then proceed to install linux. first blow
> away the second partition (which will be hfs+) and create as many linux
> partitions as you want.

Out of curiousity, why OSX first?  If this is going to be a linux box with 
OSX running in MOL, it would be more logical (to me) to put the linux 
stuff first.

The other option, of course, is to set up your linux partitions filling the 
whole drive, and boot MOL from a disk image.  You'll have to check the 
archives for details on that, there have been a few people, and I'm not 
one of them. :^)  You should also be able to make an image from your USB 
disk, but not having done that I'm not precisely sure.  Or make an image, 
boot from an OSX cd, and copy from the drive to the image.  But I don't 
know, so I'll be quiet now. :^)

NRH
-- 
Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly 
proportional to... to... uh.....