Partitioning, OS's living in harmony - lots of questions

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catmistake's picture
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Partitioning, OS's living in harmony - lots of questions

Well, no takers on the A/UX ethernet module question? Come on, I know someone must know.

Anyway, I need some partitioning suggestions on a different box.

I'd like to use this 2gb drive I have in my SE/30, and max it out with OS's, as a trial to use bigger drives for the same purpose. But will all the OS's I want live in harmony on the same drive? AND can they share the same SWAP space?

Since it will have a IIfx ROM, I will hack 8.1 onto it...
and also a very small partition of 7.1 (?or 7.0.1?) for launching into NetBSD.

I haven't looked at the 68k instructions for OpenBSD, but I have read the port is available. Will OpenBSD live side by side NetBSD?

Also, I thought FreeBSD on the 68k platform a forgotten pipe dream, but then I found 2 vague references to someone who ported it over. Its not listed on the official supported platforms list at freebsd.org, but here are the links to show me that there is a port somewhere:

http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/152/1999/7/0/2491133/
very near bottom of page,
Here someone says that he told them he is almost done with the port

http://www.faqchest.com/linux/freeBSD/fbsd-99/fbsd-9905/fbsd-990510/fbsd99050423_35113.html
here, someone responds to Stockley saying he finished the port, and points out that he posted in the wrong place.
I can't find where he was supposed to post, either.

Now, the question is... where is the darn port?

And, again, the big crazy question, can I have partitions for all these OS's on one big drive? And can the unices share the same Swap?

OS 8.1
OS 7.1
NetBSD
OpenBSD
FreeBSD

And one more little question... can FreeBSD be customized to look and feel like Darwin OS (in the details)? Can the special Apple commands in Darwin be compiled for 68k FreeBSD? Is it possible (and relatively easy) to make a start-up screen that looks like the OS X start-up screen? Does FreeBSD have atp? Can it have it? Hasn't someone already done this (most things I think of I find that to be true!)?

I am really learning a lot on this site, and with a quickness, much more than from non-interactive sources!
Thanks so much!

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Last seen: 17 years 7 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
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Mac OS

If you create a seperate partition for each version of Mac OS, they will live in peace. Mac OS is pretty intelligent when it comes to each OS having thier own partition. The Startup Disk control panel will give you an easy method for switching between Mac OS versions.

As regards NetBSD/OpenBSD on the Mac..I wouldn't want to try to share swap space between the two unless you are 100% sure that the format of the swap partitions are identical..as not all swap partitions are made equall. To keep things easier, I would just create a seperate swap partition for each extra POSIX OS you want to run, since it saves hassle of accidental corruption.

Since UNIX OS'es on a Mac require a special bootloader, that will reside in Mac OS..so you will be booting into Mac OS first before you enter Unix. So make a small partition used for just doing a minimal install of Mac OS. One of the tips in the manuals is that you don't want any extra extensions, control panels etc to load before the boot loader. Mac OS simply is there to init all the hardware.

As for changing the look of the OS, that depends on the Window Manager you run if you indeed run any form of a window manager. Some Macs are so old thier graphics systems just slow to a crawl when running x11. For some macs, text mode ie; console/CLI is best. I wouldn't try runnign a graphical Unix system ona SE/30 unless you have some sort of extra card to boost power for drawing functions..it's just too old. Well..point being you will probably appreciate CLI better.

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