Poor man's install, with extra storage, on NTFS/Win7
Here is a short account of my (rather trivial) procedure for running Knoppix off an unmodified NTFS partition, with extra storage.
In case partitions can't be shrinked or deleted, this is a non-invasive way of adapting the PC to Linux. I have just used it on a new Toshiba Satellite R830, w/640GB disk.
1. Boot from USB. (In this case, external SSD-disk on USB3, very fast)
2. Copy KNOPPIX over to main NTFS partition.
3. Setup a new, large image file on the NTFS partition with ext4, mount it as /store.
4. Copy over /store from backup to the new "partition".
Here's what I did run:
Code:
# fdisk -l
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 192 1536000 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 192 76169 610284544 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 76169 77826 13309952 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
# mount /media/sda2
# rsync -ax /mnt-system/KNOPPIX /media/sda2 &
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/sda2/store.img bs=1M count=60000 &
60000+0 records in
60000+0 records out
62914560000 bytes (63 GB) copied, 682.558 s, 92.2 MB/s
# losetup /dev/loop6 /media/sda2/store.img
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/loop6
# losetup -d /dev/loop6
# mkdir /store
# mount -o loop=/dev/loop6 /media/sda2/store.img /store
# mount /media/sdb2
# rsync -ax /media/sdb2/local/ /store &
All the indirection is of course not optimal, but with a Sandy Bridge I5-2410, I think I can live with it. Here's a snapshot of top while copying the files
Code:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
5071 root 20 0 2668 1184 664 S 22 0.0 14:26.44 mount.ntfs
21056 root 20 0 7668 4704 840 R 19 0.1 2:20.18 rsync
21058 root 20 0 19144 1916 620 R 19 0.0 2:21.09 rsync
After starting from HD, I can manually mount this new image file, or I can add the commands to rc.local.
This /store can be used also for remastering, but to be as failsafe as possible, I would recommend repeating the procedure for another similar image for that purpose. Maybe I'll come back with a detailed exposition of remastering on "foreign land" like NTFS.
Normally, it should be enough just to enter knoppix{64} and the usual boot options to run from NTFS - that image should be found first and used. But, of course, using the fromhd=/dev/sda2 makes it even more foolproof.
Side note on Windows 7 efficiency
After temporary removal of the Knoppix-related files, and defragmenting twice, the main NTFS volume's minimal size is 308 GB - that is, 31 GB used and 277 GB free.
Impossible to shrink it more, according to Windows.
I was able to free up 282 GB, so there is not that much hassle to run Linux several ways on this computer now. BUT: Imagine I had wanted to use the disk for, say, NTFS databases, or video footage, but keep them apart from the program installs. In that case, my dear friends, Windows 7 wastes away half the whole disk, by insisting on the principle that a 10% filled disk volume cannot be shrunk.
So, effectively, I would have had to wipe it all clean and reinstall Win7, drivers and all..
Think I'm going to create that store.img image file 2-3 times as big, so that I can at least use that real estate for something useful... :)
Virtualbox trouble on 6.4.4
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Capricorny
Perform the described poor man's install, add the storage, boot Knoppix natively, and then you can experiment with Knoppix Virtualbox.
Sad state of affairs on my machine- Pre-installed Virtualbox won't run, and apt-get:
Code:
# apt-get install virtualbox
......
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
virtualbox : Depends: libqtcore4 (>= 4:4.7.0~beta1) but 4:4.6.3-4+squeeze1 is to be installed
Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.6) but 4.4.5-8 is to be installed
Recommends: virtualbox-qt (= 4.0.10-dfsg-1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages
So, it seems virtualbox is going to be extremely virtual for a while.